Jesus Teaches Us To Rise Above Our Temptations In The Wilderness Of Our Lives
The liturgical readings for Lent always begin with the story of a temptation. So Jesus goes into the desert, there to be tempted by the devil. The devil always has one purpose and that is to is to move us off the path that leads to God and to order our desires in the direction of something other than God, so that the primary desire of our lives is something other than the creator.
So the devil confronts Jesus and he gives Him three basic temptations. The first one begins at the low level – the desert floor if you may; you’re kind of a basic level temptation – ‘turn these stones into bread.’ The temptation here is to make sensual pleasure the center of your life. Make the satisfaction of your bodily desires for food and for pleasures such as sex and for drink and other pleasures the center of your life.
Catholics aren’t puritans. Like all human beings, we like the pleasures of the body. We think they are good, they are God-given, but when they become dominant, they become the lord of your life then, your deepest desire for God isn’t realized and these desires become so pressing, we become like little children – I want it! I must have it! I need it! If you allow these desires to dominate you, they will take over your life. And so Jesus’ response to the devil is, “we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” In other words, we shouldn’t allow our lives to be reduced to this very restricted state. There is much more to our lives than that.
The devil then takes Jesus to a higher position – to the parapet of the temple. Now the temple in Jesus’ time would have been the very center of the society. It was the economic center; the political, the cultural and of course religious center of the society. So to be on the parapet of the temple, the high point of the temple, meant being on top of society where everyone can see you, everyone admires you, everyone looks up to you. This is now the temptation toward power, towards glory, and honor, and esteem – to be noticed and admired.
Some people can leave behind the low level temptations. They’re not really enslave to those desires. However, they want power and the quest for glory becomes the center of their lives. Jesus has to resist that temptation – His purpose was quite clear, “You must worship the Lord your God only. Him alone you must serve.” Very recently, I heard of a man who was offered a job promotion that would have given him a huge pay hike, lots of perks and the ability to travel all over the world; and he turned it down. He felt it would have disrupted his family life which he cherished and recognized – rightly so -as being more important.
Running out of options – you can almost sense the desperation – the devil leads Jesus to Jerusalem in a desperate move, and says to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you’, and: ‘With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
One of the names of the devil is the ‘great deceiver.’ He is trying to use one of the oldest tricks in the book – that of instilling doubt, which will then make the person do something they may not normally do. As I write this, I recall my very first encounter with alcohol. I was fourteen and was encouraged by adults to take a straight shot of brandy ‘if I am a man.’ Overcome by the first temptation, the young girl in relationship with someone who only wants one thing, is led to believe that she much give herself totally to this man, who will only dump her after he has used her. The young man from the ‘dysfunctional home’ is led to believe that he will have a sense of belonging when he joins a gang. The devil will always seek to use our weakness, our weakest circumstance to win us over, but trusting in God, we too must say, “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”
Jesus is now ready to be the Messiah having resisted these three temptations because now He has made God the clear center of his life. Now in Lent, that’s what we’re all doing. We are all meant to go into the desert. We are all meant as it were, to confront the devil – in other words all those temptations toward sensual pleasure, honor, glory. If we make those the center of your lives then we are not fit bearers of God’s presence. When however, you can rise above those three temptations, then you’re ready to do God’s work in the world.
And so, as we journey through this very holy season, we pray for the grace to shed all that is in us that seeks to deter us from God’s purpose on our lives.
