Manna in Our Desert

The First Sunday of Lent

Dt 26:4-10: The Lord brought us out of Egypt.
Rom 10:8-13: If you confess with your lips, and believe in your heart...
Lk 4:1-13: Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.


How to begin Lent?  Well, it helps to get the ashes--to turn to the Lord with the truth of our need, our mortality, our sinfulness--we all know that.  And it helps to give something up.  And to think of something good to do, and then to start doing it!  And it certainly helps to give ourselves time to pray.  And when we have done these things, we have begun!

But we have only begun!  There is something much greater, much deeper that we are called to.  And that is why the account of Jesus being tempted from the Gospel of Luke is interesting on many counts, and so consoling.  Such a great Sunday Gospel to start with.

First, it is consoling because Jesus--Jesus, mind you!--was tempted, as tempted as he could possibly be.  And that means much more than we might think.  We all know, of course that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, but do we really take seriously what that means?  Or again, that he became human in all things but sin.  Do we really appreciate that?  Put bluntly, it means that the only difference between Jesus and us is that he did not sin...not that he was not tempted.  And how tempted was Jesus?  My suspicion was that he was thoroughly tempted, perhaps more than we can possibly understand and appreciate.  After all, do you honestly think that "the mortal enemy of our human nature, " as St. Ignatius calls him (Spiritual Exercises, Meditation on the Two Standards, 136) would simply sit back and let God attempt to save the likes of us?  Of course not!  So I suspect that Jesus was thoroughly tempted--all Ten Commandments, all seven deadly sins, the whole Law, even every standard of simple human decency...you name it.

As I said, I find this tremendously consoling.  Because I am certainly tempted, and I suspect you are too.  We all are.  And temptation, even when we do not give in to it, is tough.  It is not just that it's so hard to resist, it is that it makes us feel so isolated, so alone.  Ignatius claimed that one of the tricks of the tempter is always to make us close in on ourselves: we feel odd, disgusting, as though no one could possibly understand us in our sinfulness (Sp. Ex., Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, 13th Rule, 326.)  In precisely this way, the evil spirit seeks to keep us isolated, to thwart the plan of God, which is to reach out to us (Luke 4:17-21.)  That Jesus , in obedience to his Father, allows himself to be tempted, is such a relief; we are not alone there...it is just a trick of the tempter, a trick that God anticipated and that even Jesus experienced.  Jesus is in the desert with us!

If we admit that Jesus was really tempted--I know that the Gospels of Luke and Matthew note three specific temptations; I will meditate on those in a few minutes--and tempted in all the ways that human beings are tempted, and that he did not just go through the motions; he did not hide behind his divinity, that he really was human, then he really had to fight temptations the same way I have to.  And perhaps by meditating on what happened to him and how he handled it, we can come to an understanding of how we might handle temptation and even sin. 

But it's funny, isn't it, that neither Matthew nor Luke, mention the things that we usually associate with temptation--things like sex, overeating, drunkenness, revenge, meanness, greed, arrogance--all the self-indulgence that our popular culture associates with the word temptation.  Now, it may be that the Evangelists are being polite, but I don't think so.  Or it may be that Jesus never experienced those temptations, but if that where true, he would be quite different from you and me, wouldn't he?  So I don't think either of those are the case.

No, I think that the Evangelists are pointing to something much bigger, much more important.  And what they are pointing to may really help us as we seek our Lent--our lengthening of days unto the Resurrection itself.

Jesus experiences three explicit temptations in his forty days in the desert (although neither Matthew nor Luke state that these are the only temptations he undergoes) immediately after his baptism, when he heard the voice of his Father call out from Heaven "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased" (Luke 3:21-22).  The proximity of this experience to the temptation is critical, and remembering this helps to understand what these temptations may be about, both for Jesus and for ourselves.

The first is to turn stones into bread.  The obvious motive is that Jesus was hungry after fasting.  But notice what is really going on in the temptation when Satan says, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."  Satan is not just tempting Jesus to satisfy his hunger, he also tempting Jesus to prove his identity--his worth--and to use it.  Just think what Jesus could accomplish in this one small trick?  I doubt he would turn the stone to bread for himself, but think of the great good he could do for others, feeding them!  And how that would be an opening to tell them about the wonders of God's kingdom!  This could draw so many people to the Father!  Jesus would truly prove his worth!

But notice how Jesus responds: No, as it it is written, "One does not live on bread alone."  Responding this way, Jesus explicitly rejects this appeal to his divinity and places himself squarely with our humanity; the writing comes from the Book of Deuteronomy: "He (the Lord) therefore let you be afflicted by hunger and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and to your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does man live but from every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord" (Dt 8:3).  And Jesus remembers well that word of his Father; he has just heard it: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."  Jesus will trust that, not his own power.  He will be the Father's son...no one else.  And the Father has asked him to be one of us. His worth is the love that the Father has for him, nothing else.

