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These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan\u2014that is, in the Arabah\u2014opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab. (It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.) In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded him concerning them. This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, and at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth. East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab, Moses began to expound this law\u2026 (Deuteronomy 1:1-5)

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Today we begin a new chapter in our wanderings, heading back to the wilderness.\xa0 We\u2019ll be running through the book of Deuteronomy in anticipation of the season of Lent, which will focus on the Jewish festivals.\xa0 We think Deuteronomy will be a fitting companion to our worship.\xa0

More than that though, there is perhaps no book in the Old Testament that has more direct connections with the rest of the Old Testament or what will come later in the New Testament than this book.\xa0 It is important background to the whole of the Christian faith that follows.\xa0 Jesus, Paul, and the other New Testament writers and actors all rooted their faith and many of their words and actions right here in this book.\xa0

So, what is the book of Deuteronomy all about?\xa0 Firstly, this book is located squarely in the \u201cArabah\u201d of \u201cMoab,\u201d East of the Jordan and just outside the promised land.\xa0 The final verse of the book of Numbers gives a more familiar term for this place: \u201cthe plains of Moab.\u201d\xa0

What is this place?\xa0 It\u2019s the borderlands: the place in between the wilderness and the promised land, the place in between the past and the future, between death and life, between wandering and homecoming.\xa0 The people have been \u201cborn\u201d out of bondage by their crossing through the waters of the Red Sea, but they have not yet been \u201cborn again\u201d through the waters of the Jordan into the land of God\u2019s promise.\xa0 Jesus\u2019 own teaching very much took place in the same \u201cborderlands\u201d between past and future, between Old Testament and New, between Law and Grace, that is: between being \u201cborn\u201d and being \u201cborn again.\u201d \xa0This is why Jesus chastises Nicodemus in John 3 for not understanding the time and place that had come upon him: \u201cYou are Israel\u2019s teacher\u2026 and do you not understand these things?\u201d

In our own lives, we continue to find ourselves in the borderlands.\xa0 We live between Jesus\u2019 first and second coming.\xa0 We\u2019ve received all the promises of the Kingdom of God and even parts of it\u2019s reality through forgiveness and the outpouring of the Spirit, but we\u2019ve not yet stepped foot into the New Heavens and the New Earth where everything we know is set right and made well.\xa0 More specifically, we face all sorts of in-between time realities.\xa0 Culture is shifting under our feet and the post-pandemic world is still taking shape: we do not yet know what our future will be like.

Secondly: the title of the book of Deuteronomy in Hebrew is \u201cThese are the words.\u201d\xa0 These are the words spoken into this borderland time between past and future.\xa0 These are words that recall the past and give the reasons for living hopefully and purposefully into a future given, shaped, and commanded by God.\xa0 These are the words of promise, of warning, of encouragement, of covenant, of law.\xa0

As relevant as these words were for the Israelites back then, they remain so for us in the church today reminding us that our journey with God is more than just what we face in the borderlands of the present moment: our journey is anchored in a God-saturated past and lived in hope for an abundantly good and fruitful God-guaranteed future.

These are therefore, the words that will guide us into the season of Lent, even as they guided Jesus and his disciples along their journey with him to the cross, empty tomb, ascension, and outpouring of the Spirit.

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