Parish of St. Edward the Confessor Daily Lenten/Easter Reflections


lent
February 7, 2008

By

Bill Thornton
lent

Reading 1
Psalm
Gospel

Text of Reflection:  
February 7, 2008

OK.  Yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  We heard Joel’s call to repentance.  Now we have followed Jesus’ direction by washing the ashes off our faces and anointing our hair.  We are ready to put on the pads and to engage in “full-contact” Lent.

Right off the bat, we encounter Moses, the Lawgiver, and his challenge to the Israelites.  “I set before you life or death, blessing or curse.”  Choose life, he urges by obeying the commandments, loving the Lord your God, and follow God’s ways.  This is good -- ten Commandments of God, six commandments of the Church, fasting, abstinence – it’s tough, but I understand it and with God’s grace I can give it a good shot.

  But wait!  Along comes Jesus and he says “Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake … will save it.”  Now I am confused.  Choose life, as Moses says, or lose it as Jesus says.

  Jesus does not contradict Moses.  Life comes from God.  Really, true life is a sharing in God’s life.  Moses was concerned with the proper relationship between the Israelites and God and was teaching this to his people.  He stresses the Law and obedience to God’s word out of love.  God is God, and we are not.  And the way we relate to God is through love and obedience.  It is important to note the stress that Moses places on the word “choose.”  Since we are all sinners, we have no chance to achieve perfect obedience with God’s law in this life.  When Moses says “choose life,” he is saying that our relationship with God is not about coming up with no sins when we do our examination of conscience before we go to sleep.  Rather it is about waking up and deciding that for the next sixteen or so hours we will do the best we can.
 

Jesus accepts the law of Moses but raises it to a new level.  Jesus was in perfect relationship with the Father before the incarnation.  But he chose to come down to Earth as a man and lose his life.  And what for?  For all the sinners, like me, that he had created.  He knew that it was possible for people who focused only on the Law of Moses to become like the Pharisees who concentrated on obeying the law.  In the end, oftentimes their insistence on the Law did not result in loving consideration of the people around them.  They considered themselves disciples of Moses.  So Jesus says, “If you would be my disciples, …”  you have to do more, you have to do what I have done, give your life for others.

Giving my life does not involve real blood.  What it does mean is that I need to reject the idea that life is all about me, or even – like the Pharisees – that is all about “me and God.”  It has got to be not only about me and God but also about all of the people that God created that you encounter in your day.  Jesus says that we must consider first the lives of those around us and give our lives to them.

But this is a hard word.  How can we continually die to ourselves in order to live for others?  We have to go back to the word “choose.”  Both Moses and Jesus tell us that maybe it is not so important that we always succeed, but it is critically important that we continuously choose to love God and love our neighbor.