Today for Lent

TUESDAY, MARCH 3

DEUTERONOMY 9:(1-3) 4-12

“And at the end of forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly; they have turned aside quickly out of the way
which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image.”

Deuteronomy is where we hear of Godly order brought to bear on earthly chaos. Moses has been to the mountain and has brought down the Ten Commandments. He admonishes Israel for its shallow memory and lax attention to God’s will. Moses chides Israel for its pride and willingness to see its path paved by its own righteousness. He castigates Israel for corrupting God’s laws and worshipping a golden calf.

The parallels to our present world are so sharp we can cut ourselves on them. Like ancient Israel, we live in a time of flux. Like ancient Israel, we are full of ourselves, full of our versions of the truth and diversions from it. Like ancient Israel, we require the ordinances of God’s will to be held up in front of us on stone tablets. Like ancient Israel,we need to hear and revere and to obey God’s command, not ours. In our roiling time of governments, societies, and belief systems shifting in expediency, self-absorption, or from purposeless drift, we need God’s laws more than ever to correct us. Moses has thrown down the markers for our modern world.

Prayer: Dear Lord, help us order our lives in accord with your will, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.