I love the book of Deuteronomy. It is such a personal and hope filled work. Deuteronomy presents itself as a letter from Moses to his people. They have already escaped from Egypt and their forty years of journeying in the desert have come to an end. The Hebrew people now stand just outside the land of Canaan, their homeland, their promised land. As they stand upon the mountains and look upon their home, there is joy but there is also a twinge of sadness. Moses is dying. He will not make it home. His final act is to write a letter to his people that he has journeyed with for a lifetime.
Moses says to them, the Lord your God has taken you out of the land of slavery and is giving your freedom. Use it well. Live peacefully with one another, love the stranger in your midst, and love the Lord, who gave you freedom, even above your own life. Do these things and you will know peace forever and every nation on Earth will come to you and follow you. It was, it is, a beautiful message. And when Moses wrote it, he knew it would never happen. He knew the Hebrews were a fickle people who would never be faithful to God. Only a few days outside of Egypt, where they had been slaves for 400 years, they began worshiping a foreign God. Despite the best of intentions, they just couldn’t be good; they had to sin. And Moses loved them anyway; because, that is what love does. It loves no matter the barriers or problems. Even confronted by the certainty of failure, love still has hope and it pours itself out again and again.
Many of you probably experienced this with your children. You tell them not to do something because you are certain that that way leads to misery. Even as you speak the words you know they will ignore you, their minds are made up. They will make the wrong choice and suffer the consequences. But you say it anyway, because that is what love does. It hopes even when faced with the certainty of failure.
That is how God loves us all. He knows what we will do. For God all of history, past, present, and future, is a single moment. He knows that we will fail, that we will abandon him, and mistreat the people around us. Still, he gives us his sacraments and grace. He tells us his laws that will lead us to eternal bliss. He even answers our prayers. Because that is what love does. Love is blind to outcomes because it will offer itself regardless. Love has hope even when hope is irrational.
Love is certain that eventually it will win. That if it continues to pour itself out into a life, it will break down every barrier and convert every heart. God loves us like this, Moses loved his people like this, and we all need to learn to love in the same way.