MATTHEW 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
BACKGROUNDER
Love is the greatest of commandments. It seems obvious that we are to love others, because we all need to be loved. We also know that it doesn’t work out the way it’s supposed to. Too often, we don’t love others the way we should. Many people have not had much love in their lives. Some may even have wondered, “Why is the world like this?” – a world starving for love.
The question Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment is basically a way of checking out who he is, and what his priorities are. It’s a question that a potential follower of Jesus would need to ask.
Jesus tells us that we are commanded – above all – to love: God first, and then our neighbours. Maybe we need to hear this command because we struggle so much with love. Why does Jesus emphasize that love is a commandment? This means that love is something we are capable of, something we can choose.
What is love? One classic explanation of love states that to love is to will the good of another. Others see love as romantic attachment, or positive feelings. Jesus shows us the true meaning of love on the cross: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)
In another place Jesus explains it this way, “Whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27) The command to love is a very specific standard that Jesus sets for his followers.
Jesus is getting to the roots of who we are, and of why we mess things up so badly. “The law and the prophets” – the whole of God’s previously issued commands – are crystallized in the command to love because love is the only way we can hope to pull it together. And only in receiving God’s love for us, through Jesus, can our healing begin.