Use it On Monday, by Michelle DeRusha
Michelle writes a daily blog about finding faith in the everyday at Graceful. On Monday's she reflects on Sunday's sermon in a weekly post entitled "Use it on Monday." She's nice enough to let us re-post it on Southwood's blog. You can read it here each week and then click over to Michelle's blog for more of her writing.
Is A Glimpse Enough?
My first thought when I heard yesterday’s reading (Deuteronomy 34:1-12) was this: Moses got ripped off.
We all know what a tremendous leader Moses was, right? He bravely confronted Pharaoh, leading his people out of plague-ridden Egypt, across the Red Sea and through 40 long years in the wilderness, never once losing faith, always serving as an inspiration and source of strength for his whiney, discouraged people, consistently buoying their spirits and setting them on a straight path.
Yet when he finally gets to the edge of the long-sought promised land, what happens? God leads him to the top of Pisgah Peak and allows Moses just a glimpse of the land. Moses, after all his travails, is not allowed to enter. In fact, he comes all that way to die on the very cusp of the promised land:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.” I have allowed you to see it with your own eyes, but you will not enter the land.” So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, just as the Lord had said. (Deuteronomy 34:4-5).
Like I said: a major rip-off.
The text doesn’t indicate that Moses was disappointed, but I certainly know how I’d feel if I faithfully led my people all that way, only to miss out on the final reward. It seems like an awful lot of hardship for nothing.
Since the reading on Sunday, though, I’ve been thinking about this. I wonder, are Moses circumstances at the end of his life much different than ours? And is that glimpse of what’s to come after we're gone necessarily a disappointment, a failure, or can we understand it, instead, as a gift?
At the end of our lives God offers each one of us such a gift: a glimpse of all that we have accomplished on our journey, reflected in the lives of those who will go on ahead without us. I’m thinking of my father-in-law as I write this – the joy and satisfaction he had in the last months and weeks of his life as he considered his two devoted, successful sons; his four beautiful, thriving grandchildren and the hundreds of relatives, friends and colleagues that walked alongside him in his lifetime. What an incredible gift to know that these loved ones will continue forward, fortified by his blessings and buoyed by his love and the example of his leadership.
We don't get to continue onward with our loved ones forever, but like Moses, we get a glimpse of the good things to come. I’d say that glimpse of the promised land is a gift. And that glimpse is more than enough indeed.
What about you? How have you interpreted the story of Moses’ death and the fact that he didn’t travel into the promised land in his lifetime?
You can read more of Michelle's writing on her blog Graceful.
Comments