The theme in today’s readings is the importance of learning and remembering our history. A major theme in Deuteronomy is the reminder that a good life in the Promised Land depends on knowing and doing the will of God. Jesus says the same thing to the church in the Sermon on Mount. Such important reminders at a time when people reconstruct their memories to serve selfish intentions! We are called to remember what really happened and to learn from it.
Psalm 78 is the cornerstone of church education programs. Isaac Watts versified it this way:
Let children hear the mighty deeds which God performed of old,
Which in our younger years we heard, and which our parents told.
Our lips shall tell them to our young, and they again to theirs,
That generations yet unborn may teach them to their heirs.
A long tradition for the season of Lent is to review Redemptive History, especially the Exodus, in order to learn its lessons. Paul said it this way to the Corinthian church:I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ…These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us…
Prayer
Give ear to our prayers, O Lord, and direct the way of your servants in safety under your protection, that, amid all the changes of our earthly pilgrimage, we may be guarded by your mighty aid; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Jack Reiffer
Links to the appointed readings and prayer for today:
