This Little Light Ain't Mine
February 8, 2026. Mathew 5:13-20. Rev. Edward Skutshek
Few passages should unsettle Christians more than Jesus’ words in verse 20 of today’s Gospel lesson. “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
When the people surrounding Jesus heard these words they would have instinctively asked: What does Jesus mean by that? How is that even possible? The Pharisees had declared that they were the most religious people of their day. They knew the law, kept the rules, and took holiness seriously. They wrote scrolls and books on how to keep God’s laws and preserved the teachings of the elders. The Gospel’s are peppered with incidents whereby the Pharisees judged the Disciples’ behavior and declared they broke their rules. They would accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath by healing men and women on that Holy day. So, if their righteousness is not enough, what hope is there for just plain folk?
Another response from the audience would be: “Was Jesus pointing the people back to the law as a ladder to climb into heaven? Did every act of obedience to the law represent an assent to the next step or rung on the ladder or stairway to heaven. How far up the ladder did they need to go? How much obedience was enough? What about a misstep? The law declared that some missteps were serious enough, to break the step and even the very ladder they stood on and send them careening down to the place where sinners belong. Who could keep from failing and falling? They might have said: “How does this help us Jesus?”
Jesus’ words were not meant to crush them or us—but to reorient us. Jesus wants us to see him, the Law and the Prophets in a new light. He said:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (v. 17)
The Pharisees accused Jesus of breaking God’s Laws and in so doing, abolishing and bringing the Law to nothing. They accused him of encouraging people to ignore the law and sin with impunity. There are some who still preach that the law has little to say to us today and we can safely ignore its strictures and prohibitions. Jesus never implied this when he walked on the earth, nor does he counsel us to ignore the law today.
Jesus did not throw the Old Testament away. On the contrary, by these words Jesus embraced the Old Testament and its 66 books, from Genesis to Malachi. It is true that the Law and the Prophets, the entire Old Testament, judged and condemned all who read the history, legal codes of conduct, ceremonies, rituals and prophesies contained therein. Remember young king Hezekiah? When he reigned, the Israelites had abandoned Torah obedience and worship. When the scroll of the law was found and he read it, he was seized with terror and knew they were on the road to perdition.
However, because the king had repented, God allowed him to resume worship and withheld his divine judgment during Hezekiah’s reign.
In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus declared that the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets hung on two commands, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Jesus declared that the Law spoke to us and still speaks to us. Jesus declared that not one “iota” of the law will pass away until it’s final fulfillment and consummation. The law still matters because it reveals God’s holy will. It still condemns. In fact, the verses of Chapter 5 that follow today’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus interpreted selected commandments and:
• Anger became murder of the heart with real consequences.
• Lust became adultery of the heart with real consequences.
Moses allowed people to exact retribution or payback when they were injured. You knock my tooth out; I get to knock yours out. Jesus said none of that. Turn the other cheek. Love your enemy and do good to them. Give whenever people ask for something.
Jesus raised the bar so high that no one could clear it. Who hasn’t been really angry at another person and hated them? Who hasn’t looked at another person with lust in their heart? Who hasn’t exacted retribution instead of turning the other cheek?
Jesus words still ring in our ears. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees…” (v. 20). When we hear these words our response should be the same as young King Hezekiah’s: terror.
The Pharisees concentrated on the 10 Commandments and the laws and statutes that regulated human behavior peppered throughout the Torah (from Gensis to Deuteronomy). The Pharisees counted on an external righteousness—rules, appearances, religious performance. In so doing they lost sight of the hidden gems that sparkled throughout these tomes. The promise of the Messiah who would bless the whole world. (Genesis 12:3 and 22:18)
They lost sight of the forgiveness of sin we see on the Day of Atonement. The blood of the Sin Goat satisfied God’s wrath kindled by sin. The death of the Scapegoat satisfied the sins confessed on the animal by the High Priest. They overlooked the Passover festival that commemorated the sacrifice of substitute that opened the door to the land promised to Abraham and pointed to an opening of the gate to heaven. They didn’t see the Prophet Jeremiah’s announced the coming of a new covenant: for the forgiveness of sin. The Prophets had meticulously described the Messiah. They pointed to his birthplace, his character and nature, his preaching and teaching, his miracles, his innocent suffering death, his glorious resurrection, his ascension into heaven and his promise to return to earth to judge all who ever lived and to grant eternal life in paradise to all who were judged righteous before God.
Jesus came to bring the Old Testament to its intended goal. Jesus came to “fulfill” to embody the Old Testament perfectly.
By his innocent suffering and death he fully embodied the sin goat and scapegoat. When he died on the cross and his blood was spilled he fulfilled what the scapegoat pointed to, the complete forgiveness of our sins. The blood spilled on Golgotha fully and finally took asway God’s anger and wrath caused by our sin. Jesus’ blood tore the Temple curtain in two. That curtain pointed to our separation from God by reason of our sin. Jesus open the way to God’s presence now and in the life to come. Jesus was the Passover lamb, the substitute who died for us so that we can enter eternal life.
Jesus obeyed every commandment, rule and bylaw found in the Old Testament, and in so doing loved each one of us as he loved himself. He did even more. He took upon himself every time we take a misstep that smashes our ladder and sends us straight to hell. He suffered and died for those who couldn’t stay up on their ladders.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21) The righteousness that saves us is Christ’s righteousness.
