“My father was a wandering Aramean…” Dt 26:2
In today's Old Testament reading, Moses instructs the Israelites to always remember and retell their story when bringing an offering to the temple. The Jewish people came from humble beginnings, descended from a "wandering Aramean," yet they had been chosen by God to be a great nation. When they were persecuted and oppressed, God Himself came to their aid and delivered them. They remembered all these things, and offered praise and thanksgiving to the Lord.
Now, we as Christians have been grafted into this family, and the story of the Israelites has become our own story. What does it mean to be called and chosen as children of the Most High God? St. Paul knows what it means. He is a learned scholar of the Law, once a persecutor of the Christians himself. Now, called by Jesus to be an apostle of the Good News, he prays for his beloved people who do not yet believe.
It was to them that the Law was given, to them that the Messiah was promised, but now that Christ has come, they do not know him. They have focused for too long on the "works of the Law," and fail to see the Lawgiver among them. Citing the Scriptures, Paul urges them to open their hearts to believe in Jesus Christ. He prays for them, that they might not lose their inheritance in Christ.
How blessed we are, as Christians, to share in this rich spiritual heritage. Adopted into a family whose roots reach back thousands of years, we have inherited the richness of the Old Testament stories and prophecies, brought to fulfillment in the new. We have a blessed obligation to explore that heritage with the wisdom and understanding God gives us and the guidance of the Church.
This Lent, a good resolution might be to read, study, and pray with Scripture each day, so that we might better understand the connection between that old Jewish story of deliverance from captivity and the new Christian story of deliverance from sin. If we know and remember our past, we too can pass on the story of our salvation to our children, leaving them the greatest legacy of all – the inheritance of faith in Jesus Christ.
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