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Deuteronomy 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.”
The Word of the Lord.
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In our first reading, Israel is on the brink of returning from exile – a punishment which God allowed because of Israel’s repeated infidelity. Now they have the opportunity to re-enter a covenantal relationship with God through Moses.
“I place before you life and death,” he says. “Choose life.”
These are two extremes. There is no returning from death, nor is there an end to life in the Lord. But Israel must make a definitive choice now – as we all must during Lent.
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Interestingly, the verb Moses uses in his appeal to Israel – “return” – implies the turning back of both parties, Israel and God.
God is ready to receive Israel again, but Israel must also choose life.
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At the very center of Moses’ message is the circumcision of the heart. Just as physical circumcision lays bare a most sensitive part of the body, the circumcision of the heart means the removal of any covering that disables the sensitive perception of God’s will.
The Lord asks the same of us during Lent.
Now is our time to remove sin from our midst; to return to the Lord, forsaking the paths that led us astray like our ancestors.
It’s also a time for us to return to one another, to beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks; to forgive our enemies; to work for peace.
These spiritual practices are a practical type of cross – the cross of Christian living – which no one can escape if we are to be genuine disciples of Jesus, as he commands us to be in today’s Gospel.
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Today the Lord tells us to take up our cross – the practical cross of Christian living – and to follow him.
By the end of Lent, what will be the state of your heart? And where will your cross be?
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Image credits: (1) Endofthematter.com (2) The Heaton File, WordPress (3) Cedric Poole Ascetics