+ Today we speak of the temptations of Jesus, which have a two-fold purpose: for Jesus: to clarify his mission for himself; and to make clear that what he does he does always “for us and for our salvation.” And so he is tempted in three major categories of pleasure, prestige and power, so that when we are tempted in similar ways he can indeed sympathize with us and give us abundant grace and help to deal with it. But before we even consider the temptations let us first consider the setting:
- chronologically,
Jesus had just been baptized by John in the Jordan the day before; he is marked
out then and there for great things, and the favor of God, and his special
relationship with God is pointed out, with the instruction for all of us to pay
careful attention to Jesus from that moment on “Listen to Him!”;
- next, it is
the Holy Spirit, the same one who descended on Jesus at his Baptism (the very
love between the Father and the Son) who leads Jesus into the desert for this
forty-day period, of silence, solitude and stillness, which ended in great temptation:
why would he do that? why would God lead God into human temptation? – because
of free-will – Jesus, as one of us, humans, has to freely choose to be our
Redeemer and Savior – or “it wouldn’t take” – and the whole project would have
been ill-fated!
- lastly, the
temptations come at the end of the forty days; but the entire time was spent by
Jesus wrestling with the forces of darkness, as we ourselves often do, in the darkness
of our nights, and the terrors of our days – and he did not eat – and the
phantoms and the terrors must have become more and more real and upsetting to
him as time went on…
and so, at the end of the
six-week period Jesus, already worn out by physical and spiritual warfare, has
three more encounters to endure:
and Satan tempts him in three ways
trying to divert him from his mission, from his goal, from the Cross by
offering him easy way outs to the challenges set before him – and it comes down
to an exchange of extremely important words
that saves the day, dismisses Satan and summons angels to minister to
Jesus:
when
Satan makes truly tempting but hollow and godless offers to Jesus: he counters
them by the use of Scripture (Old Testament Scripture) which Jesus had at the
tip of his tongue: “One does not live on bread alone.” “You shall worship the
Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.” and when even Satan quotes
Scripture in one last-ditch attempt to capture his prey, Jesus asserts the one
true reality: YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE
LORD, YOUR GOD, TO THE TEST.
at that point the devil left Jesus for a time (but yes
he would be back – he always comes back to tempt the Lord and his flock) but
Jesus has just taught us three great lesson here:
- no one will deter me from my mission (nor should they us)
- the word of God has the power to save one from the wiles
of Satan
- I am the Word of
God – I am near you – I am IN YOU, listen to me, believe in me, learn my
words, memorize them as I did the Scriptures of old, and you will always be
safe from any attack that could come (just as I was); and you will be secure
and well taken care of!
O
Lord, as you were with our Fathers when they were in the
wilderness, as you were with Jesus in his time in the desert, be also with us
in our Lenten journey from confusion and darkness to truth, light and JOY!
The victory will be yours –
you will reign – and we will reign with you - this we believe!
Amen!
