Desert - the reminder to Choose!

THE WORD IN LENT - Thursday after Ash Wednesday

February 15, 2024: Deuteronomy 30: 15-20; Luke 9: 22-25

Through the desert, God leads us to freedom! The desert here is that experience when we are faced with a choice to make, a decisive radical choice. Behold, I place before you death and life, disaster and prosperity, the people are told today in the first reading. What is life and prosperity all about - obeying the commands of the Lord; and death and disaster is wantonly choosing what does not lead you towards true progress, towards freedom. 

Pope Francis in the lenten message draws our attention to the tendency of the people to be lost in nostalgia of their past, knowing well how enslaving and demeaning it was. They were crying out when they were there, but now they wished to go back. The reason, because they found challenges and difficulties, hurdles and hardships here on their way to freedom. The analogy is clear: the way to freedom, to perfection, is filled with tough and trying moments. The Lord invites us to it, leads us through it but will never force us into it. The choice is ours!

The desert is obviously a hard plain, a difficult terrain, a lonesome place... but the Lord never abandons us provided we choose the Lord; that is, choose to journey through the desert to freedom. There could be other choices: one to get back to the old ways, which is giving up; the other is to compromise with the ways of the desert, make of it a comfort zone, make friends with the situation here, which Jesus calls us today to renounce! The choice to walk through the desert is, taking up the Cross, but let us not be faint: we called only to follow, which means we are not alone, we are not the only ones! The Lord has walked before us, and we shall follow him. 

What difference would it make to our lives if we were to go back - that is, choose the so-called ways of the world and get lost in the crowd, following the fad of the day? What would we have achieved if we run mad after the craze of power, popularity and possession that would in fact take us far, but only far from true life! The desert reminds us to make a choice, a choice for the Lord, a choice for the ways of the Lord, the choice for the Cross... and we shall walk secure in freedom towards freedom!