In the midst of our reading for today we find these words, “love the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life.” This essentially is a summery of the first Commandment; a commandment given to our first parents Adam and Eve way back in the garden. It was a commandment handed down from generation to generation. It was given to the children of Israel as they were to enter the Promised Land. It is a commandment we could not keep.
This passage also directs us to the source of this life which we have. The same Spirit of God which breathed life into Adam breaths His life-giving breath into His people through His Word. (See Ezekiel 36:22-28)
The Lord directed His people to choose life. The history of God’s people in the Old Testament is one of open rebellion, a call to repentance and finally restoration. This process had to be repeated and was often met with horrible results and painful consequences. In this season of Lent, we are called back to the life the Father offers through the death of His Son. Through the reading the history of God’s people in the Old Testament we learn from their history and apply these lessons to our own Lenten journey.
Hymn: Lord throughout These Forty Days(Lutheran Service Book 418:3)
Though parched and hungry, yet You prayed
And fixed your mind above;
So teach us to deny ourselves,
Since we have known God’s love.
Heavenly
Father, we pray for forgiveness, for all too often we pursue the way of death
and evil rather than life and good. Forgive us for the sake of Christ, who
perfectly obeyed Your commands and dies for our sins.[1]
Direct us, O Lord, in all our
doings with Your most gracious favor, and further us with Your continual help;
that in all our works begun continued, and ended in You, we may glorify Your
holy Name, and, finally, by Your mercy, obtain everlasting life, through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God,
forever and ever. Amen.[2]
[1] Lutheran
Study Bible, © 2009 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis MO
[2]Collect for
Thursday after Ash Wednesday, http://www.liturgies.net/Lent/LentenCollects.htm
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