Weekly Bible Study - Exodus 20:1-17

Sunday March 8, 2015
3rd Sunday of Lent 

The Ten Commandments. We’ve heard them, learned them and recited them. We’ve even (maybe) broken them and ignored them! Can we sift through this all-too-familiar list and somehow discover a merciful and loving God? Today’s first reading offers us an opportunity to view the commandments in a wider context.

God prefaces his list by telling us first and foremost that he is their God, the one they know and who has loved them and freed them. Yahweh is a God of liberation.

Indeed, God has rescued all of us from the bondage of our frailty. His voice is our authority, but as a loving Father his mercy extends to the “thousandth generation” (for all time and for everyone).

We also hear in this account that God is a jealous God, protective of his wayward sons and daughters as a mother defends her children. He desires that his children embrace his law of love rather than the empty allurements and false values of their idols.

As we examine that familiar list, we see a generous God. He invites his people to take pleasure in his holy day, to enjoy the gifts and restfulness of the Sabbath, and for one day put aside their worldly concerns. Our God values life, its procreation and protection by honoring and blessing parents, his primary lifegivers. He knows human nature so well that he offers us ways to free us from our slavery to sinfulness, to safeguard our behaviors and make the best of our relationships.

It is not the image of a vengeful God, one who exacts punishment, we take from this account. It is rather, a God who created a people he could lovingly guide along their journey to salvation, make of them a great and holy nation, call them his own and ask only for their reverence and fidelity.