January 13th, 2021

The human being has an exceptional capacity. We can ‘transcend’ (step over) what is given and bring something new out of it. Think of technical innovations, like our ever-developing tools. Most importantly, we can create something new when we think in a fresh way. When we give a moral answer to a challenging situation  and act rightly - this is genuine transcendence. We are ‘stepping over’ a present constraint. 

In order to achieve this, we need resources. We Christians (but this is the point of all religions) have this extra point of view, which is Revelation. We need God’s self-revelation as our guidance. For reality by itself is not a sufficient guarantor of our freedom. We need someone, the Son of God, who gives a distance from our wounded present. 

‘Real is something which is not in the news’, in the ‘given’. We need Jesus, as a ‘super-real’ friend, interlocutor and Master. That is why he is the Redeemer. Today’s readings celebrate him in this capacity. He is different, he is always freeer than we, the children of history. ‘This becomes even more clearly evident when there appears a second Melchizedek, who is a priest not by virtue of a law about physical descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. You are a priest of the order of Melchizedek, and for ever.’ 

The healing on the Sabbath-day just confirms this ‘super-freedom’ of Jesus. He is ‘not in the news’, he is much more than a law-book of the time. He is ‘super-real’, the genuine source of freedom. He is never confined to the ‘small prints’ of our imagination.
 
13.01.2021