Deuteronomy is a very long book in the Old Testament. It is a bit difficult for meditation, and one could say even just reading it is a bit difficult. Moses is preparing the people to enter a new land, a new lifestyle of holiness in the promised land. Deuteronomy has long chapters with lists of rules and regulations for their new life in the promised land. Today we begin Lent taking up the way of conversion, the way to Easter by listening to Moses’ exhortation to the people towards the end of all those chapters in Deuteronomy regarding rules and regulation. He sums it all up very simply and points to the heart of all those rules and regulations by offering them one simple free choice: life and prosperity or death and doom. Life in the promised land for the people of Israel or life in the resurrection for us as Christians is a unity with the will of God. That lifestyle produces prosperity, happiness, and joy. Whereas separations from the will of God produces a living experience of death and doom. Pursuit of our own personal needs as we perceive our world produces sadness, loneliness, and more needs.
Just as Moses prepared the people of Israel to enter the promised land, we find Jesus, in today’s Gospel, preparing his disciples and apostles to enter a new land, the land of Easter, the land of resurrection. That is the place of a new holiness, a new communion with God. Jesus announces a new lifestyle based on the Cross, self-sacrifice for the good of others. He is not speaking about self-punishment or self-mortification for a short period of time – like we tend to think or do with 40 days of “giving up things” – chocolates, movies, sweets. After the 40 days we think: I did that; It’s all over. The result is that we continue on in our loneliness and sadness. Jesus is speaking of beginning to walk the way to Easter by renouncing ourselves, that is to say what we build with our violence, vengeance, and selfishness. The way to Easter is through the Cross, through service.
Lent is a time to better our conversion to produce a deeper holiness of life in us. Rather than just repeating old customs or following a rule or giving up chocolates, Lent is a time to choose a new way, a new path, a new you. One simple free choice: life and prosperity or death and doom. The way to Easter, to life, to prosperity, to joy is through living united to the Cross.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?
Image: CANVA 22JAN2026 AI generated.