Thursday, January 16, 2020
Deuteronomy 4: Proofs
Teach them to your children, and to your children’s children . . .
![Evidence%20Based%20Practice[1]](https://thenoontimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/evidence20based20practice1.jpg?w=300&h=211)
Each time I read from the books of the law, the Torah, I again understand how difficult it was for Jewish leaders to take hold of and believe the words that Jesus spoke to them about the merciful love of God. I also understand how difficult it was for these followers of the Mosaic Code to believe that anyone but God who lived in the temple and out of reach of the ordinary human could forgive sin. These ideas were revolutionary for them, even blasphemous; yet, the man who delivered them was not only able to restore health, he was also able to calm the elements of nature.
What we read today tells us of a God who is faithful, a God who has shown his constancy, a God who continued to reveal himself to his people despite their errant ways.
Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it heard of?
Yahweh rescued his people, he brought them out of slavery, he nourished them and taught them who they were, how they were to be, and what their potential was. Jesus arrived to walk the earth as God among his people. Jesus fulfilled prophecy. Jesus compressed the hundreds of Torah laws into one . . . the Law of Freedom, the Law of Love. Nothing like this had ever been heard of. Nothing like this has ever been heard of.
You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you forever.
The focus in this reading is on the dichotomy between believing in God and believing in idols. One of the rewards for following Yahweh is the gift of physical territory which God grants to his chosen people. Other rewards are his fidelity to us, and his mercy when considering our actions. These are all proofs of God’s love. Further proofs of God’s goodness are that once Jesus is resurrected and returns to God, The Holy Spirit settles upon us to abide with us and to dwell in us, God’s people. This is God’s promise and as we hear in today’s mini-reflection in MAGNIFICAT: God is true: he has a long memory for his own promises and a short memory for our failures to keep ours. In the gift of his promised Spirit, we find our daily joy. The prophet Isaiah reminds us the Morning Prayer: Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, my love never shall leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the Lord who has mercy on you. (54:10)
We look for assurances and guarantees; we sign contracts and agreements that we trust more than we trust God’s love for us. He has given us proofs . . . and this is the story that we must pass down to our children and our children’s children . . . so that it may live with us and in us . . . beyond the end of time.
Cameron, Peter John, Rev., ed. “Mini-Reflection.” MAGNIFICAT. 19 May 2010:265. Print.
Image from: http://www.caresearch.com.au/caresearch/tabid/1590/Default.aspx
Written on May 19, 2010 and posted today as a Favorite.
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