Ezekiel 37/21-28

Fr. Tom Konopka
Mar 28
1 min read

In today’s reading from Ezekiel, we read about the promise of a new Exodus from the exile and a return to the Promised Land. These words of hope must have been like gold to those who had been exiled for years. Many had probably never been to Israel and only heard about it in the telling of the stories that formed the Scriptures we know. God promised them a land of plenty where there is plenty of food, no worry, a land of peace. The only thing that was asked of them: follow the demands of the covenant made at Sinai and renewed with them.

Jesus’s Cross will be sign of the new covenant for us promising us a “future full of hope” to quote Jeremiah. A future we call the Kingdom of Heaven. We live in the Kingdom, but it is not here completely. In the Lord’s Second Coming, he will bring us the fullness of the Promised Land. Like the ancient people, we are asked only one thing: to live out the demands of the covenant that was sealed with the Blood of the Cross. The mandates we find in the Gospel and summed up in the Great Commandment: We are to love God with everything we have and put him first. We are to love and care for our neighbor, no matter who they are. We to love ourselves and creations of Love itself and respect ourselves because of that.

As we enter into Holy Week, may the Cross be the North Star of our walk to the Promised Land of Heaven.

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