Leviticus 15-16
Matthew 27:1-26

“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.”    
—Deuteronomy 6:4-6

In one of Jesus’s final teachings, He was challenged by an expert of the law who asked, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36). Every Jewish person would have known the right answer is the Shema, which is the centrepiece of Jewish prayer. 

The Shema is taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” This is the greatest command and the first prayer a Jewish child was taught to say. God gave His people the Shema and instructed them to recite it daily, memorize it, meditate on it, teach it, instruct it, put it on their clothing and post it on the doorframes of their home. God wanted to remind them of loving God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength every time they woke up, put on their clothes and entered or left the home. Many Jewish scholars say that the Shema is the quintessential expression of the most fundamental belief of Judaism. 

Hence, Jesus’s answer to the expert of the law is not surprising: “‘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” (Matthew 22:37-38). The crowd listening to the conversation would have been in complete agreement with His answer; the most important command is to love God. Yet, Jesus did not stop there, He added, “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:39-40). For us today, we would agree with Jesus that these are the two greatest commands. For the Jewish listeners, however, they were probably shocked because this was a big deal. Jesus was taking the most important prayer that saturated their lives and added to it. Any amendment was significant because the Shema actually stood alone as the greatest command. When Jesus placed loving others next to loving God, what He was essentially saying was, “to follow Me is to love God and to love others.”

Can we take a moment and just be honest with ourselves? How often does our love get lazy? How often do we just get fed up, frustrated and upset with people? Jesus said, “A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples…” (John 13:34-35). 

On this Valentine’s Day, more than the chocolates we receive or flowers we give, may we truly love. 

Lord God, I confess that I have not loved You fully. Help me not to be lazy with my love for You and learn to love others as You have loved me. Thank You, Lord.