“Journey to the Cross: Love”

Scripture: Mark 12:28-34

During Lent, we have been considering a number of lessons that Jesus taught the world during his ministry. Sometimes the people listened, sometimes they didn’t. But the interesting point isn’t how much people have learned from Jesus – the amazing thing is that the lessons have actually survived for 2,000 years. The things that he taught are valuable and eternal in the living of our lives, and even if we don’t learn them and live them perfectly, we need to live them as well as we possibly can.

A pastor stepped into the pulpit and began “This morning, I'm going to speak on the relationship between fact and faith. It is a fact that you are sitting here in the sanctuary. It is also a fact that I am standing here speaking. But it is faith and faith alone that makes me believe that you just might be listening to what I have to say.”
- Homiletics Online

The lesson here may actually be about optimism, and all Christians need a lot of that! It is our choice to listen to the lessons or not. The resultant outcome of our lives hangs in the balance, and we all need to believe that people will still listen.

Read Mark 12:28-31

This lesson appears in 3 of the Gospel accounts, but each has a little different emphasis. In Matthew’s writing (22:34-40), it is a simple relating of the passages from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. In Luke’s Gospel (10:25-37), it is the lead in for the Lord’s telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and in Mark’s passage, Jesus adds a bit of teaching to his reciting of scripture.
Today, we consider the teaching that Jesus offers in Mark’s gospel, and what these 2 commandments mean for our lives.

The first, known as the Shema, is from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. When the passage begins with “Hear, O Israel”, it is the same as saying “Listen up! This is important!”, and only after the Lord gets their attention is the unique and special command given. “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” At this point, we have to understand that polytheism - the worship of more than one god - was the norm in those days. The more gods that you prayed to, sacrificed to, and depended on, the better. The general belief was that the gods had to be specialized because no one being, no matter how great it may be, could handle all of the myriad and complex issues of life. The more focused they were on a single issue, the better it was for you.
So the command to Israel that they were to honor only one God, THE God, had to be emphasized and explained to the people in a way that they would never forget it. For Israel, it would be one of the distinctions of faith. And the command then goes on to explain how we are to relate to this one God, and that is by loving Him with a love that is as complete and total as it possibly can be.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Love this one God with your total being by thinking constantly about his commandments, by teaching his commands to our children, and by living each and every day by His guiding and blessed Word. There would be no loopholes, no caveats, no choices, no escape from the call – only commitment to it.
And the people were to keep these words in their hearts, so that every thought and every action would honor the Word of God. And just in case the heart got a little hard in life, they were also to tie them to their wrists and hands and foreheads so that the words were always before them. The Shema was to be the guiding principle for the nation’s life. And Jesus says that this is the most important commandment that Israel will ever receive.

But then we read that there is another that is like it – to love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19:18 is within a list of commandments regarding human life and calls us to live life in a certain way (Leviticus 19). This, too, differs greatly from the way that other nations live. Israel was being called to live a life as those set apart from the rest of the world, and so are we. Others lived lives that reflected their love and dedication to themselves. Jesus is reminding us that this attitude will get us nowhere – that love of God and other people is what will satisfy.
As we read this passage, we discover what it truly means to love our neighbor, and it doesn’t make for an easy life. It is not only about treating others fairly, not about giving them all that they deserve in the eyes of humanity, but rather in giving them more than they deserve, just as God gives to us.

And these two commandments are above all the rest. In essence, Jesus is saying that if you live life according to these, you will be living in all of the rest. Satisfying these will be a huge step in moving toward the glory of God.

Read Mark 12:32-34

Loving God and loving neighbor is more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. And this from a Pharisee’s lips! Did he truly understand what love was all about? Did he really believe that loving in that two dimensional axis – upward and outward – should be replacing sacrifice?
Apparently he did. Jesus saw that “he had answered wisely”. He saw that the man understood the life that scripture was calling him to live. He not only knew the “words” of scripture, but he had learned the “heart” of the word.

A Presbyterian pastor by the name of E. Dixon Junkin, (Associate for Discipleship and Spirituality in the Presbyterian Church (USA)), reminds us that our commitment is not to 'study' Scripture but to 'listen' to it. It is not as if Scripture were a subject like mathematics, a useful tool that we learn, nor is our goal to analyze Scripture as if it were any other piece of literature. We are not out to learn Scripture as we would various historical facts.
The point of our reading is less to master the words of the Bible than to offer ourselves to be mastered by the Word to whom they point.
--As quoted in The Gospel and Our Culture, 5 (June 1993), 7.

If we truly “listen” to the passages for today, we will soon discover that they will take us far beyond the place where routine faith might land us. This is similar teaching to Micah 6:8 – “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Not to simply consider the aspects of justice, but to fully live as a just person; not to simply be merciful, but to love the merciful acts that we carry out; not to just follow God’s direction, not to be proud of our faithfulness, but to follow the Lord’s direction as a humble servant, claiming nothing in success for ourselves.
I believe that the “teacher of the law” may have been remembering this commandment when he responded to Jesus’ teaching. Love puts a whole different twist on life – it puts others first, and ourselves last. In 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter that is chosen by more brides for their wedding day than all others combined, we are told that when we allow love into our life, it makes our life complete. (Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-3) Love fulfills. Love gives purpose. Love endures.

This is one more aspect of Jesus’ ministry that teaches us to move further away from the ways of the world, and closer to the ways of God. And as that move begins to separate us more and more from the temporary and hollow pleasures of earth, it takes us closer and closer to the Glory of God and the Cross of Calvary. Remember that Jesus taught, not as a great man, but as the Incarnate God. All too often, we think that Jesus has a whole new approach to humanity, that he is the softer and more lovable side of God. But the truth is that God is God, and there is no separating the 3 Persons. The love of Christ is God’s; the passion of Christ is God’s; the plan and purpose of Christ is God’s; the sacrifice of Christ is God’s. The world may have seen the cross as a means of condemnation and finality, but our Lord uses it to convey the Godly message of compassion and love and life.
Love God and love neighbor – they cannot be separated. Without one, the other is incomplete. Without one, the other is a lie. And when we do love as God first loved, Jesus tells us that we will “not be far from the kingdom of God.” To love God requires that he becomes first in our life. To love neighbor means that achieving their best will take first precedence in our life. Love means that our best, our desires, our needs move from the front of life to the back.

Christ’s Journey to the Cross could never have happened without God’s gift of his love, his commitment, his surrender to the people of earth. Can we give him any less of us?