The Law of Love (2nd Tuesday of Advent)

Yesterday we talked about being measured by God’s absolute–His law. Now, we recognize that all of us have fallen short of God’s law. However, we ought not to think that accepting God’s gracious gift of His Son is the be-all, end-all of the Christian faith. Rather, our acceptance of Christ into our life is just the beginning. Though we are no longer under the judgement of the law, we still ought to try and follow the law.

So what is God’s law? What is it’s crux, the one commandment that is the law’s bedrock? It is this question that the Pharisees asked Jesus and with good reason. Today, Jews recognize 613 laws contained in the Torah–quite a bit more than the original ten! 365 of them are negative (neatly matching the number of days in the year) and 248 of them are positive (matching the number of parts in the human body). During Jesus’ day, rabbis and teachers of the law argued over whether all 613 laws were equally important (after all, they were all given by God), or whether the law could somehow be summed up by one or two commandments.

In practice, all of these laws help build a "hedge" around the original ten. Thus, instead of worrying about breaking the ten commandments (an easy thing to do), people could instead work at keeping all 613 laws. That way even if they broke one of the 603 other laws, they still probably wouldn’t have broken one of the Big Ten.

While this system of "layered law" is a good idea, it unfortunately leads to legalism. The Jews of Jesus’ day had become so worried about breaking God’s law that they forgot the liberating intent behind the law. I don’t believe that God wanted the law to burden people with guilt and worry, rather He wanted the Law to keep the people free from the bondage of sin so that they might remain in right relationship with Him.

So it is that the Pharisees, hoping to catch Jesus, pose the question to Him, the answer to which they themselves did not agree. What is the greatest commandment? Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6:5 (the Shema) and Leviticus 19:18 as his answer. We are to love the Lord our God with our entire being and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Love. That’s the answer that Jesus gave. Love is the Law that we Christians ought to find ourselves under–the principle by which we should live our lives. After all, it was God’s love that led Him to send His Son to us on that first Christmas Day. It was God’s love that led Jesus Christ to the cross. My challenge for us today is simple: what has God’s love led you to do this Advent? What gift of love are you gracing
someone with this December?

Matthew 22:34-46

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied.
He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."’
If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.