The Noontimes

Deuteronomy 28 – 31: Our Immortality

Thursday, November 14, 2024

These chapters of Deuteronomy outline our relationship with God, the expectations God has, and the consequences we experience – both good and bad – when we either cleave to God beyond all else, or abandon him for the lures of the world. Yesterday’s and today’s Mass and Liturgy of the Hours readings all direct us to be prudent, watchful, repentant and merciful. Today’s Noontime takes us on a journey to re-live the desert experience and restoration which the Hebrew people lived thousands of years ago.  This is our spiritual heritage, and so we will want to examine it from time to time.

These chapters delineate the blessings and curses of our covenant with the Creator. They predict our times of invasion, siege, exile and plague; they also describe how we might repent and rest in God’s mercy. They warn us against idolatry, infidelity, and overbearing pride; they describe unmistakably God’s leadership and how we will best interact with God. The significance of the law is stressed, along with the importance of following God’s designated leaders.

These chapters summarize the Old Testament story which Jesus comes to fulfill. They lay the groundwork, set the tone, offer the hope and establish the guiding principal of how to be one with God. They tell us that our immortality lies not in the monuments we might build to ourselves, not in amassing power or wealth, and not in any legacy we try pass along to our descendants. Rather, our immortality lies in the prudence we practice as we walk with our God, it lies in the humility we enact as we live with our sisters and brothers in Christ, and it lies in the mercy and compassion of the Spirit that we show to one another. This is how we conquer the limits of time and space. It is how we become the saint that is hidden within each of us. It is how we break the limiting bondage of our humanity to become one with God, to become the holy one that God envisioned at our creation, to become immortal with and in Christ, it how we move into immortality.

Image from: https://www.bigideabible.com/deuteronomy/