The Tenth Day of Christmas

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

The Ten Commandments or Decalogue are God’s law to the children of Israel. The lyrics “ten lords’ a-leaping” relates to this. Jesus’ new two commandments “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your might” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”. 

You see, I used to watch this show on Investigation Discovery, titled Thou shall not. I remember a particular episode where this guy, he had a girlfriend and all that but he had this mental condition or something, he used to follow girls and peep in through their windows. It excited him. During the day, he was a normal guy with a job and a girlfriend but at night, his bad side came out. Basically, in the end, he raped some girls and killed them because he didn’t want to be caught. So, on the show, as he does something, they show the law transgressed. He started with Thou shall not lie, he lied to himself that his condition was nothing. He knew he was sick upstairs but he didn’t do anything. Then, Thou shall not covet thy neighbors’ goods. He saw that he was going after girls. Their bodies are their properties but he fantasized about raping them, he peeped in through their windows, looked at them bathing. Then he moved to though shall not commit adultery. See, this is not saying that the people he raped committed adultery, the show just grouped what he did under that headline, you get, because he had sex with people he had no business sleeping with, in line with the theme of the show. Then, though shall not commit murder.  He killed these girls, and finally, the one who escaped was able to report him, recognize him, he went to court and got sentenced to death. 

As a child too, I used to hear the saying “though shall not covet, if you do you will bear false witness, if you do that then you will lie, if you lie then you can kill someone.” It goes that no sin can be alone. And it can be quite condemning to think of these all laws because the basic is that we all sin, and all we think about is us sinning, how will we think of other things and God’s love?

Now, Jesus presented these laws to us in a new way, in a way premised on love, so that apart from perceiving this God as a God of Laws and Judgments alone, we can see him as a God of love. The first 4 commandments of the Decalogue are about our relationship with God, the latter 6, about our relationship with fellow humans.  Then, if we love God with all our hearts and with all our soul and with all our might, we will talk to him and listen to him and want to have a relationship with him, such that at the end, one will obey all the commandments without even thinking it’s a law or something. When we love our neighbors as ourselves, we should first love ourselves. If you don’t love yourself, how can we love anyone as ourselves? Loving yourself does not mean being selfish or conceited, but showing yourself love as your father in heaven has shown you. Care for yourself as he cares for you, if you don’t know how to do it for yourself, you can’t do it for someone else. Do for others what you can do for yourself, if you can’t do something for yourself, you probably shouldn’t do it for the next person.

As we go towards Christmas and the New Year 2021, please remember this. Remember the rules of law and the rules of love. Don’t forget that of all things, love is the greatest.