Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Deuteronomy 11.26-12.12, Matthew 12.22-37 - Lectionary for 10/13/09

Today's readings are Deuteronomy 11.26-12.12 and Matthew 12.22-37.

Our Lord gives us the option of receiving his blessing or his curse.  He makes it quite clear.  Through faithful obedience, particularly loving the Lord with all our heart and acting in accord with that love, we receive God's blessing.  What is the force of this?  If we look honestly at the Law of God we see that we will never succeed.  Luther compares the Law to a light which does nothing but show our failure.  It leaves no room for self-righteousness.  

Even in this passage loaded with the condemning light of the Law in Deuteronomy we find that God is giving promises.  He is saying that by faith we can bring our offerings.  By faith we can rejoice before the Lord.  By faith we can live in the blessing of God even though we fail in our attempts at keeping God's Law.

We see this, of course, much more clearly when in the New Testament we read that Jesus died for our disobedience to God's Law.  He gave himself in our place so we could live and rejoice in his righteousness.  There's the Gospel which we need so much after reading the Law.



No comments:

Post a Comment