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At that time I pleaded with the Lord: \u201cSovereign Lord, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do? Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan\u2014that fine hill country and Lebanon.\u201d But because of you the Lord was angry with me and would not listen to me. \u201cThat is enough,\u201d the Lord said. \u201cDo not speak to me anymore about this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah and look west and north and south and east. Look at the land with your own eyes, since you are not going to cross this Jordan. But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.\u201d So we stayed in the valley near Beth Peor. (Deuteronomy 3:23-29)

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Here at the end of chapter three, after Sihon and Og, the Kings of the Amorites have been defeated, Israel is ready to enter the promised land.\xa0 The anticipation is growing, and on this threshold between the wilderness and the promise, Moses prays.\xa0 God has shown him so much, will God not show him just a little more by allowing him to go over to see this good land for himself?

Moses already knew the answer, of course.\xa0 God tells him that this answer will not change.\xa0 However: God does grant half of Moses\u2019 request.\xa0 God will indeed allow him to \u201csee\u201d the promised land: "go look at the land with your own eyes,\u201d God says.\xa0 But Moses is not to confuse the land of God\u2019s promise with God himself.\xa0 God and God\u2019s word of promise will have to be enough for Moses.\xa0 This is as far as he will go.\xa0 It is the one named Joshua, meaning, \u201cthe Lord\u2019s Saves\u201d\u2014he is the one who will lead the people across to their inheritance.\xa0

One direction this devotion could go is to speak to all of us on the threshold of life transitions that force us to relinquish all that we still would wish to be and to do.\xa0 Getting married, having a baby, sending a child to school, graduating, starting a job or career, retiring, downsizing, contemplating death as Moses was\u2014all of these are just that sort of transition that entail a loss of some kind.\xa0 The question to us would be: in these transitions, is God enough for us?\xa0 What if it\u2019s just him and his promises and nothing more?\xa0 Can we let go and rest in the peace of God, trusting that that is enough for us?\xa0

Another direction this devotion could go is to recognize something curious about Moses himself.\xa0 One of the commentators we\u2019ve been following (Patrick Miller, Interpretation) does this, and I think it\u2019s worth a few words.\xa0 Moses says that it is \u201cbecause of you the Lord was angry with me and would not listen to me.\u201d\xa0 In the end, Moses also accepts this word from God.\xa0 In a strange way: Moses, the faithful servant of the Lord takes on the punishment for the people.\xa0 The people will enter the land. \xa0Moses will not\u2014and somehow that is because of their sin (as the book points out elsewhere too).\xa0

The suffering servant of Isaiah plays a similar role.\xa0 As does Jesus, who was the second Moses.\xa0 Here in Deuteronomy 3 then is Moses\u2019 Gethsemane prayer: praying for the cup to be taken away.\xa0 And yet in the end, Moses resigns himself to the will of God\u2014"not mine but yours be done.\u201d\xa0 Moses remains in the wilderness.

We as Christians\u2014\u201clittle Christs\u201d\u2014are also called into this priestly role as we follow our Saviour, Jesus.\xa0 We are called to bear the sins of the world and of our families, neighbours, and friends\u2014to accept slaps and slanders, persecution and whatever else. \xa0We are to bear it in our souls where all this evil and sin can be put to death in the death of Christ such that what comes back out of us in return is the life of Christ.\xa0 In this way we are priestly agents of God\u2019s transformation in the world: turning evil to good, sin to forgiveness, decay into hope.\xa0

What Gethsemane prayers might you need to lay before God in order to live this this priestly role faithfully today?\xa0

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