5th Sunday After Epiphany | Feb. 8th, 2026

Light, Salt, & Law

For our reading today, we have a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. Many of us know parts of it by heart — especially the Lord’s Prayer. But have you ever stopped to ask why Jesus gave it to us in the first place?

Why has it been cherished by Christians for centuries? What does it offer us today? To understand that, we have to go back to page one of the Bible.

God created the world good, true, and beautiful. A world filled with harmony and peace, where the first humans walked with Him without fear or shame. God invited them to cooperate with Him and to make this world even more beautiful and good. They lived in what the Bible calls the Kingdom of God.

But humanity rebelled. We decided to trust ourselves, in our own wisdom, more than our Creator. We chose to build our own little kingdoms. From Adam and Eve, to the Flood, to today — the story repeats itself.

But God did not give up on humanity. He chose a family — the people of Israel — and gave them His wisdom. Everything they needed to live in faithful relationship with Him. By following the wisdom of God Himself, they could participate in the restoration of the world and go back to that long-gone paradise. This wisdom was called the Torah. It means “instruction.” God gave it on a mountain through Moses. And this wisdom was never meant to stay private. Israel was meant to be transformed and to invite the nations into God’s life.

But if you keep reading Scripture, something painful becomes clear. God’s people kept falling into the same temptation. Over and over again. To trust themselves. To build their own kingdoms.

A large portion of what we call the Old Testament in the Bible tells that story over and over and over again. From narratives to poems to prophecies, the story is the same. Humans can’t seem to get it right. And when God comes to the rescue, they soon forget His ways and go back to theirs.

Even when the Israelites were being unfaithful to God and being oppressed by multiple empires, they still believed that God was going to one day restore everything and establish His rule once again on Earth.

And so, many, many centuries after the “giving of the Law on the mountain through Moses,” when the people of Israel were under the control of the Roman Empire, the Son of God, Jesus, goes up another mountain to proclaim that the kingdom of God, that beautiful and peaceful gift that humanity once had, is being restored through Him.

For His original hearers, this wasn’t an abstract concept of a utopia or some sort of afterlife where people are floating around as spirits. No. The Kingdom of God was meant to be live tangibly, with your own eyes and flesh, in this life. 

Jesus begins with the Beatitudes. He says the blessed ones are not the admired and powerful. They are the poor. The meek. The mourners. The humble. Those who seek God with clean hearts will see Him. Those who suffer will be comforted.

Then He turns to His disciples and says: “You — you alone — are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” In Greek, that “you” is emphasized. Not “people in general.” Not “someone else.” You. What does that mean? We’ll come back to it.

We need to read ahead a bit so we can come back to these statements and understand them in light of the context. 

Look at what Jesus says in verse 17, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them.” What is that all about? In Jesus’ day, like in our own, there were different religious groups in Judaism who had different solutions and answers to the question, “How will God usher in the kingdom?”

Jesus continues: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” In Jesus’ day, different Jewish groups had different answers about how God would restore Israel. The Pharisees believed strict obedience would bring God’s kingdom. The Sadducees compromised with Rome. The Zealots turned to violence. The Essenes withdrew into the desert. They debated constantly. And Jesus entered those conversations. Sometimes He agreed. Sometimes He challenged them.

That probably worried all these different groups! Maybe Jesus doesn’t know the Scriptures as much as He seems to, because He disagrees with the “smart people.” Or maybe, even worse, Jesus doesn’t take the Law and the Prophets seriously enough.

So Jesus says, “Think not that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets.” By saying that, He affirms the authority of Scripture — the Law, the first five books of the Bible, and the Prophets, a term referring to the rest of the Old Testament.

But Jesus doesn’t merely believe in them. He “has come to fulfill them.” What does He mean by that? How can this compilation of books about laws, stories, poems, songs, and prophecies be “fulfilled”? It doesn’t mean that they were missing something and that Jesus is here to add to them. No.

He means that Jesus’ mission is to do what humans can’t do. To obey the law of God perfectly and to fulfill all the prophecies about the Messiah. Remember, in the Old Testament, the animals that were sacrificed for the sins of the people had to be unblemished. But animals can’t take away the sins of people and the ugliness and mess humans make. So the prophets have this vision of the Messiah, that is, God’s chosen One, to absorb all the sin and evil of the world and get rid of it by dying.

By His perfect obedience, He became the perfect sacrifice. He saves us from God’s holy opposition to sin but also from the human tendency to corrupt everything we touch, even our own souls.

