Shema

Like I mentioned in the previous post, this year will be marked by my understanding of the Shema. This weekend I ended up at a very special day and half where the focus of the experience was Jewish roots of Sabbath. This came with the sharing of a Seder meal and all it's glorious symbolism. It just so happens that there is absolutely nothing Jewish,especially any understanding of the Passover that does not focus purely and intently on the Shema as this is the central and defining commandment by God to the Jewish people. All daily life hinges on this for a Jew. What will follow is the beginnings of the working out of my own understanding of the implications the Shema has on our lives. It is by no means complete or neatly packaged or without a potential loophole or two theologically. If this were something I were to teach, you can consider this the first draft notes, but something I will resist to edit and perfect as the desire is for it to form me beyond what knowledge alone can accomplish.

Enters the Shema

The Shema in short is Deuteronomy 6:4 "Hear O Israel, the Lord our Go, the Lord is One. The Message version says: Attention, Israel! God, our God! God the one and only! The whole Shema Yisrael comprises Deutoronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41.

It is the bold and unadulterated call to make God the ONLY Lord of life.

The Shema is covenant loyalty. The Hebrew perspective can "conceive no part of the world that does not come under the claim of Yahweh's Lordship" (The Forgotten Ways-TFW). All of Jewish life was wrapped in the laws of the Torah which aimed to put every single element of life in order under God's commands.

Enters Jesus

The idea of Jesus is Lord is as central to the Gentiles as God the one and only was to the Jews. Jesus in Mark 12:29-31 restates to the Jewish leaders the Shema. This in essence becomes a significant part of the language of the New Covenant. This commandment which feels like home to the Jews becomes some of Jesus' first teaching. The Jesus that came to abolish all the framework from within the Jews lived uses that same frame for this new work which flings wide the doors to let everyone in on the promises of God (previously just for the Jews). Wow!

Now our loyalties are to be given to the Revealer- Jesus. He is the New Covenant. Monotheism previously was set up through the structure of the Torah as the means of One God, One Lord over all. Now, devotion, orientation to and around Jesus is the apex...the hub of how every detail of life is oriented around. The early church and any persecuted church understand this deeply and much more naturally then the Western church. The early church's claim of "Jesus is Lord" has the same implications of Israel's claim of one God as Lord in the Shema. The competing gods have just changed over time from Cannanite god's to Greco-Roman god's to god's of today such as romantic love, consumerism and self-help religion, food, (enter yours here), etc. Thus...

Remains the Shema

Jesus is Lord