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February 16, 2018Yes, you must humbly return to God
and put an end to all the evil
that is done in your house.
- Job 22:23The First Sunday of Lent is called Temptation Sunday. Temptation is a test of our faithfulness and loyalty to God, whether arising from within one’s self, from other persons, the circumstances of life, the action of the devil or something else.
Each of us is tempted, not because we are evil, but because we are human. Temptation challenges us. But we can do as Jesus did, and overcome temptations by obeying God and rejecting the deceptions of selfish ambition and pride. Lent is a time to get our spiritual lives on track.
After Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit led him away to spend 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, where Satan tempted him. Jesus went through “a Lenten Journey” of sorts, in which he shows his complete dependence on his Father. The devil knows that Jesus is hungry and weary, and uses these ordinary longings for food and comfort to tempt Jesus away from the Father. We, too, journey in the desert, but we do not go alone. Jesus is with us in our battles and our struggles and our temptations.
The biblical desert means far more than a dry expanse of sand, stone and sagebrush. It represents the purification and spiritual passage that we all go through when we seek to live our our baptismal call to follow and serve God. The New Testament word “Satan” means “enemy” or “adversary,” a mysterious and malicious spirit that seeks to lure us away from God by exploiting our human weakness.
In the first temptation, Satan asked Jesus to prove he was the Son of God by turning stones into bread. Jesus, who surely was hungry, kept his focus on God. He told the devil that no one “lives by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”
In the second temptation, Satan asks Jesus to put his life on the line in order to prove his divinity, by throwing himself from the parapet of the Temple (with the expectation that angels will rescue him because of a biblical prophecy that the messiah would suffer no injury from stones). Jesus will put his life on the line, by obediently laying it down in the crucifixion, without angelic rescue. Jesus dies because he is the Son of God and remains obedient to his mission.
Even the devil can quote scripture well – but scripture can be twisted for evil purposes. That was what the devil was doing here, in trying to tempt Jesus away from his great mission. The Temple was the center of Israel’s life, its faith and its culture. To be atop the parapet meant to be at the top of society, admired and adored by all. Jesus, in his humanity, must have felt the temptation to fame on worldly terms. He could have performed miracles day and night and basked in adulation. Instead he chose to follow the path that led to our salvation, in which society came to view him as a persecuted, reviled criminal. It is through the Cross, his supreme sacrifice, that all of us were saved not from “a fall” but “the Fall.”
In the third temptation, the devil took Jesus to a high mountain and offered him power, prestige, wealth and domination. Satan told Jesus he could grab all the levers in the universe to be a political messiah and a worldly king. But Jesus is not some imperial or royal leader. He was termed a king by Pontius Pilate, not in a powerful worldly way, like Caesar, Hitler or Stalin. Jesus resisted being a worldly king, or a powerful, political operator or a miracle and stunt worker.
Instead, his mission is found in humility and service. Jesus would be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That is his mission, this is his identity, and this is what he is all about. Lent is the time to “ Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” Jesus wants each of us to set priorities in our lives, and we have to practice saying “No, No, No” to things that can get us off course.
In this season of Lent, let us reflect and ponder upon Jesus’ mighty works and acts. During this holy grace-filled time, let us fast from all that controls our life, so that God’s word may take precedence. Lent is a time to be led into the desert to rediscover the presence of God and to walk with Jesus in the landscape of our hearts. The desert is a place of purification, simplicity, austerity and solitude.
May these 40 days create a time of stillness in the midst of our busy lives to understand more fully what God calls us to be. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you to greater change, conversion and reconciliation, so that you grow in love and are set free to celebrate the joys of Easter!