The Journey of Lent - II

By ancient liturgical custom, the Gospel passage for the First Sunday of Lent is always an account of our Lord’s desert experience, at the conclusion of which is the story of the temptations. The temptations’ account in the Synoptic Gospels always follows the story of His Baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Two of the accounts of the temptations, those by Saint Matthew (4:1-11) and by Saint Luke (4:1-13) are rather detailed and extensive, while that which we will hear in this year’s biblical cycle from Saint Mark (1:12-13) is very sparse, consisting of only two sentences and thus once verse. However, that verse does encapsulate the essence of the narrative: "The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert and He remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among the wild beasts and the angels ministered to Him."

Pope Benedict XVI remarks, "The First Sunday of Lent, known as the ‘Sunday of the Temptations’ because it presents Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, invites us to renew our definitive adherence to God, and , in order to remain faithful to Him, to face courageously the struggle that awaits us." The Holy Father goes on to say, "The temptations of Jesus can be understood as an acceptance and overcoming of the original temptation of Adam (Genesis 3:1-6). Being tempted is an essential part of His being a Man, part of His descent into fellowship with us, into the depth of our need. Temptations depicted in grand images reoccur concretely at particular stages in the life of Jesus (e.g. John 6:15; Mark 1:35-39; Mark 8:33; etc.). Thus, the temptation story summarizes the entire struggle of Jesus. It is about the nature of His mission, but at the same time it is also about the right ordering of human life, about the way to be human, about the way of history. Finally, it is about what is really important in the life of man. This ultimate thing, this decisive thing, is the primacy of God. The germ of all temptation is setting God aside, so that He seems to be a secondary concern when compared with all the urgent priorities of our lives. To consider ourselves, the needs and desires of the moment to be more important than He is, that is the temptation that always besets us. For in doing so, we deny God His divinity and we make ourselves, or rather the powers that threaten us, into our god."

From the earliest days of the Church, the accounts of the temptations, which always were assumed to have come to the Apostles from Jesus Himself, were seen to have been foreshadowed in the Old Testament. The Evangelists seem to see a strong connection between the action of the Holy Spirit Who came down upon Jesus at His Baptism and that same Spirit Who drove Him into the desert. All of this appears to be connected with the Spirit God at the creation (Genesis 1:2), Which moved over a mass of chaos to bring order through light and life, So, now in the New Testament the Holy Spirit impels Christ, the true Light and Life, to begin His sublime work to bring order out of the chaos of sin. Then at the start of humanity the first Adam was tempted and conquered by the Devil, while Jesus, the Second Adam and new Head of the human race, renews humanity by turning the situation around and conquering the Devil.

Also, there can be little doubt that the forty days of Jesus fasting in the desert constitute a clear reference to the forty years the Chosen People of the Old Covenant were required by Yahweh to wander in the desert (Numbers 14:26-35). It was in that desert that the ancient Chosen People were tempted and fell, but now Jesus, Who embodies the New Israel of God in His Person, turns that situation around, too. Then too, there is the remembrance that Moses fasted for forty days on Mount Sinai before he inaugurated the Old Covenant. So, now our divine Lord, the New Moses, Who brings to mankind the New Law, fasts for forty days before He establishes the New and Eternal Covenant.

There are innumerable lessons that can and have been taught and insinuated by the Gospel stories of our Savior’s temptations. There is, for instance, the obvious example given to us of how to deal with temptations by prompt and decisive opposition, or by fleeing from them. Our temptations sometimes come to us, like His in these episodes, from the Devil. However, we can also be tempted by the fallen world in which we live and by our own internal disorder and weakness coming from our sins. Although Jesus took on our fallen human nature and thus could be tempted as we are (Hebrews 4:15), He could not be tempted internally from the world and the flesh because of His sinless and divine perfection, but only externally, as He was, by the Fiend of hell. And, of course, He underwent those temptations for our sake: "For in that He Himself has suffered and has been tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted" (Hebrews 2:18).

Another lesson strongly implicit in these episodes is the startling fact that the Devil himself knows the Bible and can quote from it. Saint Matthew and Saint Luke depict the temptations as dispute between Bible scholars. Jesus refutes Satan’s interpretation of the Bible, demonstrating that, in order to be properly understood, Sacred Scripture requires an authoritative and infallible interpreter, with a wrong interpretation leading to spiritual disaster. The Bible is not a self-interpreting book and was never intended by God to be. This is why the Second Vatican Council says, "The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church (the Magisterium), whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ."

The principal emphasis of the temptation stories, however, appears twofold. First, to show that the messianic mission of Jesus, Who is the foretold obedient Servant of Yahweh, must initially involve, by God’s design and purpose, austerity, suffering, and death before any promised glory can arrive. Second, to show that the mission of Jesus is not some kind of terrestrial messianism, a satanic design to challenge God, to tempt God, and to rely on earthly values, earthly power, and worldly goals. Saints Mark and Matthew mention that angels ministered to Jesus after the temptations, a sign of His victory. But, Saint Luke tells us that after the temptations "the Devil left Him for a while". The Evil Lucifer returned often in the course of Christ’s life on earth (John 12:31; John 13:27; Luke 22:31; Luke 21:53, etc.) and to this day his evil temptations continue to afflict Christ’s followers. The annual journey of Lent is intended to equip us by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to have the courage and strength to use our Lord’s very words in our moments of temptation: "Begone, Satan! It is written the Lord your God alone shall you worship and Him alone shall you serve" (Matthew 4:10; Deuteronomy 6:13).