Jesus says he has come not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Jesus calls his followers to a righteousness that “exceeds.” In the Sermon on the Mount, that language carries the image of filling something to its intended purpose. A half-filled glass may technically contain water, but it won’t quench thirst. In the same way, God’s Law was never meant to be handled as a technical checklist or a tool for self-justification or shame. It was given to form a people whose shared life reflects the Kingdom of heaven.
Addressing “all y’all” as salt, light, and a city on a hill, Jesus speaks to a community already claimed and blessed. In Christ, the Law is not tightened into anxiety or loosened into irrelevance. Instead, it is filled up and freed to become what it was always meant to be: a gift that shapes a visible, grace-filled way of life. As Lent approaches, the invitation is not to “try harder,” but to practice together the kind of communal faith that lets God’s light shine through us for the sake of the world.
