NOTES for Mar 12:13-34

It may seem strange: why does Jesus, knowing that His death is near, enter into apparently unnecessary arguments and disputes, and allow Himself to be provoked? After all, the Pharisees and Herodians were not driven by a thirst to find the truth. Likewise, when the Sadducees asked how the law of levirate marriage, which they had so cleverly interpreted (Deut. 25:5-6), would be reflected in the life to come, they only wanted to laugh at Jesus, since they did not believe in the resurrection. We do not know whether Jesus' answers satisfied the Pharisees and Sadducees, but they undoubtedly made an impression on a scribe standing nearby. The question of the greatest commandment in the law certainly troubled this man, and Jesus' answer drew from him a sympathetic response. Jesus reduces all the commandments of the law (not only the Ten Commandments, but all the rest as well, which the scribes counted as 613 in the Old Testament) to the two most important ones: love for God and love for neighbor. This is also the answer to the previous questions and to every later question throughout Christian history: how should one act rightly in this or that case? Christ answers us with precisely these words. And when, reading the Gospel, we see that here we are on Jesus' side, when we answer with the scribe's words, "Well said, Teacher; You have spoken the truth," that means that Jesus' words apply to us as well: "You are not far from the Kingdom of God."