At the beginning of Lent, the liturgy presents us with the story of Jesus’ first struggle, the story of the temptations, as an urgent invitation to enter into our own inner struggle.
The Gospel of Matthew recounts how, immediately after his baptism, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert. Matthew was undoubtedly thinking of the desert of Judea, where John the Baptist had preached. It was a remote place where one could live in solitude, sheltered from prying eyes. In Jesus’ time, a certain Jewish group, the Essenes, had withdrawn to this desert of Judea to assemble the faithful people of God. But Jesus did not withdraw to the desert to remain there. Jesus’ passage through the desert is meaningful only in relation to his public activity, which would take place among the people, travelling through their towns and villages.
Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert. According to Jewish tradition, Moses also spent 40 days in the desert, during which God miraculously fed him. Jesus, as a new Moses leading his people to liberation and true knowledge of God, fasts not as an ascetic practice to enable him to confront the devil, but to signify, like Moses, his attentive listening and complete submission to the Father’s will, from whom he expects everything.
Then the devil comes to tempt him, and it is a real temptation. It is not a question of testing Jesus to strengthen him. He wants to make him fall in a very concrete way: he wants him to abandon his vocation as an obedient Son.
Jesus is hungry. And that’s normal, because he is truly human! The devil then suggests that he overcome this difficulty in his own interest by using his authority as the Son of God, thus diverting him from his vocation as the obedient Son who relies exclusively on his Father.
Jesus does not respond directly to each temptation! He always responds using the Scriptures. This demonstrates the foundation of his attitude: he chooses to remain human, to remain a faithful Jew who relies on the Word of God. Thus, he can retort to the devil that man cannot live on bread alone.
In the second temptation, the devil proposes that Jesus perform a spectacular miracle, using his power as the Son for something the Father did not ask him to do. He wants Jesus to prove himself independent of his Father.
Jesus responds, again through the Scriptures, as an expression of his complete obedience. Jesus, while he is the Messiah, the Saviour, will not be so in an autonomous manner. He will follow his Father’s will in all things.
The third temptation is flawed at its root. The devil offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and yet the world does not belong to him. The world belongs to God alone, its creator. What the devil offers Jesus is his grip on the powers of this world, in contradiction to God’s original plan. The power that the devil offers is illusory because it is based on division, of which he is the master.
Jesus understands this temptation as a choice between a distorted form of power and filial service: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.’ Jesus radically assumes and constantly recalls his condition as a Servant.
Jesus is clear in his response to each temptation. There is no room for misunderstanding or ambiguity in his words or attitudes. He explicitly names the devil and dismisses him with authority: ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ It is an authority born of his humility and the freedom that comes from recognising that he is dependent on the Father.
The Spirit urges us today, at the beginning of Lent, to enter into the dynamic of the desert, to be silent within ourselves, and to listen to the will of the Father. For the desert fathers and in the tradition of the desert monks, the advantage of being in the desert was that the devil had nowhere to hide and could be seen from afar. This image still speaks to us today! This time of desert to which Lent invites us is also a privileged moment to see which and how temptations distract us from our primary vocation. With the noise and activity of everyday life, we may be unable to spot them. We may have become accustomed to a certain ambiguity in our attitudes or to inner discourses that comfort us within a realm of light and obscurity. The first temptation might speak to us of the desire to control and use material goods; the second, of the desire for fame or even to force God’s hand; the third, of the desire for power… What Jesus’ attitude shows us is that at the root of each temptation is the desire to separate us from the Father and turn us away from our filial vocation, which is to be servants who expect everything from Him.
Let us then ask for the grace of silence, truth and humility of one who places all his trust in the Lord alone and hopes everything from Him.
By: Gonzalo Martín Bartolomé, M.Afr.