The Greatest Commandment

by Mark Johnson

A true story from Matthew chapter twenty-two.

In Matthew 22:37–40, Jesus tells us that Love is the most important commandment. Specifically, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. Also he teaches: Love your neighbor as yourself. If we Love, keeping the rest of the commandments will happen naturally. God creates us to love. A few short days ago I was a witness to this.

It was Saturday night. The four of us were at home with nowhere else to be. It had been a few weeks, so we thought we were due for a family movie night. The entire family enjoys the downtime. Buttered popcorn, a warm blanket, and a comfy couch are standard equipment. We hadn’t planned ahead and made a trip to the movie store, and there was nothing good on the satellite pay-per-view, so we scrolled through what we had recorded off the networks.

We soon came across the Discovery Channel’s newest documentary series, “Planet Earth.” Sounded like a safe bet—educational and entertaining. The hour long episode was about the “Great Plains on Earth.” Being a resident of the Great Plains, it even seemed regional to me.

As we watched, we were easily captivated by the wildlife, the photography, and the wonder of the vast expanses God has placed here on Earth. But about fifteen minutes into it, family movie night took a turn for the worse.

A grassland area in Siberia is home to the pica, or what we would call a rabbit. Siberia is also home to the arctic fox.  I didn’t think much of it at first, but the arctic fox doesn’t eat puppy chow for supper, which is unfortunate for the pica.

The blood curdling scream of a dying Pica was too much for my three-year old, Tate. Soon he was crying in Mom’s arms, and I was looking for the remote to fast forward before all innocence was lost.

But it didn’t stop there, in Africa, hyena’s feasted on impala’s. And somewhere in Mongolia, when the lions hunted for baby elephants, movie night was over. Such violence! Saw III on pay-per-view might have been less gore.

Well, okay. Probably not.

It took a few minutes of weeping for that little rabbit, but the crying eventually subsided to a quivering lower lip. It was then I noticed that Trevor, now 5, was generally much less disturbed by what he had seen. Obviously, he had been calloused by pre-school.

Nature is not always kind. And there is a little beast in all of God’s beauty. People are sometimes no better than animals. Just read the headlines. But God created us to Love. Just ask my scared three-year old or the mother who calmly rocked him to sleep.

  
[-] © 2007 by Mark Johnson