1st
Sunday of Lent (Year A)
First Reading: Genesis 2: 7-9, 3:1-7 Second Reading: Romans 5:12-19 Gospel Reading: Matthew 4:1-11
“LEAD
US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL.”
The
story is told of a pastor who was asked to conduct the funeral
services of a fellow named Charlie who was known in the community as
the lowest of the low in terms of his character and reputation. In
fact the town was embarrassed that this fellow had called that place
home.
Charlie's
brother was rather wealthy fellow and offered the pastor $1000 to
conduct the funeral with one stipulation – he had to refer to
Charlie as a saint.
The
service began and the pastor stepped to the podium to begin the
message. At the appropriate moment he said, “He
was a low down, worthless, bum who cheated everyone he ever met and
had the morals of an alley-cat; but compared to his brother, Charlie
was a saint.”
The
stunned brother handed over the honorarium to the pastor who promptly
slipped away. Perhaps the pastor succumbed to temptation
a bit.
Temptations
do come to all of us also in our lives – in various disguise of
course. They are part and parcel of our life. A temptation is a
trick, a deception, a lie. It conceals the truth and presents
falsehood to us as the truth. A temptation may even offer us
something good but entices us to use it in a false and selfish way.
No wonder that temptations come from the devil, which is called the
father of lies.
Last
Wednesday, i.e. 'Ash
Wednesday,'
we began our Lenten pilgrimage and today is the First Sunday of Lent.
Lent
is a Holy Season, a time of grace, a period comprising forty days
during which the whole Church renews itself through prayer, fasting
and works of piety.
The common
theme of today’s Scripture Readings is ‘Temptation.’
In the 1st
Reading from the Book of Genesis, we hear about our first parents
Adam and Eve being tempted by Satan in the garden of Eden, while in
the Gospel Reading from St. Matthew, we hear about Satan tempting
Jesus in the wilderness. These
two temptation stories are sophisticated ones and are not strictly
meant to be taken either literally or historically. They are symbolic
and are directed essentially about making choices – either in favor
of God or against Him. In the 2nd
Reading, St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans, considers and compares
the above two temptation events, and tells us in what manner their
results and consequences affect our lives today.
THE
TEMPTATIONS OF OUR FIRST PARENTS:
It
is no accident that the first reading begins with one of the Genesis
accounts of Adam and Eve. In the story of Adam and Eve we hear again
about the perfect world God created for humans and how through a
temptation, Adam established a pattern that led to sin and death. The
Eden story was actually a drama woven of pretense and cover-up. Adam
and Eve were the first to bite on a big lie: the denial that we as
creatures of God are dependent on God. Enter the
serpent, that cunning beast, that lord of lies, who taunted their
obedience and reliance on God. Ah, the attraction of having no
limits. To be God. To be self-sufficient, self-made. The pretense was
attractive, desirable. The trick looked so wise.
First
round: The devil, being the master of
deceit, knows human psychology only too well. His first task was to
get the attention of Eve. Thus his question, "Did
God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?"
Eve right away saw the half truth in the question so she corrected
him saying that they could eat of the fruit of all the trees except
that of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad. And on this last,
God's command was clear: "You shall not eat it or even touch it,
lest you die." We see here how Eve, by arguing with the devil,
got hooked.
Second
round: The devil took immediate advantage of
his gain. He told Eve they would not die; instead, "Your
eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good
and what is bad." Her curiosity aroused, Eve saw that
the fruit was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for
gaining wisdom.
Third
round: Eve then took a fruit and ate it. She
gave one to her husband Adam who likewise ate it. All of a sudden
both of them realized that they were naked. Ashamed of their
nakedness in front of each other, they covered parts of themselves,
and afraid of God, they went into hiding. They had fallen and sin had
entered the world!
Sin brings about
dislocation in our relationships. Instead of openness,
hiding or covering–up has become our way of relating to God and to
each other. And we justify our weaknesses and sins with all kinds of
rationalizations. This is the story of our life ever since.
