Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, March 9, 2025. Gospel of St. Luke 4:1-13. Theme: In Solidarity with Jesus
Not everything that Jesus said and did is recorded for us in all 4 versions of the Gospel. We might find a particular story in Mark and a different one in Luke, and then maybe something totally unique will pop up in John. But when something in the life of Christ is considered to be of the utmost importance it tends to be found in all four Gospels. The Temptation or Testing of Christ by Satan in today’s Gospel is one of these “must-tell” stories because it teaches us two fundamental things, one about Jesus and another about dealing with temptations.
First, it conveys to us the stark reality of Jesus’ full and sinless humanity. He was not God play-acting the role of a human being but became like us in every way except for our propensity towards sin. What this means is that Jesus of Nazareth, in addition to maintaining His divinity, had both a body and soul as we all do. And like each one of us his physicality was subject to the debilitating effects caused by original sin which are suffering, sickness and death. But as God the Son, Christ did not suffer from the wound of original sin that is within each one of us. So when it came to temptation, He did not experience the struggle to do good and avoid evil that originates within us, rather, his encounters with temptation came from outside of Himself.
And this is why Satan tempted Jesus at the end of his 40 day fast. The evil one surmised that his only chance of possible success (though he didn’t know he didn't really have a chance) was to attack Jesus at His weakest external moment. He would strike at the opportune time, when Christ was utterly worn out by His extreme fast and probably suffering headaches and blurry vision as well. The fact that Jesus stood up strong to the devil in His diminished condition was proof of His inner sinlessness that remained firm and intact. He was fortified by the Word of God which He had on His lips and in His heart, as St. Paul counsels us in today's Second Reading. Jesus engaged in the spiritual battle of temptation by quoting Scripture. He answered each invitation to sin with the Word of God because it contains great spiritual power. As the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, “The Word of God is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword…” (Heb 4:12). And this is exactly the weapon we need when faced with temptation.
And that brings us to the second lesson we can learn from this story and that is how we can best deal with temptations. The fact is that all temptations, no matter what they are specifically about, are all aimed at one thing: enticing us to waver in our relationship with God. Because once we begin to waver, we become much easier prey. Every temptation, whether it comes from within us or outside of us, is aimed at causing us to lose trust in God and to fall for the lie that He is simply trying to ruin our fun and limit our freedom. Temptation turns our attention to the messed up and unbalanced desires that are welled up within us and before we know it, we so easily find ourselves caught up in the enticements of greed or gluttony or lust or any other allurement that falsely promise us happiness and fulfillment. And even though we have fallen for these lies over and over in our lives, and have experienced for ourselves that they don't bring us those false promises, we so easily give into them yet again. This is the dynamic of the wound of original sin at work within us but was not at work within Jesus.
Inspired by today’s Gospel story, the ancient desert fathers and mothers, who were the first monks and nuns of Christianity, went into the wilderness of Egypt and the Middle East where they engaged in combat with temptation. They taught that every Chrtistian should build up an arsenal of spiritual weapons precisely to combat the attacks of the devil. We can do this by becoming familiar with Scriptures that particularly speak to our personal struggles and temptations. These Bible verses should be short enough to memorize and go straight to the point. The Psalms of the Old Testament and the Beatitudes of Jesus provide us with many of these short and powerful swords of the Word of God that can be directed towards temptations.
Another powerful spiritual weapon that these monks and nuns strongly recommend is the Holy Name of Jesus, particularly in the custom of reciting what is called the "Jesus Prayer”. It is easy to memorize and goes like this, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.” When faced with temptation we can serenely repeat this prayer to ourselves over and over again and it will bring us to a place of interior calm and strength. The desert fathers and mothers found this devotion to be so effective in dealing with temptation that they popularized using a string of beads upon which to repeat the Jesus Prayer and it is still used very much by Christians today.
Because temptation is something that every human being must wrestle with until death, all four of the evangelists made a point of including this story in their Gospels. They wanted us to know that Jesus Himself experienced such things and that He is in solidarity with us as we struggle to do good and avoid evil. Their message is that we need never be alone as we face our own personal temptations but can call upon the Lord in our weakness and depend upon Him for strength. But for this to happen, we must choose to intentionally live in solidarity with Him, just as He intentionally chose to live in solidarity with us even in our weakness. This means that we must arm ourselves with the Word of God and call upon the Holy Name of Jesus, both of which are full of power. We must strengthen ourselves with the Sacrament of the Eucharist which is His holy and life-giving Body and Blood, and so deepen our union with Jesus Who will bring His power into our powerlessness and give us victory over temptation.
No comments:
Post a Comment