Be Careful What You Sign

Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Readings

During night time road trips, I used to enjoy listening to Bruce Williams on talk radio. Bruce gave callers advice on investments, buying and selling real estates, building their careers, changing jobs, starting a business, travel, and a little bit of everything else. Once or twice a week someone would call who had gotten into a real jam. Someone had made a bad deal and wanted to get out of it. Someone was up to his eyeballs in debt and wanted to get out of it. Bruce would ask, "Did you sign anything?" The caller would say, "Yes, but blablablablablabla" and Bruce would ask "Did you sign anything? What did you sign? What did it say?" And the caller would say that he had signed something, but didn't read it first, or didn't notice that it said thus-and-so, or wasn't sure where the document was at the moment. Then Bruce would say, "You have fire in your fingertips! When you pick up a pen to sign something, you have power in your hand!"

Bruce was right, of course. Don;t sign up for something unless you read the fine print first. This is what Moses is telling the people in the First Reading.

Today you are making this agreement with the LORD: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statues, commandments and decrees, and to hearken to his voice. 

This is what we signed up for at Baptism, when we became members of God's holy people:

and you will be a people sacred to the LORD.

Sacred -- meaning cut off, set apart, not the same as other nations.

Jesus, the new Moses, has the same message: if you signed up to be children of your heavenly Father, and you act just like the tax collectors and  pagans, something is wrong. You're not keeping your part of the covenant.

Remember what you signed up for.

Thursday sfter Ash Wednesday

Readings

Moses gives the people two options: life or death. "Choose life," he says, "that you may live."
This is pretty black and white.
Then Jesus says, "choose the cross." The cross, which in his day had one meaning and one meaning only: death. Take up death each day.
Does Jesus contradict Moses?
Even when Moses said "choose life" he meant something more than everyday life. He was urging them to obey the commandments of God. But it's easy to observe that there are people who disregard and break the commandments of God -- maybe you know some of them -- and are still alive. Someone of them rather prosperous. Moses is not talking about mere biological life, but about the blessed life, long and happy, in the land God will give you.
Like Moses, Jesus is talking about life that is more than life. For the follower of Jesus, the word "life" has a new meaning: Jesus Christ. St. Paul saw this: "For me, life is Christ, and death is gain" (Phil 1:21). And St. John, too: "In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4).
Our definition of what it means to live is different. If you want to know what it looks like to be alive, you must look on Christ. On Christ as He now is, risen in glory. The wounds we made are still there, but no longer painful. To know what it means to live, we look on Christ who has suffered, died, and risen. 
This suggests that the life of the disciple is not complete yet. There is more suffering to do, more dying, before the day of glory. Much more Lent fasting to do, before the Easter feast. 
Choose life, says Moses. And Jesus says the same. Choose to let the false self die. Let me show you who you really are.