But wait a minute Pastor Ed. Jesus said that the Law and the Prophet’s still apply. Why don’t we live like Jews? Why don’t we follow the dietary laws found in the Old Testament. I had bacon for breakfast and am going to have stir fried shrimp for supper. These foods are forbidden by the law. I’m worshipping on Sunday and not Saturday or the Sabbath as the Old Testament required? Those that broke the Sabbath broke their ladder to pieces and fell to where sinners belonged.
This was the first question that challenged the early church. The first members of the body of Christ, the Church, were Jews and continued to live as Jews. As the Gospel was proclaimed to gentiles (to us), a fundamental question arose and had to be answered. To be a Christian do you have to become a Jew, for males to be circumcised and men and women obey the other rules and ordinances prescribed by the Old Testament? Do we have to eat the Passover, observe the Day of Atonement? Do we have follow the dietary laws? This question was answered in Acts Chapter 15.
The Apostles stated that the gentile Christians do not have to live like Jews, except that they refrain from eating blood, meat sacrificed to foreign gods, meat from animals that were caught in a snare, and to refrain from the sexual sins found in the Torah. In Mark 7:14-19, Jesus taught that food and things we take cannot defile us. They pass through us. He declared all foods clean. The Apostle Paul later wrote that idols are nothing and we could eat the food offered to them. However, if exercising this freedom harmed another Christian’s conscience, we should not eat the meat in front of them.
In Mark 7:20-23, Jesus taught us that what defiles us is our minds and the evil thoughts they generate. Torah obedience, not eating bacon and shrimp and eating the Jewish Passover can’t make a dirty and tainted mind clean.
The Law still stands. It must stand. If there is no law, there is no sin. If there is no sin, then there is no need for a Savior. If there is no law and no sin, there is no need for God’s grace.
The Old Testament is God’s complete revelation from the beginning to the end. Jesus has fulfilled many things in the Law and the Prophets. We are a part of the Church that Jesus created, a part of the harvest he promised. There are still things in the Law and the Prophets that are to be fulfilled: the full and complete growth of the body of Christ, of which we are a part, his return and the establishment of his eternal Kingdom and perdition for those who do not believe in Jesus.
The law also embodied God’s will for us and how we should live our lives. Just because Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law for us, we are not free— to ignore God’s will. Jesus says that we are now free to live it out in gratitude. We don’t have to perform the rituals he fulfilled; but we are still required to teach them and to show chapter and verse how Jesus embodied and fulfilled the law and the prophets. We are free to take and eat everything, but never to flaunt that freedom in the face of a weaker brother or sister in Christ. We are not free to lie and steal, and have sex outside a marriage. We are not free to ignore the needy, the widow, the orphan and the stranger. However, when we disobey God’s holy will and we repent, we are forgiven and given a new chance.
Jesus called us to be salt and light. He called us to give flavor to life and shine into the darkness of the lives of others. How can I do that? How can one whose mind is a fountain of sin and perversion be a beacon of light for others to see or give flavour to my own life, let alone the lives of others?
Jesus calls us to look up during a clear night and ponder the sky. Look at the moon, it sheds light on the earth. It doesn’t shine its own light, the moon reflects the light of the sun. The sun we cannot see. Jesus calls us to be like the moon, to keep our eyes on him and on his light. Jesus embodies God’s love for us. God loves us so much that he gave his only Son to die for us, so that we can receive forgiveness of our sins and have eternal life. When we see God’s love in Jesus, by his dying and rising for us, it humbles us, can move us and cause us to act in ways that we never would have on our own. This is what Jesus wants, for us to reflect him in what we say and do. Jesus sets before us the possibility of doing good works which flow from faith in him, not fear of punishment, or any sense of self-interest (this deed will get me in Jesus’ good books).
The parable of the Sheep and the Goats found in Matthew 25:37-46 brings these principles to life. At the final judgment Jesus opens the gate to eternal life to the people he calls his Sheep. In his verdict on them, he does not mention their obedience of the Torah’s law codes. He commends them for their willingness to show grace and mercy to the poor, the sick and the stranger. He announced that the people that the Sheep had helped were his people and that by showing mercy to them, the Sheep had shown mercy on Jesus. If I may be so bold, is it possible that those who received help from the Sheep, saw the light of Christ in their faces? Is it possible that the grace bestowed by the Sheep on the poor, the sick and the stranger not only satisfied their needs but transformed them by giving them hope and a future. Would they not thank God for this tender mercy they had received? It’s something to think about.
If you remember nothing else about this sermon, please remember this:
Jesus did not come to lower God’s standards. He came to meet them for us.
The law shows us our need. The gospel shows us our Saviour.
So we cling not to our goodness—but to Christ’s. Christ’s goodness is transcendent and can move even sinful people to show grace and mercy.
Jesus calls for an internal righteousness—a transformed heart. And here is the good news of the gospel: We do not achieve this internal righteousness. We receive it.
In him, we receive a righteousness that truly exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees and those who think and act like them.
Jesus still says I am a light. But I say: “This little light ain’t mine. It belongs to Jesus.”
Amen.
Copyright © 2026 St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, Kamloops