And through His resurrection, He assures us that all of us who are baptized in His name will also be resurrected one day. He promises us that we will partake eternally in the Kingdom of God. In the restored paradise of Eden! Because remember, the Kingdom of God isn’t an abstract concept of a utopia or some sort of afterlife where people are floating around as spirits. No. The Kingdom of God is tangible and visible. We will see it with our own eyes, and we will move in it with our own bodies. 

That is why Jesus holds dear to the Law & the Prophets, aka the Bible. He takes affirmation of the Bible as true revelation from God even further. In the next verse He says, “For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Until the end of this age, until all is accomplished, when Heaven and Earth are finally united in the Kingdom of God, the Scriptures are unchangeable and authoritative. 

In the Hebrew alphabet, the iota is the smallest letter, similar to the size of an apostrophe. And a dot, well, it’s a dot, very small, right. What Jesus is saying here very cleverly is that not even the smallest sections or teaching of the Bible will go away. Our human plans, goals, promises, resolutions, laws, and regulations all come to and end eventually. Not so with the Word of God, it stands forever.

It does so because the source of the Scripture is not the product of human intellect nor merely folk stories. The Bible is “theopneustos” — breathed by God. The Scriptures are God’s voice given as a gift to humanity. In it, we don’t just have the Law of Moses like the people of Israel did at one point. We also now have the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. And in it, we find come face to face with the Living God.

This is why Jesus says, “Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Notice, He is not talking about unbelievers who do not believe in the Scriptures at all and don’t have new life in Him. He is talking about us, His followers. And the dangers that come with “relaxing” on the “small” commandments and teachings of the Bible and then teach others to do so.

But the consequences of doing that are not eternal fire and perdition. That is reserved for the unbelievers. Rather, such person will be called “least” in the kingdom. On the contrary, those who do them and teach them will be called “great.” That’s a bit odd. Is Jesus talking about some sort of ranking in Heaven? Will some be better than others in the afterlife?

Well, maybe, but Jesus seems to be getting at something else here. Remember, He is talking about ushering in the Kingdom of Heaven to earth right now. So those who are called “least” for relaxing the commandments are called that way because they are not partaking in the fullness of the life that Jesus has in store for them. And those who do the commandments and teach others to do so are called “great” because they are participating in full communion with God by meditating on His Scriptures day and night.

By taking the Bible as seriously as Jesus did and by living out the life it compels us to live, then we will have humble hearts, ready to do as the Lord tells us and our righteousness — our right standing with God — will surpass that of the Pharisees. Since we will live as poor miserable sinners who know they are in need of a Savior and have been redeemed by Him.

But, if we keep “relaxing” on the Scriptures and we do that over and over again, we run the risk of losing our saltiness. We run the risk of hiding our light. And that will lead us to fall easily into that same old temptation: to make our own kingdom and trust in our wisdom.

Salt, in Jesus’ day, had several uses. One of them was to preserve food from spoiling. And light functions as a way to see where one is going. See, both of these things don’t exist for their own sake. Salt exists to persevere food and give flavor to it and light exists to shine your path and to light a room.

So by Jesus calling His disciples “the salt and light of the world” He is saying that those who follow Him no longer exist for themselves but for the sake of the world! Just like in the kingdom of God where God invites his beloved creatures to participate in it and make it even more beautiful and harmonious and peaceful, the Kingdom of mankind is trying to lure the church to lose its saltness and perverse the world.

History shows what happens when the Church stops listening.

In places that once called themselves Christian, believers sometimes remained silent. In Nazi Germany, many churches failed to resist evil. In Soviet Russia, many were pressured into silence. In our own country, we often choose comfort over conviction. The result is suffering — for the weak, the unborn, the forgotten. This is what happens when salt loses its taste. This is what happens when light is hidden.

And what about our own lives? On our phones, our schedules, our relationships, our money, our work. In how many ways do we turn a blind eye to injustices happening around us. Not just that, in how many other ways do we ignore the Scriptures and leave them unopened.

But thanks be to God — He has not given up on us. He offers forgiveness. Mercy. New beginnings. So that even in small ways, we may shine. The Kingdom is not complete yet. But we see glimpses now.

So this week, choose one place in your life to take God’s Word seriously. In your home. In your work. In your friendships. Love your neighbor. Pray more. Worry less. Forgive freely. Show kindness. Invite others into Christ’s way.

You are the salt of the earth.

You are the light of the world.

Because Jesus gave His life for you, rose for you, and walks with you —

He has more grace, peace, and life than you can imagine.