The second temptation is not unlike the first: Satan shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says: “I shall give to you all this power and glory for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.”  Just think what Jesus could do with all that power, what any good person--truly good person--could do!  He could set things right; he could pass just laws; he could punish the evil and raise up the good; he could establish the Kingdom on earth!  Oh my goodness, aren't those things that we all wish for!

But Jesus answer is like his first: No, only God will be his God; there can be and there will be no other.  And the Father has asked him not to create a kingdom of this world--not even to create a really just and excellent kingdom of this world--but to trust and obey Him, so that we would know how to trust and obey, so that we would have the confidence to do so, even when things get as hard as they possibly can get for human beings, even as they did for Jesus.  So Jesus once again places himself squarely in our camp, in the hands of his Father.

And finally, the last temptation: Okay, says Satan, if you are going to play that trust game, “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.”  Imagine what a star Jesus would have been--the guy who did a swan dive off the temple with everyone there to see him, and flying to a gentle landing.  How the crowds would love and listen to a star!  What great good a star could do!

No, says Jesus, that is not trusting God, that is testing him...that is no way to love God....that is not the way to love my Father.  He loves me, says Jesus; I do not need to test that!

What is Luke pointing to here?  Each time it comes back to Jesus trusting what the Father said...trusting it completely.  That he is the Father's son; in him the Father is well pleased.  That is his worth.  That is what he will build his life on.  That is what he will not test. 

But aren't we called to that same trust?  After all, isn't that what the Father says to each of us in our baptisms: "You...you are my son...my daughter now!  In you I am so pleased!  And through Jesus, my Son, you will pass through every death to life!"  Isn't that our true worth?  After all, on our own we are but "grass, and all their glory like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it. (So then, the people is the grass.)  Though the grass withers and the flower wilts, the word of our God stands forever" (Is 40:6b-8).  And Jesus is that word, the word that speaks the undying, eternal love that the Father has for us, the word in which we will never die.

Jesus faces temptation with a  deeper and deeper trust in his Father.  And perhaps that trust is what is too often what is lacking behind our own sins.  I know I give into my anger because I forget that the offense of another can not really harm me; the Kingdom of God has already been won for me.  I give into my avarice, my gluttony, my lust and my envy because I forget that the things that will really give me life and joy are not the things of this world that I will regret.  I give into my sloth because I forget that the things that just seem to big for me to handle are already covered; that God's love is so much bigger than my success and failure rate.  And I give into my pride because I forget that it is not all about me.  Jesus remembered, and he trusted.  And he reminds me, constantly, to trust.  And even when I forget, he trusts for me; that is the story of the cross--the great sign of Jesus' trust for the Father on my behalf...on behalf of all of us.

So it seems to me that I have to try to remember that voice from the heavens and to trust what it is really saying to me.  It is not a trick to spare me from all my hungers, not even to lessen them, but to see through them, to see beyond them to the truest hunger I have, which is for the fullness of God's love.  It doesn't claim that everything in my life will be set at right, that there will be perfect justice, but rather that the injustices of this world are not the final word, not even the injustices that still dwell in my own hard heart!  Nor does it  mean that I will never fall, or that God will rescue me from my physical, emotional, or moral stupidity.  But it means that since God sets no conditions on his love for me, I ought not set conditions on his love either.

It seems to me that these are the big temptations--that is why both Luke and Matthew explore them in depth in their Gospels--they are the big temptations of being human.  And it strikes me that for this very reason--for the fact that Jesus faced these--that I really should take some time to think about where I am tempted by them just the way he was.  I am sure that as Jesus sat out in that desert, in the heat and hunger, he may have felt very far from God.  But he trusted.  I have a feeling that it wasn't a sentimental trust, maybe not even an emotional trust.  I suspect it was a determined trust, a commitment to trust.  And I have to expect that the same is asked of me.

These are the big temptations.  The other ones--they are temptations, for sure, but maybe we need to look beyond them to see what is really going on, maybe they are more distractions--serious distractions, even grave distractions perhaps--but distractions that keep us from noticing what the Lord is asking of us at a deeper level, which is a trust that he is greater than our temptations, even than our sins!  I know for myself that it is so much easier to count my obvious sins than to look at the hard truth of the way that I treat my God--as though I don't need him, as though I can do it on my own, as though he should prove his love.

Finally, it occurs to me that we often take temptation as a sign of weakness.  They may be...they are at least good reminders that we are weak!.  But as we begin out Lent, our forty days in the desert, perhaps we can trust that something else, something much greater than the enemy of our human nature is at work.  Maybe we are asked to be like Jesus, really be like Jesus now!  Yes, we will be tempted, because no enemy of our human nature would let us do this...would let God do this in us...without putting up a fight. But God is more powerfully at work than we can possibly imagine, making us...transforming us, in the heat and the hunger of the desert, into the sons and daughters we long to be, that He created us to be!

If we can trust that, then our Lent--the lengthening of our days even unto the Resurrection--is well begun.  And God is so, so pleased.

Trust him!

AMDG