Following Him Includes Sharing in His Passion

      The way of the wicked will perish.

Reflection on Today’s Readings, Thursday after Ash Wednesday, February 15th, 2024
Texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1:1-4,6; Luke 9:22-25 

Just a day into lent Jesus Christ reminds us that following Him includes sharing in His passion. He tells us that He is going to suffer many things, face rejection and be killed. He reminds us of following in His passion thus: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Jesus also affirms that following Him in His passion is the way of life. He puts it thus: “For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.” The life Jesus offers us is eternal life, not earthly life. Our real life is eternal life which we lose by rejecting Christ.  

Turning away from God is the way of death and evil

Moses, in today’s first reading, also tells us how to find eternal life. It is by obeying God’s commandments, loving Him, walking in His ways and keeping His statutes and ordinances. He says “Therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the  Lord your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days”.  

Turning away from God is the way of death and evil. Hence, Moses says, “But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you this day, that you shall perish; you shall not live long” 

The way of the wicked will perish

Today’s Psalm also continues with the theme of life and good, death and evil. It says, “Blessed indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the path with sinners, nor abides in the company of scorners, but whose delight is the law of the  Lord, and who ponders his law day and night.”

The Psalm tells us the lot of the wicked thus: Not so are the wicked, not so! For they, like winnowed chaff, shall be driven away by the wind. For the  Lord knows the way of the just, but the way of the wicked will perish.” 

The message, today, is that evil destroys those who do them while good makes its lovers. God tells us the outcomes of both good and evil to help us choose right. Whatever we choose we know what to expect. We are to choose the way that leads to life, that we may live. 

Prayer 

Prompt our actions with your inspiration, we pray, O Lord, and further them with your constant help, that all we do may always begin from you and by you be brought to completion. Amen  

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke