May 31st - Reflection

Deuteronomy 5:22-33 (NRSV)
Moses delivers God's commandments
These words the Lord spoke with a loud voice to your whole assembly at the mountain, out of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and he added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me. When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders; and you said, "Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the fire. Today we have seen that God may speak to someone and the person may still live. So now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and remained alive? Go near, you yourself, and hear all that the Lord our God will say. Then tell us everything that the Lord our God tells you, and we will listen and do it."

The Lord heard your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me: "I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they are right in all that they have spoken. If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with their children forever! Go say to them, 'Return to your tents.' But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances, that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess." You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.

Reflection
The people heard the thunder but Moses heard the words. Moses goes between God and the people. Jesus was similar yet different in a profound way. Jesus was God. Jesus wasn't a go between. But through Jesus God became known in a personal way to each one of us. Jesus came to each of us and delivered us from the law. Moses delivered the law.

In the law Moses delivered we found out that we fall short of fulfillment of the law. We can't close the gap between God and man. In Jesus, God closed the gap and came to us. In Jesus, the law was fulfilled and we were united with God in a relationship of love.

So, now, with the law delivered to us and with us delivered from the law; we gladly unite to fulfill the law and love God and one another. We listen and hear God's Word and see that Word written and spoken and acted out in our lives and in the life of Jesus. No longer do we just hear thunder, but we hear God. Thanks be to God!

Prayer
Lord this day...open my eyes and ears to see and hear your Word that I may act it out in love towards you and those you give to me this day. --- Amen