A "dialogue of love": Biblical wisdom on the two great commands

Word Among Us, Nov 2003

The excerpts that follow have been adapted from The Dictionary of Biblical Theology, edited by Fr. Xavier Leon-Dufour, to help you study what the Scriptures teach about love, mercy, and forgiveness. As you work through these paragraphs, ask Jesus to teach you how he wants you to love him without reservation and forgive others without limit so that you will be prepared to meet him face to face.

"God Is Love."

Before arriving at this summit of New Testament revelation, we need to purify the human concepts we have made for ourselves about love, in order to grasp the mystery of divine love-and this takes place through the cross. The word lave actually signifies a mixture of different things: carnal or spiritual, passionate or thoughtful, serious or light, expansive or destructive. One loves something pleasant; an animal, a companion in one's work, a friend, relatives, children, finally a spouse. The biblical man knew all that. Genesis, the history of David, and the Song of Songs are, among many others, the witnesses of all kinds of sentiment.

Little given to intellectual abstraction, Israel offers to the word lave an affective coloring: for her, to know is already to love; her fidelity to social and family ties (hesed in Hebrew) is completely impregnated with spirit and a liberal spontaneity. To love (agapan in Greek) has as many overtones as the English word.

In short, biblical man knows the value of affection (Proverbs 15:17), although he is not ignorant of its risks (Proverbs 5; Sirach 6:5-17). When the notion of love penetrates his religious psychology, it is totally charged with a human experience both rich and concrete.

At the same time love raises numerous questions. Can God, so great, so pure, lower himself to love humanity, so small and sinful? And if God condescends to love us, how can we respond to this love? What relationship exists between love of God and the love of human beings? all religions make an effort in their own ways to answer these questions, usually by falling into one or the other of two opposed extremes: to maintain the distance between God and humanity, they relegate the divine love to an inaccessible sphere-or to make God present to humanity, they profane the love of God into a totally human love.

The Bible gives a clear answer to this religious anxiety. God has taken the initiative by a dialogue of love with his people; in the name of this love he binds them and teaches them to love each other.

God's Love Is Revealed.

On the cross, love reveals its intensity and its drama in a decisive way. Jesus had to suffer (Luke 9:22; 17:25; 24:7; Hebrews 2:9) to reveal fully his obedience to his Father (Philippians 2:8) and his love of his own John 13:1). Jesus is completely free (Matthew 26:53; John 10:18), and throughout the temptation and apparent silence of God (Mark 14:32-41; 15:34; Hebrews 4:15) he finds himself in starkly human solitude (Mark 14:50; 15:29-32). Nevertheless he pardons and is still open to all (Luke 23:28,34,43; John 19:26).

On the cross too, Jesus arrives at the unparalleled instant of the "greatest love" (John 15:13). Without reserve he here gives all to God (Luke 23:46) and to all people without exception (Mark 10:45; 14:24; 2 Corinthians 5:14; 1 Timothy 2:5).

"The man Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5), and with him all humanity, merits to be loved by God without reserve (John 10:17; Philippians 2:9). God and man are incorporated in a unity, according to the final prayer of Jesus (John 17). It is still necessary that we freely accept so total and demanding a love, which should lead us to self-sacrifice after the example of Christ (17:19). All of humanity finds on his path the scandal of the cross, which is nothing other than the scandal of love. It is there that is manifested in its fullness the gift of the bridegroom to his spouse (Ephesians 5:25).

The Heart of the Father

Before accomplishing God's plan, Jesus wanted to "become like his brothers and sisters in all things" (Hebrews 2:17), in order that he might experience that very misery from which he came to save them. His actions too are all an interpretation of the divine mercy. Luke takes very special pains to set this point in relief. Jesus has a preference for the "poor" (Luke 4:18; 7:22); sinners find a "friend" in him (7:34), for he is not ashamed to associate with them (5:27,30-32; 15:1; 19:7). The mercy to which Jesus bears witness in a general way among the masses (Matthew 9:36; 14:14; 15:32) takes on a personal aspect in Luke's account: It is concerned with a widow's "only son" (Luke 7:12) and with a certain bereaved father (8:42; 9:38,42).

Finally, Jesus shows particular kindness to women and strangers. Thus is this universalism brought to its fulfillment: "All flesh shall see God's salvation" (Luke 3:6). If Jesus' compassion was such for all people, it is understandable that the afflicted would address themselves to him as to God himself with their cry: "Lord, have mercy!" (Matthew 15:22; 17:15; 20:30).

The Heart of the Father. Jesus wanted to depict for all time the characteristic features of divine mercy, which showed forth in his actions. To sinners who saw themselves excluded from the kingdom of God by the pettiness of the Pharisees, he proclaimed a gospel of infinite mercy, which follows in a direct line from the authentic pronouncement of the Old Testament.