Temptations

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent

It has been several weeks since we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. However, it is important for us to remember what happened at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. The Gospel of Saint Luke records that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

John J. Pilch, a Scripture scholar who looks at the Scriptures from a cultural point of view, writes: “Every Mediterranean native knows what must and will happen next in Jesus’ life. Spirits will test him to determine whether the compliment is indeed true, and just in case it might be true, the spirits will try to make Jesus do something displeasing to God.”

Thus, we pick up the story of Jesus immediately after his baptism. Saint Luke tells us: “Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.” We hear this story on the First Sunday of Lent every year. Jesus is tempted by the devil while he spends time in the desert. Jesus is tested by the devil. Satan is deliberately trying to disprove what the voice from heaven said. He is trying to show us that Jesus is not the beloved Son of God.

We all know what temptation is. We have all experienced it. All temptations are an effort on the part of Satan to convince us that we, rather than God, are in control of our lives. However, the temptations that faced Jesus in the desert are not simply a matter of taking control of his life. The three temptations that Satan places before Jesus are the same three temptations which faced Israel as they spent time in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. As we all know, Israel failed those temptations. First, they experienced hunger, and they complained to Moses, “Why did you not let us sit by the fleshpots of Egypt? At least we would not have been hungry.” Next, Israel was frightened by the Egyptian army that Pharaoh had sent to pursue them. Again, they complained to Moses: “Were there no burial places in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Did we not tell you this in Egypt, when we said, ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? Far better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” After they had been rescued from Pharaoh and his army of charioteers, they were led to Mount Sinai. Moses climbed the heights of Mount Sinai and fasted for forty days. At the end of those forty days, God delivered his ten Commandments written on slabs of stone to Moses. The first of those commandments said that the Israelites were to worship their God alone. “You shall have no false gods before me.” When Moses came down the mountain, what did he find? The Israelites were worshiping a golden calf.

The temptations of Jesus in the desert are the same that the Israelites faced in the desert. Jesus was hungry. The devil tells him to change the stone into bread. Then the devil tempted Jesus with power over the forces of the world, forces that were very similar to the army of Pharaoh and his charioteers. All that power can be his if he will worship the devil. Finally, he tempts Jesus to test whether he really is the beloved Son of God. He asks Jesus to put God to the test by throwing himself off the parapet of the temple. In each instance, Jesus uses a quotation from the Book of Deuteronomy to put the Devil in his place, taking the words right out of the mouth of Moses who had led the Israelites out of Egypt.

Lent is a time for us to remember who we are and who our God is. What do we hunger for? What kinds of temptations do we experience to satisfy our hungers? How do we exercise power in our lives? Do we walk with our neighbors, or do we subjugate those who we determine are our enemies? How do we deal with pain in our lives? Do we get angry with God because we don’t deserve to be ravaged by the forces of nature or the diminishment of our aging bodies? Do we fail to worship God and God alone? Has something else taken God’s place in our lives? The answer to these questions will remind us that we are God’s children, the product of God’s creative genius, and that we are not in control.

Lent is about remembering what God has done for us. It is a time for us to prepare for the holiest of weeks in which we will remember the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus by which we were all saved. As Israel was commanded to remember what God had done for them, we are asked to remember that God is the one in control. The Church asks us to journey through Lent every year because the lessons we can learn by our observance of this forty days in the desert are some of the hardest lessons for us to accept.