Luke 4:1-12
Dear Friends, We began our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday with the command, “Repent, and believe in the Good News.” Lent, we need to remember, is a time to enter within, to examine the hidden depths of our heart. As we enter more deeply within, we will find our brokenness but also a real possibility of peace. Even more, we will discover God’s mercy in abundant supply. The challenge of Lent urges us to free our heart, our mind and our life to grapple with the great truth of our faith, Jesus Christ Crucified and Jesus Christ Risen. These six weeks of repentance and reflection need to lead us to celebrate the Pascal Mystery. Lent prepares us for the most solemn holy days of the Triduum at the end of Holy Week.On this first Sunday of Lent, we have the story of Jesus’ temptations. In the story, we have echoes of the temptation of our parents in the Garden and the rebellious followers of Moses in the desert. Contrary to these earlier victories of Satan, Jesus is the victor this time.
The temptations all come down to what kind of Messiah Jesus was going to be. The devil offered an attractive expression of a leader who would save the world with the values of the world: personal power, military and political might and wonder-working aimed at enthralling the masses. Jesus would achieve personal prestige, wealth, and control in the extreme. Jesus chose a different path, service and love over possessions and celebrity. Jesus elected to simply share our humanity. This exposed him to all the consequences of being faithful to God in a sinful and unfair world. This would lead to a suffering Messiah, a Messiah of humility and selflessness, not power and privilege. Jesus chose his way of leadership and the power of weakness that was revealed in the washing of the feet and all the events of that fateful weekend.
In his rejection of Satan, Jesus reveals to us the truth of our own lives. We are rooted in and called by a gracious God who has a great plan. This divine plan is infinitely better than all the attractions and deceptions of power, pleasure, wealth and control that make up the devil’s trickery.
God shows us in Jesus that his love will win out in the end. We need to use this time of Lent to pray, reflect and enter into ourselves. This demands slowing down to seek opportunities for silence and prayer. The Church offers a treasure for the spirit in the liturgical readings of the daily masses and especially the Sundays masses of Lent. The Church invites us into the Word of God to guide us in the footsteps of Jesus. We are summoned into the “Jesus game” where you win by losing.
This is the choice Jesus reveals in today’s Gospel passage. We need to be reminded that the devil is still playing his destructive games. The devil’s program is always the same. His deceiving action always offers evil wrapped up in the guise of the good and appealing. Yet, it is ultimately the destructive evil which is the only option in his bag of tricks. Jesus offers another choice beyond Satan’s relentless deceptions. It is a choice that leads to the victory of good over evil, of life over death. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus! This is our Lenten task!
