A scholar of the law approached Jesus and asked him, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Go and love your neighbor.” The Gospel Reading for this Sunday is a composition of two related passages, the Greatest Commandment and the Parable of the Good Samaritan, both of which are Jesus’ answer to a question and its follow up that was posed to him by a scholar of the law. As a test to Jesus, the scholar wanted to know what he had to do in order to inherit eternal life. Although the scholar’s motive was self-serving, the question he posed is one that is (and should be) asked by every man and woman in every generation. It is a question that revolves around the very meaning and purpose of life. It is a question that is asked and answered, even if in an unconscious way, in how we carry out our day to day endeavors. However, just like the scholar, we might feel that we really don’t know how to answer this important question, or rather, we might feel that we are answering the wrong question. For us to answer the right question and come up with the right answers, we have to figure out what eternal life is in the first place.
Because testing Jesus was the scholar’s motive for posing the question, we do assume that he not only knew the answer to what he was asking, but he also knew what eternal life is. Due to his profession, he had the advantage of combing through the pages of sacred Scripture and its interpretations that were contained in commentaries. Eternal life must have been a concept that was given some due consideration in his community’s religious tradition. By framing the question as he did (what must I do to inherit eternal life), we are left wondering whether he shared in our own understanding of eternal life: did he also understand eternal life as a life without end? By eternal life, did he mean what we sometimes refer to as the after-life? Jesus understood the scholar’s question, and even if he didn’t give him a direct answer, it is in his response to him that we get to know what eternal life is.
In response to the scholar’s correct answer to what the law said, Jesus said to him: “ Do this and you will LIVE.” In other words, Jesus told him, “ Obey the law of God and you will inherit eternal life.” Jesus equated “eternal life” with “life.” Eternal life is life. But eternal life is not just any life, for if it was so, the scholar would not have bothered himself with it. Eternal life must be a special kind of life. It must be something for which every heart yearns. The heart yearns for happiness and for peace. The heart yearns for contentment. For the scholar of the law, and for us who profess the Christian faith, we know that all the yearnings of the heart are fulfilled in God. It is in God that there is attained peace, happiness, and contentment. It is in God that there is found the fullness of life. This is what eternal life is.    
Eternal life is a life with God. it is a life of happiness. It is a fulfilled (full) life. Eternal life is not reducible to the after-life, as we get to think at times. As something for which our hearts yearn, eternal life begins right here in the present and continues into the future beyond this present life. It is the life that Jesus has come to help us attain (cf. John 10:10). And so the question becomes: what is it that I must do to be with God? What is it that I must do to live a happy, full, fulfilled life? While other people might device their own means of achieving this goal, for Jesus and those who profess a belief in God the Father of Jesus Christ, there can only be one way: the way of love (loving God and the neighbor). 
The command to love is both easy and difficult to carry out. To love is easy because it is inherent to us human beings. As an image and likeness of God, the human person was created out of love, and to love. To give and receive love is part of the fabric of the human person. This is the point that Moses is making in today’s First Reading. Love is the voice of God inside us. Love is the language spoken and understood by both God and the human person. Love is the means of God’s communication with the human person. If one has to be with God, one has to understand God’s language: love. “Do this and you will live,” Jesus said to the scholar of the law. In other words, “ Love God and you will be alive. Love your neighbor and you will be happy. Love God and your neighbor and your life’s aspirations will be fulfilled since without love you cease to be” (cf. I Corinthians 13:2).