Deuteronomy 34:1-12
“Martin and Moses”
Deuteronomy 34 tells us how God shows Moses the promised land, but Moses doesn’t get there. We’re reminded of all Moses had done – how unequalled he was. Martin Luther King, Jr. had this passage in mind when he gave his final speech in Memphis…
We got some difficult days ahead,” Martin Luther King, Jr., told an overflowing crowd in Memphis, Tennessee, on 3 April 1968, where the city’s sanitation workers were striking. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land”
We must ask and answer the question every generation must face: Will we gaze into the rearview mirror, celebrating Martin and Moses, without realizing and accepting that their story has now passed on to us, or will we acknowledge that, like Joshua, hands have been laid upon us, and we are called to move forward as those who hear and do God’s purpose in the world? It’s not only about ME getting to the promised land, it’s about all of us arriving, and about inhabiting the land as those who honor God and one another.