(Audio)
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
We are called to choose life. But it is a higher life than simply a good life on this world.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
Here we have a paradox. God does want us to find life. But he wants us to find true life, not simply life consisting in the passing things of this world.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?
The path to true life is the way of the cross. It is no wonder, then, that we must be told to prefer it. It is not the sort of thing we pursue instinctually or out of self interest. And yet it is more truly and genuinely life than anything else to which we might give that name. The cross as a choice seems like a negation. It seems like choosing against many things. But God is telling us that choosing to follow Jesus with our crosses means life for us, just as it did for him. He is giving us the recipe to make sense of ever suffering we endure or encounter. We can do more than simply grit our teeth and endure stoically. In every hardship we can decide to consciously prefer the eternal life of the Kingdom of God.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
Every commandment in its own way teaches us not to set too much stake in fading treasures of earth. Each one is finally about loving and preferring God and his ways, but not arbitrarily. We do this because this is why we were made. In it is the only permanence that can be found, the only stability that can be sought. It is this choice of life alone that can fulfill the human heart.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season
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