For most of the cultures of Moses’ day, gods were either carved idols or beings very like humans but with divine attributes. In today’s Reading, Moses shows the people that our God is infinitely greater than anything anyone could create or imagine. He speaks of the majesty of God - the power of God - the signs and wonders worked by God to bring an enslaved people to freedom, ready to form a new consecrated nation - a priestly people.

When we sign ourselves with the Sign of the Cross, we speak of Father, Son and Spirit. Jesus spent much of His ministry encouraging people into a new, closer relationship with God as our Father. This intimacy and render relationship corrects the image some people have of a vengeful God eager to punish the slightest misdemeanour.

 

But Jesus did not intend to substitute a gentle and tender God for the God who brought the Israelites out from Egypt - and who led them through the desert. For Jesus, the compassion and tender care of God was simply another aspect of the love of God. The laws and commandments of God were not designed to limit His people but were to provide a framework in which His people could live in harmony and mutual respect and concern. To choose to live in accordance with such laws was to choose a lifestyle which would lead to life and to prosperity.

 

Even though we often fall short of the ideals we want to uphold, it does no harm to call them to mind from time to time - and to stand in awe and wonder that the God whose voice resounds “from one end of heaven to the other” is the same voice which speaks words of love in the depths of our beings.