Palm Sunday: Old Testament, Deuteronomy 32:36-39                      

Deuteronomy 32:36-39

Toward the end of what, you may ask. Well, just a bit more toward the end of the Lenten season is my thought today. The days of Lent are long and in our hemisphere they are actually getting longer in terms of light. But as the days of our Lord’s earthly life came to its close, I tend to think He was aware of encroaching darkness. Do you sense the encroaching darkness of Lent? Do you, perhaps, sense the encroaching darkness of life around you? It is easy to see most days. It’s always an odd thought to ponder “seeing” the darkness. It’s something absent. Just as evil is not something of its own, but is the absence of good. So darkness is the absence of light.

In our passage today God is speaking through His man Moses. And God is recounting some of the failings of His people. Looking at false gods. Yearning for false gods. It’s a horrible path and its end is destruction. But God has not given up on His people. And the Lord is aware that His people have been led astray by others. Now He will speak as Moses declares, “For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants.

The Lord goes on to declare the impotence of the pretenders to his throne and his complete and utter adequacy. But please don’t miss that little word translated as “compassion” above. It’s a word in Hebrew that denotes the womb. That place of most tender care and warmth for the life that resides there. The foundation of compassion in the mind of our Lord is the mother’s womb.

His compassion for His people is always effective because its center is always the place of new life. Forgiveness, life, and salvation rooted in the womb. In the compassion of our God.

A couple weeks left in Lent. But compassion is abundant. Take your rest in it. All the way to Easter.