First Sunday of Lent C        February 21, 2010

Deuteronomy 26:4-10 Psalm: 91   Romans 10:8-13    Luke 4:1-13 

When Adam and Eve where tempted in Eden, they were told a lie. You will not die! you will be like God! It is temptation that still plagues us today. We not want to think about our frailty, our weakness, our mortality. We sub-consciously deny our human limitation. Truthfully, how often have we fantasized ourselves as being Superman or Wonder Woman! We have latex suits covering our imagined & impossibly perfect bodies with an “S” standing for Super on our chest.

 As we watch the Olympics, we who have never been on a ski slope or trained in speed-skating, imagine ourselves a little better, a little faster than the downhill gold medallist or the speed champion.

To feed these desires, we avoid the wilderness, the loneliness, the quiet of the desert. If, like Jesus, we spend time in the wilderness, we would be faced with our limitations and our mortality.

 “Man shall not live by bread alone.”

 One way of avoiding our frailty is to fill ourselves with “things to do”, our weekends are packed with parties, with disk jockeys playing loud music. We turn the “stones into bread” so there is no emptiness, no room or place in our heart that hungers for

something deeper,

something more satisfying,

something more spiritual.

Jesus has been through that and tells us that we cannot live on this type of bread alone. There is always the Word of God to satisfy us. But we must take some time out, some time of quiet, some time to reflect on the goodness that God has planted in each one of us.

“You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”

 There is yet another method of getting away from the fact that we are human. We do not admit that we are both fallible and “perishable”. We do this by becoming micro-managers. We try to control the lives of those around us to the extent that we think we are demi-gods. People around us are like puppets on a string. We hear and see that often enough

in marriages: “she wears the pants in the house” – or a husband using physical abuse.

in offices: where bosses or even fellow employers have all the answers, sometimes when they have not yet grasped the question.

in religious communities: - where obedience tends to mean: My way or the highway.

Satan said to Jesus, “all these will be yours, if you fall down and worship me.” And our reply to Satan would the one of Jesus, “You shall worship God, and him only shall you serve.”

“You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”

 A third way to run away from our human limitations is to distract ourselves from our weakness. We distract ourselves with i-pods and cell-phones, with MP3 players. We watch the Olympics 18 hours a day. We avoid focussing on ourselves by crowding our lives as much as possible. As the temptation of Jesus tells us: we throw ourselves from the Pinnacle of the Temple, we think we can fly like Superman or Superwoman – faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive.  We try to do something heroic, we try to do something beyond our capabilities, we hope that God will bail us out. When in reality, if we do trust rather than try to tempt our God, we will do things that will surprise even ourselves.

The temptations of Jesus in the wilderness are a pattern or temptations or pitfalls in our own mundane daily lives. There is no thunder-storm or lightning to mark the arrival of Satan on the scene. But he is definitely here. The temptations are very real, both for Jesus and for ourselves. They might not have happened in the highly vivid descriptions of the Gospel. Jesus need not have been carried by the scruff of his neck and made to balance on the pinnacle of the temple. But the narration is symbolic enough to show how enticing and seductive Satan can be. People have been and even now are being deceived by Satan and no wonder they are called temptations.

So let us move from the temptations, which are very real but deceptive. Let us move to a faith in God who does not deceive. In the Old Testament that trust was expressed not in dogmas, words or doctrine, but in an experience: the Exodus experience. Our first reading from Deuteronomy declares: “A wandering Aramean was my father.” In the normal history with the ups and downs of fighting tribes and rulers, the People of Israel saw the hand of God. It was God who led them into Egypt and it was God who would deliver them from the Egyptians. So the offering which stood for their lives would be offered in thanksgiving for a God who cared and protected his people.

Corresponding to the Exodus Experience, in the New Age, in the post resurrection period, the followers of Jesus would have their own confession. It was a confession in times of persecution and difficulties. It was a confession in what Paul would call a scandal to the Jews, and a stumbling block to the Gentiles. They would confess that Christ had died, but now He is Risen. And because of this belief, there would be a unity among Christians regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, regardless of their different cultures, regardless of their different ways of praying. This unity would be expressed in a common and basic confession. Christ has died, Christ has risen, and we are all saved.  The sadness and the scandal today is that there are divisions and fighting among different groups who claim to believe the same Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. As Mahatma Gandhi said: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Luke directly links this narrative of the Temptations with the Passion of Jesus by saying, “after this Satan left Jesus alone until an opportune time.” Jesus would now continue to do his public ministry, which would be “Satan-free” until the passion in  Luke 22:3.  It is no surprise then, that the followers of Christ – would be faced with the same temptations, at crucial times in their own lives. This is the opportune time for Satan, and hence we have to be on our constant guard. St. Peter would warn us  “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary, Satan prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) And so we pray once again the Responsorial Psalm (psalm 91) “Be with me Lord, when I am in trouble.”

God bless you all.