1st Sunday of Lent – Sunday 14th February 2016

1st Sunday of Lent

(Sunday 14th February 2016)

 

Victory is ours if we trust in the Lord – (Luke 4:1-13)

With the first line of the Gospel this weekend, there is a great sense of anticipation that something important is about to happen in salvation history.  We are told that Jesus “filled with the Holy Spirit” was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil. There is a coming together of two spirits and we sense that there is a battle about to take place between the Holy Spirit and the spirit of evil.  How will this battle be fought?

When we think about battles we can think of two people wrestling or throwing punches, but of course that is a physical fight we are talking about.   In this Gospel passage, the battle isn’t physical but spiritual, so we would do well to observe closely what the Lord does, for in him our victory lies over the enemy.

A first point to mention is this – When Jesus and the devil converse in the temptations, the devil quotes psalm 91 to Jesus. Pope Benedict in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, tells us that the devil is a “Bible expert”. The devil uses the bible in his own distorted way to try to put Jesus off course, to try and distract him from his mission. We have seen many examples of how people have used the Bible for their own agenda down through the centuries and how it has caused so much division in the Church.

Christ who is the Word of God then corrects the devil’s interpretation.  There are a number of lessons in this for us.  Firstly, as St Jerome once said, “Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ”, we need to read the word of God everyday so that we get to know the Lord.

Secondly we must always turn to the Church to ensure an authentic interpretation of the scriptures, as the Church has been given the “commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God”.

And thirdly, what happens often with those who call themselves Christian but do not read and pray with the Lord’s word is that they have an understanding of Christ and of God that is skewed.  They can believe that God our Father is a God of judgement and anger instead of a God of mercy, or alternatively they can believe in a God who asks nothing of us in love and allows us to simply do whatever we want, both of which are wrong and can lead us on a path of destruction.  Now where do you think those false images of God come from?

Satan had a burning desire to know who Jesus was as he wasn’t sure if he was the Son of God.  This was why he tempted the Lord to work miracles like turning the stones into bread, or having the angels save him if he threw himself off the Temple.  But Jesus did not come to satisfy curiosity or to entertain with empty displays of his divinity; he came to save us through our humanity.  If Jesus had worked these miracles then he would have used his divinity and in a way bypassed his humanity.  He united himself to us in our struggles and our pain; he was not tricked by the snares of the enemy.  Jesus proved his love for us not by flinging himself down from the parapet of the Temple, but by struggling up Calvary with a cross on his back.

As Satan tempted him to work a miracle and throw himself down from the Temple, so those on Calvary would similarly tempt him to come down from the cross so that they too would know his true identity.

As we begin our spiritual journey toward Calvary, let us not be distracted by empty shows but let us meditate much on these temptations for victory is ours if we trust in the Lord.

Fr. James Devine