Day 76 – Deuteronomy 34, Psalm 64, Luke 22
On this day, the eve of Palm Sunday, and the most holy week of our year, we read of the end of two preparation journeys [Deuteronomy 34 &Luke 22]. These scriptures mark the end of the story begun in Exodus and the end of the God’s earthly incarnate mission to new and restored life through Jesus’ witness and passion.
I am reminded of Dennis R. Maynard’s imagery of the “Garden” and the “Jungle” as he describes Salvation History in his book “Those Episkopols.” [Chapter 7.] Maynard reminds us that we are created to live in a Garden, to tend it and keep it as paradise. But we struggle and fail and move out of the peaceful confines of the garden into the jungle. Salvation history is a collection of our ‘jungle’ stories and heroes like Moses who attempt to deliver us back. Finally in God’s steadfast love, God comes as God’s-self to offer ultimate deliverance.
In this final chapter of Deuteronomy, and as such the end of the Torah, Moses is taken to the top of Mount Nebo and God shows Moses the whole land. This is the land, “the Garden,” promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the land of promise to which Moses has delivered the captives of Israel, from their physical and spiritual bondage in the jungles, metaphorically speaking, of Egypt. A long journey of strife, struggle and renewal has spanned 40 years but God says, “There it is, Moses, the Garden lies before you!”
Moses has prepared the people to enter, but his physical presence doesn’t accompany them. The people know God’s word through him but must now take those words and direction to themselves. The Psalmist tell us in our psalm today: “Then everyone will fear, they will tell what God has brought about, and ponder what [God] has done.”
Our Gospel reading today marks the closing days of yet another phase, the final phase, of deliverance of God’s people from the ‘Jungle’ to the ‘Garden.’ More than Moses or any of the prophets, Jesus, God incarnate, shows us what living in the garden is really like. Jesus as the ultimate deliverer, provides us the ultimate model. In the Garden, we live free; we are healed from our infirmities, physical and spiritual; and love our neighbors as ourselves. In the Garden the chains of our past are broken; our parched bodies are refreshed; our blindness is removed and our eyes opened.
As Holy Week approaches, we will liturgically and hopefully in our deepest sense of spiritually, walk this ultimate deliverance path from our own personal ‘Jungles’ to the ‘Garden’ God holds open for us. Unlike Moses who is permitted only to see the Garden, Jesus, though he be removed from our earthly vision, is in the midst of the Garden – Jesus is the Garden!
I pray we can all walk the way of the cross this coming week, climb the mounts of Nebo and Calvary recognizing the ‘Gardens,’ to which God beckons us to return.
The Ven. Thomas A. Bruttell
Archdeacon for Transitional Ministry
Diocese of Southeast Florida
On this day, the eve of Palm Sunday, and the most holy week of our year, we read of the end of two preparation journeys [Deuteronomy 34 &Luke 22]. These scriptures mark the end of the story begun in Exodus and the end of the God’s earthly incarnate mission to new and restored life through Jesus’ witness and passion.
I am reminded of Dennis R. Maynard’s imagery of the “Garden” and the “Jungle” as he describes Salvation History in his book “Those Episkopols.” [Chapter 7.] Maynard reminds us that we are created to live in a Garden, to tend it and keep it as paradise. But we struggle and fail and move out of the peaceful confines of the garden into the jungle. Salvation history is a collection of our ‘jungle’ stories and heroes like Moses who attempt to deliver us back. Finally in God’s steadfast love, God comes as God’s-self to offer ultimate deliverance.
In this final chapter of Deuteronomy, and as such the end of the Torah, Moses is taken to the top of Mount Nebo and God shows Moses the whole land. This is the land, “the Garden,” promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the land of promise to which Moses has delivered the captives of Israel, from their physical and spiritual bondage in the jungles, metaphorically speaking, of Egypt. A long journey of strife, struggle and renewal has spanned 40 years but God says, “There it is, Moses, the Garden lies before you!”
Moses has prepared the people to enter, but his physical presence doesn’t accompany them. The people know God’s word through him but must now take those words and direction to themselves. The Psalmist tell us in our psalm today: “Then everyone will fear, they will tell what God has brought about, and ponder what [God] has done.”
Our Gospel reading today marks the closing days of yet another phase, the final phase, of deliverance of God’s people from the ‘Jungle’ to the ‘Garden.’ More than Moses or any of the prophets, Jesus, God incarnate, shows us what living in the garden is really like. Jesus as the ultimate deliverer, provides us the ultimate model. In the Garden, we live free; we are healed from our infirmities, physical and spiritual; and love our neighbors as ourselves. In the Garden the chains of our past are broken; our parched bodies are refreshed; our blindness is removed and our eyes opened.
As Holy Week approaches, we will liturgically and hopefully in our deepest sense of spiritually, walk this ultimate deliverance path from our own personal ‘Jungles’ to the ‘Garden’ God holds open for us. Unlike Moses who is permitted only to see the Garden, Jesus, though he be removed from our earthly vision, is in the midst of the Garden – Jesus is the Garden!
I pray we can all walk the way of the cross this coming week, climb the mounts of Nebo and Calvary recognizing the ‘Gardens,’ to which God beckons us to return.
The Ven. Thomas A. Bruttell
Archdeacon for Transitional Ministry
Diocese of Southeast Florida
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