October 29, Ordinary 30A (Deuteronomy 34:1–12)
The nature of God’s judgment is not entirely clear. What has Moses done wrong?
I just returned home from a visit to my grandmother. Every visit seems like it might be my last. She is almost 97 but still lives by herself in a small New Hampshire town that averages 103 inches of snow each year. She has begrudgingly stopped mowing her own lawn, shoveling her front steps, and using a woodstove to heat her house. She has survived advanced skin cancer and reconstructive surgery, several ministrokes, a serious car accident, falls leading to broken bones, and, most devastating, the death of her husband and two children and the advancing dementia of another child.
As I read the story of Moses’ final moments and death, I see my grandmother.
The story is linked to the final stage of the Israelites’ wanderings in the desert. Moses climbs Mount Nebo and sees, for the first time, the land promised by God. God is with him, showing him the land, the end of the wanderings, the material promise of the Israelites’ covenant with God. But this is as close as Moses will ever get to the promised land: “I have let you see it with your eyes,” says God, “but you will not cross over into it.”
