Focal Passage: Deuteronomy 32:48-52; 34:4-7
Victor E. Frankl, a psychologist who survived a Nazi Death Camp, wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl tells of his observations of fellow prisoners during the atrocity of the Holocaust. Prisoners were given a minimal amount of food and water and ordered by guards to work under often violent and harsh conditions. When workers were not able to labor, they were simply murdered.
Frankl observed that prisoners could get along with little food and water, but they could not go on without hope. When prisoners lost hope that they would be rescued, it was only hours before they died. His conclusion: life has meaning even in suffering. When there is no hope, death is certain.
Deuteronomy 34 records the death of Moses.
The previous chapter gives us his last words to the assembly of Israel. Moses had been used by God to rescue the people from the oppression of the Egyptians and through the wilderness to the steps of the Promised Land. Verse 39 reminds us that God is the giver and taker of life and that even in death there is mercy.
Moses’ life is a reminder to us about the hope we have in Christ. Just as Moses found hope in God’s promise of deliverance, we can be assured that we have been delivered from the reality of sin. We know that when we face death, we do not face the end. In the cross we have forgiveness and in the resurrection we have eternal life.