“JESUS LOVE YOU”
Saint Matthew 22: 34-46
18th Sunday after Trinity: 11 October Anno Domini 2020
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
The Hypocrites had heard (probably observed as well) that their political rivals, the empty-robed chancel-prancing aesthetes (i.e. the Sadducees) had been silenced by Jesus. They should have just slinked away themselves. Saint Jerome noted that the Pharisees themselves had been refuted in their attempts to trick Jesus with the denarius, the coin with Caesar’s image and the issue of taxes. They should have just contented themselves when their opponents (i.e. the Sadducees) were also defeated: Christ’s authoritative teaching on 1) angels existing, 2) no earthly marriage in heaven, 3) all flesh will be resurrected, and 4) God is the God of the living and not the dead. The Pharisees should have learned caution, and not laid further snares, but malice and spite drove them on unashamed.
But no. Just like your old-Adam nature, questions, conundrums, puzzles, riddles, seeming contradictions…traps…are preferred to simply listening to The Lord and worshipping + The Lord. So, a “lawyer” pops up. This Torah scholar was the Pharisee’s spokesman that day. The cross-examination began: “which is the great commandment in the law?”
The 1st century hypocrites (i.e. the Pharisees) knew the Commandments, the Decalogue. They thought they obeyed them. They certainly worked “publicly” to obey them, superficially, in “word and deed,” usually. But as Christ noted once they were like white-washed tombs—clean and fresh appearing on the outside but rotten and fetid and decaying on the inside. The sins of “thought” of an evil and resentful heart; the acknowledgement that they, that we, are not just people who sin but are people who are SINNERS, was dismissed by lawyers, then and now.
You would think that YOU would know that when your God answers: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart…soul…mind…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” that you are dead in the water—no power, propulsion, activity, or work; dead in the ground someday and dead in hellfire. You can’t do it. The Pharisees who studied Scripture should have known it.
Who is it, alone, (i.e. Sola) that can answer I AM to the stanza “Lord Thee I love with all my heart?”
Jesus. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 10.12, 18-19 because He’s the one Who spoke them to Moses and wrote them for Moses…for the Pharisees in Matthew’s Gospel and the Pharisees in Augsburg’s nave. Jesus answers the “lawyer” because Jesus IS THE ANSWER! This answer should be on your lips and inside of your lips, on your tongue…feeding your own heart, soul, and mind. For only The Lord gave His mind to obedient Law keeping and Commandment fulfilling. Only The Christ gave His heart to loving, caring, feeding, and bleeding on The Tree for all hypocritical and pride filled self-justifying law breaking. Only The Messias gave His soul into the pains of hell and suffering and death that you might have life eternal. “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” [Job 19.26] You will be resurrected because Jesus resurrected Himself.
Those two tables of uncompromising, killing, slaying, damning Law were nailed into Christ’s sinless Body. The pinned Him to The Crucifix and drained His precious Blood. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Indeed. Jesus the author and fulfillment of the law; Jesus The Prophet from Trinitarian Godhead tabernacling in your very midst to bring you forgiveness and life abundant—even now—IN HIM!
Who is this that hangs upon the tree? “What think ye of Christ? Whose son is He?” His opponents, adversaries, enemies, will always answer (at best) that the Messiah would be an earthly, totally human, descendent of King David. His haters will always answer that Jesus of Nazareth was a lunatic or liar—an evil blasphemer. God’s revealed answer is in the Words, The Body, The Blood of Christ Jesus. The Lord simply quotes more of His words, Psalm 109: “how then does David in spirit (i.e. by The Holy Ghost) call Him (The Son; Jesus) Lord (God)?” “The Lord (The Father) said to my Lord (Jesus) sit on my right hand.”
This deep mystery is revealed in where that “right hand” is “for you.” Though the crucifixion is completed: “Jesus Lives the Victory’s Won.” The Crucified One remains The Crucified One. The wounds of The God/Man bleed, drain, and are proffered once again this glorious and awe-filled day. The angels have collected the Precious Fruit of The Tree of Life. “For all the law is fulfilled in one Word, even in this, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’” [Gal. 5.14]. Jesus has. Jesus does. Jesus brings you to His table for more love.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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