Mar 11, 2013
Isaiah
43:16-21
Psalms 126:1-6
Philippians 3:8-14
John 8:1-11
The Liturgy this Lent has shown us the God of the Exodus. He is a
mighty and gracious God, Who out of faithfulness to His covenant
has done "great things" for His people, as today's Psalm puts
it.
But the "things of long ago," Isaiah tells us in today's First
Reading, are nothing compared to the "something new" that He will
do in the future.
Today's First Reading and Psalm look back to the marvelous deeds of
the Exodus. Both see in the Exodus a pattern and prophecy of the
future, when God will restore the fortunes of His people fallen in
sin. The readings today look forward to a still greater Exodus,
when God will gather in the exiled tribes of Israel which had been
scattered to the four winds, the ends of the earth.
The new Exodus that Israel waited and hoped for has come in the
death and resurrection of Jesus. Like the adulterous woman in
today's Gospel, all have been spared by the Lord's compassion. All
have heard His words of forgiveness, His urging to repentance, to
be sinners no more. Like Paul in today's Epistle, Christ has taken
possession of every one, claimed each as a child of our heavenly
Father.
In the Church, God has formed a people for Himself to announce His
praise, just as Isaiah said He would. And as Isaiah promised, He
has given His "chosen people" living waters to drink in the desert
wastelands of the world (see John
7:37-39).
But our God is ever a God of the future, not of the past. We are to
live with hopeful hearts, "forgetting what lies behind but
straining forward to what lies ahead," as Paul tells us. His
salvation, Paul says, is power in the present, "the power of His
resurrection."
We are to live awaiting a still greater and final Exodus, pursuing
"the goal, the prize of God's upward calling," striving in faith to
attain the last new thing God promises - "the resurrection of the
dead."
A 'New' Exodus
Israel's
Exodus from Egypt is in the background of every reading in this
month's Liturgy of the Word.
The Exodus convinced the Israelites that they were God's chosen
people. What other people could boast that God had personally
delivered them in their time of trial (see
Exodus 15:11-16)?
Later in its history, when Israel through sin had fallen into
captivity and exile, the prophets predicted a "new Exodus," led by
a Messiah, a new Moses who would restore them once more as a holy
kingdom (see
Isaiah 10:25-27;
11:15-16;
51:9-11). This new Exodus, Jeremiah predicted, would
mark the start of a "New Covenant" (see
Jeremiah 23:7-8;
31:31-33).
In the readings for the Second Sunday in Lent (Cycle C), we see
Jesus as the hoped-for new Moses, liberating God's people from the
last enemy - sin and death - and bringing them into the promised
land of heaven. And as Paul says in the Epistle for the Third
Sunday, the events of Exodus - the Red Sea crossing, the manna from
heaven, the water from the rock - were signs of the Church's
sacraments.