Daily Lesson for November 26, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Galatians chapter 6 verses 1 through 5:

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. 2Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. 4All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbour’s work, will become a cause for pride. 5For all must carry their own loads.

We are to take no pride when others fall. It is no cause of delight or what the Germans call “schadenfreude”.  It is also no time for shaming.  For shaming is usually a form of distancing.  But the word says we are not to distance ourselves, but to draw near.

So long as we are distant and pointing fingers, we can delude ourselves and others in thinking we are better than or somehow set apart. But as we draw near, we touch their humanity and also our own.  It is here that we realize no one else is quite so bad and that we are not so good as is perceived from a distance. 

“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” It is the law of Christ we are to fulfill, not the law of condemnation. It is the law of love, the golden rule of which is to treat others as we would wish them to treat us. 

We really aren’t any better than or worse than anybody else. When others stumble, it’s time for us to thank God for the grace we’ve been given to this make it this far stay on our two feet and, also, a time to reach down a hand and help the other guy or gal up, and help them bear their load for a little while. Because the truth is life’s a long journey and nobody will make it alone.