Posted on March 23, 2025 View all Gospel Reflection
“Why should it exhaust the soil?” (Luke 13:7b)
This week in our Lenten journey we focus on the role of Moses in salvation history, the response of the people of Israel and also are invited to reflect on our own response to the invitation by Jesus to follow him on the road to heaven.
In our first reading we see Moses tending the flock of his father-in-law, leading the sheep across the desert when he encountered the burning bush. Earlier in Lent we reflected on the covenant that God made with Abraham, and this week we look at Moses. When we think of Moses we remember how his life was spared when his mother put him in the basket and he was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter. Even further, his own mother was selected (unknown to (Pharaoh’s daughter) to raise him as an infant. With such divine intervention, one might begin to think that God’s plan for the deliverance of the people of Israel was that Moses would influence Pharaoh from within his place at the royal palace. But we know that Moses temper got the best of him when he killed the Egyptian overseer when he was mistreating one of the Jewish slave workers. (Exodus 2:12) When it was found out, Moses fled into the desert.
But God is persistent in his covenant. He sought out Moses and revealed His divine presence to Moses in the burning bush. What is especially important about this encounter is that not only did God seek out Moses, but that he revealed his divine name to him. “I am who am.” (Exodus 3:14) It is important to note that for the Hebrews, the “name” of someone designated the essence of being of who that person was. It was not just a phonetic unit used as his or her label. When God revealed himself to Moses, he revealed that he is the One God, the God of the Present, the Past and the Future. He is the one who exists of himself and is the source of existence for all other beings.
What is even more important is that this God has selected Moses, an ill-tempered person to then be his instrument of salvation for the chosen people. The Psalm reminds us of this mercy when it declares “The Lord secures justice and the rights of all the oppressed. He has made known his ways to Moses, and his deeds to the children of Israel.” (Psalm 103:6-7)
St. Paul takes this a step further when he writes that “our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all of them were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” (1 Cor. 10:1) Jesus in today’s Gospel invites us to reflect on the great mercy that God would like to bestow upon us. Yet sometimes we are like the fig tree, we yield no fruits — we exhaust the soil. Yet Christ desires to cultivate and nourish us. This time of Lent is precisely the time when Christ seeks to prune away those things that lead us into sin and death. He nourishes and feeds us with his very Body and Blood through the Eucharist. He then says to leave the fig for another year so that it might bear fruit. If not you can cut it down. (cf. Luke 13:9)
Jesus comes to pay the price for our sins. He comes to strengthen us in his grace through the sacraments. He intercedes for us before the Father. He does this so that we might receive the gift of eternal life. Let us therefore be open to his grace, strength and healing so that we might bear fruit in this life and thus receive eternal life.
