Moses reminds his people that obeying the commandments and laws are not impossible, for the simple reason that motivation of a deep interior kind which involves the mind and heart is essential: "The Word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and your heart, for your observance." (v. 14)

This is easily forgotten in today's world where we are tempted to believe religiosity of a complicated kind is desirable. True it is that the Hymn in the Letter to the Colossians can seem mysterious - it is indeed the high point of Pauline Christology - but what it says is simply that in Jesus' unity with His father, God is fully revealed to us, and that the divine omnipotence, which fills the whole world and makes it cohesive, moves to establish peaceful relations with sinful humanity. This reconciliation is exclusively through Christ and His death on the cross.

In the Gospel story of the lawyer coming to Jesus to look for the secret to eternal life, Jesus does not give a "clever, mysterious" answer full of technical jargon. Rather, the lawyer is given a story in which he is shown how to respond well from the heart. No expert interpretation is required to see where this story points - that the Word of God lies "very near to you, in your mouth and your heart." The love of God lies in reaching out to the people who need it most. God is at the heart of our humanity, as the Letter to the Colossians points out.