First Sunday of Lent
Fr. Ben Riley
We come to this great and holy season of Lent, a time to get back to spiritual basics, basics like prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This is a time when the Church looks at some of its most fundamental and spiritual texts. We begin this first Sunday of Lent with Mark’s account of the temptations of Jesus, right at the beginning of His public ministry.
A biblical principle for overcoming the devils’ temptations, is to look at our temptations from the context of fulfillment. We sin, because we are ultimately searching for something good. No one chooses evil, instead we look for something good, be it connection, intimacy, love, affection, relaxation, pleasure or whatever. Problems arise because we either become too attached to a good thing and make it our god, or we are tricked into believing that something bad is good. The devil is a master of lies, and in our gospel, the devil tempts Jesus. He lies to Jesus trying to deviate Him from the path. To say that Jesus is fully divine does not deny that he also experienced the struggle of human temptation. From this gospel, from the temptations of Jesus, we can learn how to address our own temptations. And recognize them not as the fulfillment of our desire but as a deviation from the path the Lord is guiding us on.
The topography for Jesus’ temptations is important: the desert. We spend a large portion of our lives surrounded by distractions. These distractions prevent us from having the peace of mind to ask fundamental questions: “Who am I, why am I hear, and where am I going?” But the desert, spiritually speaking, is where the mystics have always gone to fight against the distractions and ask the important questions. We see this with Jesus in the gospel, and so too, this Lent, must enter into the desert if we are going to find answers to our questions. Find your spiritual desert, a quiet place void of distractions, where you can pray, ask for the Lord’s help with your temptation, and listen to the Lord’s subtle voice in your heart.
What Jesus faces in the desert are three classical substitutes for God. Three things that, given the opportunity, can reign in one’s soul as the ultimate good. But of course there is only one ultimate good: God and our relationship with Him. The first temptation, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” To a person who has been fasting for days and days, those stones littering the desert floor may very well look like loaves of bread, and the devil is tempting Jesus to satisfy his hunger. This is the first temptation, to make the satisfaction of sensual pleasure the greatest good in life. This is a very common temptation in society today. The only way to be satisfied, the only way to be happy is to be rich and to feel good. The best food, the best drink, the biggest house, the nicest car, and frequent casual sexual encounters. These will satisfy my desire.
During Lent we are called to take a good hard look at this tendency in ourselves. Have I made pleasure the highest good in my life. Certainly we need pleasure and enjoyment in our lives. God have given us these things as a gift, but they are not more important than our relationship with God, and if taken to an extreme they become a distraction that leads us away from God.
The great spiritual writer Thomas Merton, used the analogy of children. A child, who doesn’t know any better, will scream, “Give me that candy, give me that ice-cream, I want it now!” But good parents don’t indulge every desire of their kids, the kids would get sick. Our sensual desires are very similar, if we are always yielding to them, we miss the opportunity to open ourselves up to greater goods. If we are overly concerned with pleasure, we will be too distracted to seek out other goods. Things like: education, friendship, family, and a deeper connection to God. So how then does Jesus respond to the devil. “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus is not denying that we need bread, we do need sensual pleasure, but that’s not the whole story. We have to move higher and not get stuck on the desert floor.
The second temptation is more sophisticated. The devil led Jesus to Jerusalem, set Him on the parapet of the temple and said, “If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. He will send his angels to watch over you.” So what is this: the first level was bodily pleasure, but this is glory or honor. The temple in Jesus’ time was the most important place in the world. The devil took Jesus to the center of the city and basically said, “Now you are the center, everyone will notice you, even God will see you and send his angels to save you.” This is so prevalent today, a desire to be noticed, admired, glorified, a desire to be famous. It’s the great narcissistic temptation. Now again, is honor bad in and of itself? No. St. Thomas Aquinas defines honor as, the flag of virtue. If we see someone living a virtuous, holy, and good life, we would say, “Look at that, let’s try to imitate what they are doing.” This is why we honor the saints, because we wish to imitate their lives and their dedication to God. Their lives are to us a flag of virtue. The trouble starts when people get addicted to honor and glory. So Jesus says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Basically Jesus is saying, “Who do you think you are, standing up there on the temple wall, expecting God to save you from jumping off? Get over yourself.” Now, does God love us? Yes, absolutely God loves us. He died on the cross to save us. But He also died on the cross to save everyone else, those not sitting in this church, and we cannot climb up on the cross and take that role away from him. The temptation of faithful people is to believe that we can save the sinners around us. But that’s not our job. We guide people closer to Christ, but He is the savior. This Lent, let’s remember the words from John’s Gospel, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
The third temptation is even more refined than the second. The devil took Jesus higher and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, “I will give you all of this if you but bow down and worship me.” Power. Power is good in many instances. Power is the means to effect change. And thank God there are people in positions of power who can effect change in a positive way. There is nothing wrong with that. But it’s not the highest good, and when we make it the highest good, our spiritual lives suffer, and we tend to use power for bad purposes. How often have we seen this through history? Figures become obsessed with power and give rise to terrible injustice. Notice the devil say to Jesus, “All these things I will give you.” He is talking about the kingdoms of the world. That implies that the devil owns them all, they belong to him. I don’t want to strictly demonize power, but when power becomes our only concern it becomes a plaything of the devil. And so Jesus responds, “The Lord your God shall you worship, and Him alone shall you serve.” Even if you became the king of the world, you would still only be king of something that is fading away. This Lent let’s remember the words from the Gospel of Matthew. “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their soul?”
During this holy season we are called to take a hard look at how we address these things in our life: pleasure, power, and honor. We practice self-discipline, we fast, abstain from meat, give alms, and spend more time in prayer so that these things do not get out of hand. Unlike Jesus, we occasionally give into these temptations, but when we remember to make God the highest good, it puts into perspective all the lesser goods of our life. I am so much looking forward to this season of Lent, this time of getting back to the spiritual basics, and we are just getting started. So please pray for me, and pray for each other.