The many keen observers of the Bethlehem bulletin will notice that the text I preach on today, Matthew 5:17-20, is not the assigned text Matthew 5:21-37. In fact we heard today’s sermon text last week after the section on us being salt and light (Mathew 5:17-20).The thing is, Matthew 5:17-20 is too important to skip over, but too different to the salt and light section to combine into one sermon of less than 17 minutes.  Someone I respect a lot suggests that the beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) and the salt and light exhortation (Matthew 5:13-16) act as the Gospel introduction to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).  From there, Matthew 5:17-20 introduces a new topic: Jesus’ relationship to God’s law and his authority to proclaim God’s will for us.  This in turn acts as an introduction to the 6 so-called ‘antithesis’ found in Matthew 5:21-48 on murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, ‘an eye for an eye’ and love for enemies.  Ok!  So if that’s all a bit intense the thing to know from today’s sermon text is that Jesus shows us the depth of God’s love in his radical restatement of God’s commands in Matthew 5:21-48. Moreover, only he can keep it, which he will do for us as part of the salvation he gains for us. He also points to faith in him being what allows us to enter the kingdom of heaven, rather than the requirement to be even more righteous than the extremely righteous pharisees and teachers of the law (who did not believe in him).  Faith, not works.  Interesting how faith produces works though…