The fourth chapter of Luke’s Gospel opens with the story of Jesus being led by the Spirit out into the wilderness where he would pray and fast for 40 days and nights. It is a familiar story to us, but it should also get our attention, every time we read it, because it is as much our story as it is Jesus’. What happens to Jesus in the desert is what happens to us in our lives. The word that we apply to this experience is ‘temptation’. Each of us knows this experience of temptations intimately. We struggle to learn how to recognize and respond to these powerful and difficult moments of temptation. In all of these moments we are wisely counseled to keep our eyes on Jesus. He is our model, our teacher, and our guide in all things.
In this Gospel account, we see Jesus tempted in three specific ways by the Devil. In the first instance, after fasting and praying for 40 days, Jesus is “famished”. In his humanity, he experiences the true pain of hunger. The Enemy tries to tempt Jesus at the most basic level of his humanity, the level of the sensual passions. Appealing to Jesus’ hunger, he says, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread” (v. 3). The Enemy knows us, too. He knows where our weaknesses are. This is one of the Enemy’s most common ploys against us, that is, to appeal to the immediate gratification of our senses, our sensual passions. When we experience these moments of temptation, we are to hear Jesus’ response to the Devil, “One does not live by bread [by sensual passions] alone.” Our sensual passions can be very powerful, and their appeal to be fulfilled is very immediate. But if we keep our eyes on Jesus, we can trust in and be assured of the graces that we will need to spurn these temptations of the Enemy. To do this is a sign of our growing maturity in the faith. And, in faith, we know that God will never abandon us.
In the Enemy’s next effort to tempt Jesus, he tries to use the very seductive appeal of power. This temptation to power is possibly even greater than the temptations of our senses. It can be very enticing, and it remains an all too common temptation for we human beings today. We see it at every level, from the abusive parent, to the bully on the playground, to the self-aggrandizing CEO, to the tyrannical political leader. And we see the painful, destructive, divisive consequences of this appeal to power all around us. What does Jesus do in the face of this appeal? He is very clear. He does not parse his words. He says, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone” (v. 8). To actively seek, to submit to the raw, naked appeal to power of any kind is to serve the Enemy, not God.
In the final temptation, the Enemy appeals to Jesus to test his Father’s love for him. He takes him to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem, and says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here…” (v. 9). He tries to tempt Jesus to force the Father’s hand, to willfully test the Father’s love for him. In all of this the Devil is a fool, blinded by his pride, rage, and jealousy. And he remains blindly jealous of us, because of God’s love for us expressed in Jesus. He has been driven by this overweening pride since his willful fall from grace, his rebellion. In his foolish and hateful anger he wants nothing less than to make us in his distorted image, to get us to willfully turn against God and his love. This was his temptation to Adam and Eve in the garden. It remains his temptation to us every day, that is, the temptation to pridefully decide on our own, from our point of view, how God should act toward us.
This passage from Luke’s Gospel shows us that in all moments of temptation, we remain free, we can pridefully and foolishly go our way (following the way of the Enemy), or we can willingly, wisely, and humbly submit to following God’s way. During these 40 days of Lent, let us take time out to go into the solitude and silence of prayer. Let us practice honest self-examination, reflecting in our minds and hearts on whether we are choosing too often to submit to the Enemy’s temptations to gratify our immediate desires through some temporary sensual pleasure (of any kind), or to power, or our pride. Or, are we humbly appealing to the love and grace of God to help us to grow in wisdom and faith, so that we might more regularly recognize and turn away from the temptations of the Enemy and choose the truly liberating and empowering way of Jesus? In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
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