Reading I
Dt 30:15-20
Moses said to the people:
“Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,
I tell you now that you will certainly perish;
you will not have a long life
on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Gospel
Lk 9:22-25
Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?”
Meditation: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Choose life… (Deuteronomy 30:20)
The Israelites were just about to enter the Promised Land. Forty years of waiting and wandering had finally come to an end, and Moses was preparing the people for the next phase of their history: the time when God would fulfill his promise to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey.
So standing before the Israelites, Moses issued them the most important challenge they would ever hear. Would they choose life by following Yaahweh’s commands? Or would they choose death by following their own ways and the ways of the nations around them?
This challenge didn’t come out of nowhere. Moses had already spent much time reminding them of all the Lord had done. He reminded them how God had delivered them from Egypt and continued to offer them his protection. He spoke of how manna showed up every morning, and quail every evening. He told them that even their clothes did not wear out as they wandered in the desert! But now the time had come for the people to take up their inheritance and begin choosing to live under God’s protection. The manna would stop, and so would the quail. It was time for them to choose on their own the way of faithful obedience—to choose the life God was offering them.
Today, the Lord stands before us, much as Moses stood before the people, offering us the same call and promise. He is standing at the door of our hearts and asking us to choose life, not death. He loves us so much that he has opened the promised land of heaven to us. And not only that, he offers us a taste of that promised land here and now. He has given us every gift and blessing we need to walk each day filled with his love and peace.
The choice is ours. It’s completely up to us whether we will choose life or death. Isn’t it wonderful that the Lord would offer us so much?
“Father, you are the author of life. I choose to receive you today. I choose to follow you and heed your voice. Thank you for calling me and filling me with your infinite love.”
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