460th Meditation
“You then brought Your people out of Egypt with a strong hand and led them into the wilderness with signs and wonders. On the mountain You revealed to Your servant Moses the commandments that had been obscured in the hearts of the peoples” (Praise of the Blessed Trinity).
The darkness into which human beings had plunged since the fall into sin made it necessary for our Father to isolate His people from the pagan nations in order to teach them the way to true life. The commandments that God had inscribed in the hearts of people had become obscured and were no longer sufficient to enlighten them. They had been forgotten, and people were in constant danger of succumbing to their passions and errors and being deceived by the powers of darkness. Instead of the Creator, they worshipped the creature. They made their own gods and bowed down to them, living in ignorance.
Through Moses, God led His people through the desert and revealed to them His holy law. He gave them the commandments engraved on stone so that the people would know once and for all what they must do to live in peace and unity with their God, our Father, and thus live in truth.
In the desert, our Father sealed a covenant with His people, and they had to decide whether they would choose God and with Him true life, or whether they would choose death: “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil” (Deut. 30:15).
Israel said yes to the covenant with God and thus chose life.
What happened to Israel in the desert is still valid today: Whoever chooses to keep God’s holy commandments chooses God and therefore chooses life. On the other hand, if someone does not want to keep them – and therefore does not love God – true life is extinguished in that person and, as the Apostle John puts it, he remains in death (1 Jn 3:14).
The Covenant that our Father, in His unbreakable faithfulness, sealed with His people, prepared the New Covenant that God, when the time was fulfilled, sealed with all the peoples of the earth through the blood of His Son (Heb. 9:26). This New Covenant is offered to all mankind so that they may find salvation in Jesus Christ.