Happy Birthday, Dad

October 23rd would have been my father’s 75th birthday.  Now it marks 5 months since he died.  Eight months ago my siblings and I were already talking about what we would do for Dad’s birthday.  It would have been hard to top what we did for his 70th birthday when we surprised him with 2 parties and gave him his first Kindle.  We were looking forward to it – none of us dreamed he would be gone months later.
We make plans for the future daily, usually expecting that future to take shape just as we imagined it.  We can get frustrated, even angry when things don’t turn out the way we expected them to.  If we respond to the lesson from Deuteronomy this week (Deut. 34:1-12), which recounts the death of Moses, from this point of view, it seems logical to be disappointed for Moses as he doesn’t get to go into the Promised Land and angry at God for showing Moses what he will never have. 
However we have to remember that God never promises anything that God does not deliver.  God never promises Moses that he will enter into the Promised Land, only that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be given the land.  While Moses is one of those descendants, he is not the only one – the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
God does give Moses an awesome gift before his death, however.  Moses got to see the Promised Land not as it was in that moment, but what it would be like after it had been inhabited by God’s Chosen People. It is a vision of the promised future that fulfills Moses more than taking possession.  His work is complete and it is time for someone else to offer leadership.  Moses is given the blessed peace of death, moving from the vision of the Promised Land on earth into the reality as it is in heaven.
We never hear if Moses was disappointed by dying before he physically entered into the Promised Land, but I highly doubt it. It is just like my disappointment about not having my father here to celebrate his birthday is more about my missing him than his desire to have a party.  Both Moses and my father are in eternal glory. There is nothing on earth that can compare to that.
None of us are promised tomorrow.  We can plan for tomorrow, but we have to live for today. If we are truthful with ourselves, we have everything God as ever promised us right now, and nothing, not even death, can take it away.
In Christ,

Rev. Valerie+

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