Choosing Life or Death—A Meditation on Deuteronomy 30

Choosing between life and death, seems the easiest and most natural thing that we do every day.  I choose to get out of bed, to go to work, to eat meals, to tend to my house and family, to relax in the evening, and go to sleep when I’m tired.  I choose to breathe, to walk, to talk, to love, to fight, to make peace, to make war… all those things that go with being alive.  I choose what to think about, and what to ignore, what to remember and what to forget.  Choosing to live versus choosing to die, should be natural and easy for me—completely rational, and obvious to every human being on the planet.

So if choosing life is so easy and natural, why am I surrounded by death?  Why do neighbors murder neighbors, or even members of their own families?  Why do nations rage against each other, or even within themselves, spilling the blood of countless thousands?  Why do mothers and fathers murder their children, or children murder each other on school yards?  If choosing life is natural and easy for me, why is it so hard for everyone else?

But is it really so easy for me?  When I rise to meet the day, would I rather not be lazy and stay in bed?  When I go to work, do I grumble about it, and then do as little as I can for the money I receive?  When I eat my food, do I eat what is good for me and contributes to health, or do I gluttonously gorge on things I ought not… or perhaps rather starve myself in a vain pursuit of beauty?  Do I tend to my home and family as I ought, or do I only give them the time that I scrape together between my other endeavors?  Do I make peace when I should fight for truth, or make war when I should pursue reconciliation?  Do I butcher love into self serving debauchery, and take it from those to whom I owe it?  Do I use my reason and will to ponder and pursue the good, or rather, do I waste my mind on frivolity and vanity, chasing the illusions of fancy?

Ah, there’s the rub.  In reality, choosing life is not so natural nor easy for me.  For me, choosing death and destruction is my default setting—as it is for the whole human race.  My broken, deformed, and fallen human nature has lost its inclination to life, and rather pursues the wide and easy path to destruction.  Why do the nations rage, and the peoples imagine vain things?  Because they are filled by people just like me.

Into this darkness of our own making, comes light and hope.  As Moses’ eyes begin to dim, and God tells him that his death is near, Moses once again sets the Word of the Lord before the people, calling them to choose life rather than death.  Where the people were lost in their own trespasses and sins, inclined to every kind of evil under the sun, Moses calls them to hear a different voice, and follow a different path.  The words of men emerge from their own broken hearts, but the Word of God shines forth from the Author of Life Himself.  To hear and remain in His Word, is to choose life—to hear and believe His Word, is to live, rather than die.

And yet, even to those whom the Word of God came, there was struggle and strife.  The broken and fallen nature of man, even when it hears the Word of Life, wrestles against itself in the war for the soul.  God calls everyone to life and salvation, because He does not desire the death of even a single person—but every person on this globe is hell bent on destroying themselves, with the poison of the evil one coursing through their veins.  So for us, who have heard the Word of God and yet struggle to keep it, who know the Law and the Gospel and fail to persevere in it, who can see the divergent paths of Life and Death yet battle to set our feet upon them—what hope is there for us?  We who feel the war of good versus evil raging in our own person, tearing at our minds and blistering our flesh; we who by the mercy of God have become at the same moment both sinner and saint, an old and new creation battling for dominance in the vaults of our own soul; what is our hope in such a war as this?  What is our deliverance from the suffering and death we know comes so easy to our thoughts, words, and deeds?  Who shall deliver us from this body of sin and death?

Thanks be to God, it is Jesus Christ, our Lord!  When we cannot keep the Word God has spoken to us, Jesus as the very Word Made Flesh comes to dwell among us, full of grace and truth.  When we can only see the heavenly city by revelation even as well fall by own hands into the pit of hell, Jesus comes to seek and to save we who are lost.  Naked, blind, poor and dying are we, and yet Jesus comes to us with healing, forgiveness, and life eternal.  In the light of His Divine Word we see and acknowledge our just penance of eternal death for the wickedness and twisted evil that we are, but Jesus comes to take our justice upon Himself, so that He might speak His Word of grace and peace to us through His shed Blood and broken Body.

How is it, that we choose Life rather than Death?  Of our own, we could not make such a choice—but thanks be to God, that in Jesus Christ, He has chosen Life for us!  As Jesus said to His disciples, they did not choose Him, but He chose them—and so He has chosen us.  Jesus has chosen Life for us, and paid the penalty of eternal suffering and death owed by every man, woman, and child that has ever lived, and shall ever live.  Through His Cross, He has defeated death, destroyed hell, bound the devil, and opened the gates of the Heavenly City to all who will receive Him.

Jesus has chosen life for us, called us out of the world to be His own, and to live forever, forgiven and free.  In this Life He has given to us, which is His own eternal Life, He sends us forth to breathe this Word of Faith and Repentance to all who will hear and believe.  Jesus is the Word in whom we abide, the path of Life and hope and peace—and it is the Word of Jesus that abides in us, welling up to eternal Life, and a hope that shall not disappoint.  In the midst of all this suffering and pain, of evil rising and death sweeping over both ourselves and our world, we hear our Risen Lord speak His Word of Life to us:  “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”  Be at peace, and remain in Him by faith in His Word, that His grace may overflow upon and within you.  By the power of His Gospel come to you, choose Life, and let death and the devil flee.  Amen.