How Heavy are the Ten Commandments?

And God spoke all these words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery …” [Exodus 20:1-2].

The Old Testament lesson for this upcoming Sunday, the Third Sunday in Lent (RCL, Year B), is the familiar passage detailing the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20:1-17 (as opposed to the slightly different version found in Deuteronomy 5:6-21). As I sifted through some old notes on the text, my eye was drawn to an article written years ago by Joshua Green, former senior editor of The Atlantic, entitled “Roy and His Rock” [The Atlantic, October 2005]. Some of you, particularly our dear friend from Alabama, Jane Shelton Dale, may recall the underlying story.

On August 1, 2001, Chief Justice Roy Moore, of the Alabama Supreme Court, unveiled a 5,280-pound block of Vermont granite with the Ten Commandments prominently carved thereon. Following the monument’s completion, Moore had employed an army of workers who, under the cover of night, prominently positioned it in the public rotunda of the State Judicial Building.

The ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and others quickly filed lawsuits contending that the Chief Justice’s act amounted to an impermissible establishment of religion on the part of the State of Alabama. Federal courts summarily agreed. After protracted appeals, Judge Roy was ordered to remove the monument. The Courts held that the state’s Judicial Building should be a place where the profession of religious faith was not a prerequisite to seeking justice.

Determined to have the last word, the Chief Justice, who was later suspended from the Court for other reasons, took “his” monument on the road, utilizing a flat-bed truck. Eventually Roy’s “Rock” ended up in a warehouse next to the Arc of the Covenant. I’m kidding, I’m kidding (although the monument did end up in a warehouse). According to Green’s article, moving the monument from the truck required the use of a 57-foot crane.

As Green pointed out, Roy’s “Rock” was big and heavy. Each commandment weighed more than 500 pounds. Such burdensomeness corresponds, at least to my mind, with much popular current sentiment about the Ten Commandments. The Commandments—we’re often reminded that they aren’t “mere suggestions” — are thought by all too many to be heavy yokes proscribing our freedom, weighing us down, making us feel guilty. Isaiah warned those in exile that the gods of Babylon were so heavy that they had to be carried forth by beasts of burden [Isaiah 46:1, NIV]. If we aren’t careful, we can turn the Decalogue into a heavy burden as well.

As a child, I was taught, “Here are ten Biblical rules. Memorize them. Follow them. Obey them!” I am, of course, not saying that such an understanding is altogether incorrect or faulty. No; for indeed, the Commandments are the Word of God. They should be respected as such. Yet, if we understand the Commandments given by the LORD God only in that proscriptive context, we miss an essential part of God’s message. We miss a profound point about their purpose.

As we ponder and pray over the Ten Commandments, we should recognize that they are preceded by two powerful verses. Those verses don’t warn us, “Here come the “Thou shalt nots.” Instead, the Commandments are preceded by words announcing absolute freedom:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery …” [Exodus 20:2].

God is not so much trying to restrain our daily lives with His rules as He is telling us what we can expect—what we should expect—following our freedom. We have been freed from slavery, from oppression. We now live in God’s carefully prepared Kingdom. Because the Lord is our God, we are free to live unburdened by the commands of other gods. Because He is our God, we are free from any ties or burdens required by heavy idols. We are also free from murder. We are free to honor mothers and fathers. We are free from theft or covetousness. We are free to rest on the Sabbath.

To be sure, some of sinful, evil actions—e.g., murder, theft, injustices—continue. But before God gives us His “Thou shalt nots,” God gives us freedom. As I read somewhere (I suspect that it was Tom Long):

The commandments are not weights, but wings that enable our hearts to catch God’s Spirit and to soar.

I think Jesus understood that it is within the nature of humanity, contrary to the desire and intention of the LORD God, to take the Commandments—the Decalogue—and turn them into a set of heavy burdens, the type of burdens that would crack our backs and our spirits. That is why Jesus said,

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light [Matthew 11:29-30].

Jesus is not only our Savior; He is also an example of the type of life that is possible if we understand that prior to any legalistic proscriptions given to us, God did the heavy lifting. God established freedom from our past sins, freedom from the burden of lost relationships, freedom to love one another without constantly looking over the shoulder, and freedom to be the people God intended from the very beginning. God’s loving law need not be carefully carved into stone. Through Jesus Christ, it can be gently and lovingly written on our hearts. Thanks be to God.