I love TV quiz shows, and my current favourite is The Chase.

If you are unfamiliar with it, permit me to explain. The Chase is a TV gameshow hosted by Bradley Walsh and four contestants play against one professional quizzer, known as the ‘Chaser’. The Chaser attempts to prevent the four contestants from winning a cash prize.

The Chasers are known as the Dark Destroyer, the Beast, the Governess, the Sinner Man, the Menace and the Vixen. While only one Chaser takes on up to four contestants, the underdogs are invariably the four contestants as reflected in the win percentage: the Chasers win 76% of their contests.

Jesus was involved in The Chase when professional quizzers, better known as the religious leaders, took on Jesus with their many and difficult questions. In their public debates, Jesus somehow managed to beat the professionals such as the Sadducees who he had just silenced prior to our passage today.

The next set of Chasers (Pharisees) came to try and beat Jesus with their questions. They were the Beast, being experts in the law, and regarded as the theologian’s theologian. Their quiz question to Jesus: ‘…which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’
It was a brilliant question!
Pharisees and religious teachers had long debated which commandments were ‘weighty’ and which were ‘light.’ If Jesus picked one, he could be accused of neglecting the others. If Jesus refused to answer, he would
look weak.

But Jesus took on the Chasers with a quick and authoritative answer by quoting the Shema, the ancient prayer from Deuteronomy 6:5 that every devout Jew recited daily: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ But Jesus didn’t stop there. He made a shocking further answer that the second commandment is like the first, quoting Leviticus 19:18: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

Jesus answered the Chasers with an answer so profound, they never imagined they could be answered in such a way.
For Jesus, to love God means to give your entire self to him, that is, heart, soul, and mind – the totality of who we are – and all without reservation.

But Jesus’ vertical answer went further with a horizontal answer, which implied that before we can ever hope to get our horizontal relationships right with our fellow human beings, we must get our vertical relationship with God right. By linking these two in his answer, Jesus elevated the second commandment to an equal status with the first in terms of importance. In other words, we cannot claim to love God, if we do not love our neighbour (1 John 4:20).

Love for God must always manifest itself in love for people. Here, love is defined as a concrete responsibility. It is the act of being useful and beneficial to others as an expression of our love for God. To help our neighbours
might mean, feeding, clothing, protecting, assisting them with their burdens and needs. In light of the Sermon on the Mount, loving our neighbours is an unconditional commitment to serving imperfect people. Jesus concluded his answer by saying, ‘All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’ Picture a door hanging on its hinges. Without the hinges, the door is useless; it cannot swing open or close. It just lies flat on
the ground. The same is true of our faith. The entire Old Testament, with its 600 plus commandments, its ceremonies, its prophecies, and its wisdom literature, all of it is designed to swing on the
twin hinges of loving God and loving others.

But in a surprise turn of events, the Chasers now became the Chased as Jesus gave the religious leaders a quiz question of his own. Jesus asked the Pharisees a question about the Messiah: ‘Whose son is he?’ Easy question, for which they correctly answered, ‘The son of David.’ Then Jesus quoted Psalm 110, where David calls his own descendant ‘Lord.’ How can a man be both David’s son and David’s Lord? The descendant cannot be greater than their progenitor.

The Pharisees were looking for a political Messiah, a mere human king. They could not comprehend a Messiah who was also divine. They wanted a Saviour they could control, not a Lord they had to worship. Jesus was not interested in beating them in their quiz shows, he wanted them to see that he was their hoped-for Messiah.
Out of love, Jesus engaged in the greatest Chase this world has ever witnessed. He chases us because he loves us and wants us and all humanity to win the prize of eternal life and residence in his kingdom!

In this chase, the goal is to allow the Chaser Jesus to catch us and give us his wonderful prize.