First Sunday of Advent: A New Age - CUA Office of Public Affairs

First Sunday of Lent: The Temptations of Jesus

By The Rev. Francis T. Gignac, S.J.

March 4, 2001

Lent begins appropriately each year with a Gospel reading about Jesus being tested for 40 days in the desert. Last year, the reading was from the Gospel according to Mark, the earliest and most primitive of the Gospels. In that story, the Spirit of God drives Jesus out into the desert – the traditional haunt of evil spirits – for a trial of strength against the forces of evil. This year the reading is from the Gospel according to Luke (4:1-13), who – like the author of the Gospel according to Matthew – expands Mark's simple story by portraying Jesus as tempted by worldly ambition that could jeopardize the very nature of his messianic mission. Of course, there is no parallel story in the Gospel according to John, because that writer always portrays Jesus in complete control of his destiny and not subject to any human weakness.

In the background of this story in the desert was the underlying belief that the Messiah was the divine agent who would destroy the kingdom of evil, represented by the figure of Satan. Jesus is pictured as joining in battle with Satan on his turf: the desert, the haunt of evil spirits. Jesus' victory over Satan there was the first in a struggle that would continue throughout Jesus' life and in the lives and sufferings of the Christians who followed him. The trial is represented as lasting for 40 days, a period of trial and testing derived from the 40 years during which Israel wandered in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt.

The Gospel writer imaginatively describes three specific temptations to Jesus' mission that may have occurred. In the first test, Jesus was tempted to transform a stone into a loaf of bread. This was symbolic of a temptation to personal satisfaction, which is contrary to the kind of messiahship evidenced by Jesus. The second temptation, to serve Satan in order to have all worldly power and glory, was obviously also antithetical to the mission of Jesus. And finally, the author's third temptation was for Jesus to throw himself off the parapet of the temple, knowing from Psalm 91 that angels protect a faithful devotee of God so that he would not so much as stub his toe. This test was a temptation to notoriety, fame and splendor. But, the mission of Jesus was not such; rather it was a humble, silent message spoken to the human heart.

Accompanying today's Gospel of the trial in the desert is a famous passage from the Book of Deuteronomy (26:4-10). Purporting to be Moses' farewell discourses to the people of Israel, this book was actually composed some 600 years after his death to call Israel back to the observance of the law. The heart of this book, and in fact of the whole Torah, is found in today's reading. It is a little credal formula containing the confession of faith that the worshiper is to make when he presents the first fruits of the harvest in the sanctuary of the temple, much as the ancient language of the Nicene Creed is preserved in the liturgical use of the Christian church today. The little confession of faith makes only a brief reference to the patriarchal period, when it alludes to Jacob as a "wandering Aramean." It dwells primarily on the events of the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the event that formed Israel into a nation and into a worshiping community, and concludes with the grateful acknowledgment that the God who delivered Israel from slavery also led his people into the Promised Land.

The second reading is a resounding passage from the 10th chapter of the Letter to the Romans (10:8-13), in which Paul contrasts faith in Christ with the prescriptions of the old law. For the observant Jew, the fulfillment of the prescriptions of the law was a necessary condition for the life so promised, and it was considered arduous. In contrast with this demand, the new way of righteousness through faith in Christ does not ask of us anything so arduous. For the heights have been scaled and the depths have been plumbed, for Christ has come into the world and has been raised from the dead. We are not asked to bring about an incarnation and a resurrection; we are asked only to accept in faith what has already been done for us and to identify ourselves with Christ, incarnate and raised, who is our salvation and justification. Perhaps we best do this, not only by uttering the basic Christian confession of faith and meaning it, but by committing ourselves more to the values that he lived and taught.

During these 40 days of Lent, the liturgy invites us to share our Lord's sufferings in a more conscious way. The point of our voluntary sacrifices is to help us die more and more to selfishness and sin, so that we can live more for God and others. We try during this period of Lent to ally ourselves with the sufferings of Christ, to have a vicarious share in his sufferings, so that we may share his risen life and joy more fully when Easter comes. Christ is proclaimed by the Church as having achieved ultimate victory over sin and death through his own death and resurrection. We are invited to appropriate his victory to ourselves as we share it through faith, so that God may also raise us, to be with him forever.

Any questions or comments? cu a-public-affairs@cua.edu

Revised: February 13, 2001