FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT: TEMPTATION

LENT

We find ourselves coming to the close of winter and fast approaching the Spring. With this transition of the seasons comes this wonderful 40 days of Lent - a time of reflection; of purification; and spiritual growth.

The Church gives us this reflective season each year to encourage us to return again and again to the source of our life - God, the one who creates and sustains us. Throughout these 40 days we are invited into the deepest mysteries of our faith to increase our understanding of who God is; who we are; and how our relationship with both God and one another stands.

The season of Lent is a time to set aside the distractions we create in our day to day lives - distractions that keep us from returning to God who is source of life and being. It is a holy season - a time for prayer, fasting and alms giving. The holiness of Lent, however, is not rooted in these practices of piety. The holiness of Lent is rooted in the imitation of Christ throughout these 40 days, who according to Luke, is led by the Holy Spirit into the desert wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This LEADING by the Spirit is precisely what makes it holy.

FACING TEMPTATIONS - A HOLY TIME

Jesus is LED into temptation - a period of time where he will be "distracted" from his mission. And what is this mission? It is the same as ours - to be a vehicle of God's love for the world.

In order for Jesus to be the way in which God's love flows into the world he must resist certain fundamental temptations:
1. The temptation of physical satisfaction (turn this stone into bread)
2. The temptation of authority (I will give you all these kingdoms)
3. The temptation of glory (throw yourself from this height)

Within the framework of these temptation (which we also face on a daily basis) Jesus is really getting to the heart of the question of who he is (God's son) and what kind of Messiah he is to be (many had already come and gone who claimed to be "the one").

Scriptural theologian N.T. Wright states that "in a sense, these three temptations can be seen as answers to those two questions". Wright speculates that Jesus is not so much engaged in a physical conversation with the devil, so much as the temptations are more a string of ideas in Jesus' head. Moreover, the temptation are reasonable.

The DEVIL - ACCUSER and SCATTERER

We can have all kinds of debates on whether or not the "devil" exists and never come to agreement. We can, however, understand these temptations as fundamental or universal temptation we ALL face and which take a kind of mental narrative. It is interesting to note that the two main names for the devil are satanos and diabolos. Satanos means "the accuser" while "diabolos" means the "scatterer". The physical existence of the "devil" then is not quite as important as the reality of our daily encounters with accusation and scattering. We may mean well in our attempt to fulfill our mission as the people of God, but we are often derailed or distracted from that mission through the experience of both accusation and scattering. It has been said that a house divided against itself will not stand - and this we know to be true.

Jesus knows that many have come before him claiming to be the Messiah - the temptation must have been enormous to show Israel that he is not just another soapbox preacher. The opportunity to overthrow the political system and display his divine greatness was his for the taking - which brings us back to the fundamental question for Jesus in the wilderness: "What kind of Messiah will I be?"

Yes, temptation invite us to be tested but they also invite us to consider deeply WHO WE ARE and WHO GOD IS. If we consider these questions seriously we will come to the question: "What kind of person does God want me to be?"

SUMMARY

This Lent, take time to spend with the Scriptures. Give yourself a routine of prayer, fasting and alms giving. Allow these next 40 days to be a time where you remove the distractions and return to the source of life. In other words, go to the desert. Consider what the voices are that you hear? Where are they accusing you? Where are they scattering you? Realize that Lent is not a time for self hatred, but rather a time to celebrate God's presence in your life.