THE
TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS:
The
Gospel Reading of the 1st
Sunday of Lent always
features the temptations of Jesus
in the desert. It will therefore not be wrong to call the 1st
Sunday of Lent, ' The
Temptation Sunday.' This
is Year A of the Liturgical Cycle, and so today we have St. Matthew's
account of the temptations of Jesus,
and strikingly, they are paralleled
with the temptations of Adam and Eve!
a)
“Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the
devil.”
After
his baptism by John the Baptist at Jordan river, Jesus
was led by the Spirit into the desert where he prayed and fasted for
forty days and nights, and afterward he was tested there. The testing
is done not by God directly but by the Evil One, the Tempter. It is
pictured as taking place in a barren region between Jerusalem and the
Dead Sea. It might be worth noting that we may not be dealing here
with a strictly historical happening. This passage takes us back to
the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Yet this was not the
report of a single incident,
but a commentary on the entire course of Jesus' ministry. Time and
again Jesus must have been tempted to authenticate his mission by a
display of miraculous power or to undertake the role of a political
Messiah. So, rather than just seeing them
as three consecutive
temptations happening almost simultaneously at a particular moment,
we should perhaps see them as three key areas
where Jesus was tempted to compromise his whole mission during his
public life. They were not just passing temptations of the moment,
but temptations with which he was beset all through his public life.
They came as inner reflections about his baptismal experience and how
to do what he now perceived his divine mission to be.
b)
“If you are the Son of God, ...”
St. Matthew’s account
of the temptations of Jesus in the desert displays his characteristic
interest in Jesus as 'the
Son of God,'
which
we can clearly notice in the devil's hidden assumption in tempting
Jesus. The story follows immediately on
Jesus' baptism and endorsement by God the Father, “This
is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
The Gospel tells us that Jesus was tempted three
times and each of the three temptations touches on his identity as
the Son of God. The
Tempter begins, "If
you are the Son of God, ...”
then he says, "do
what I ask you to do."
Jesus refuses to fall into the trap of the devil. Does Jesus have a
need to prove who he is? Of course not.
Again, some of us may
struggle with this
concept. For if Jesus is the Son of God, how and why could he be
tempted? Someone has said, 'You
are not tempted because you are evil; you are tempted because you are
human.'
The account of the temptations thus places heavy emphasis on the
humanity
of Jesus.
Jesus was like us in all things but sin and was tempted in every way
that we are.
c)
The
three temptations of Jesus:
The three temptations of
Jesus are the three essential weapons that the devil has in his
arsenal to destroy humanity:
The
first is
of appetite
(pleasure/gluttony/materialism) – to change stones into bread. It
demanded that miraculous power be used to provide for basic material
needs. The tempter picks up the fact that Jesus was hungry, that he
had not eaten for forty days. The tempter says that if he is truly
the Son of God, he could command the stones to become bread. To this
Jesus responds through the words of Scripture that a person does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God. Here Jesus is indicating that his mission was not fulfilled by
providing for basic needs but rather by proclaiming the Word that is
life.
The
second
is of ambition
(power/fame/boasting) - to jump from the pinnacle of the Temple. It
demanded that Divine power be used to produce a spectacular 'sign'
that would compel anyone to believe. In this temptation, the devil
offers him a chance to prove his power as God’s son by throwing
himself down from the parapet of the temple. He knew that as
recorded in the Psalms Jesus can do this without being hurt. Jesus
responds with a passage from Scripture, from the Book of Deuteronomy
which says that it is also written not to put the Lord God to the
test. Hence Jesus responds to the Satan saying, he will not test
God’s word by doing something foolish or unnecessary. He will trust
his Father in the direction of his mission.
The
third is of
arrogance
(pride/vanity/idolatry) - to worship the devil who can give power and
wealth. In this final temptation, Jesus is set by the
devil on a very high mountain and offered the kingdoms of the world
in return for worshiping him. Jesus
absolutely rejects the offer and tells the devil to go away from
him. He once again quotes the Book of Deuteronomy which says that
every creature has to worship the Lord God, and serve Him alone and
no one else. It is the cardinal truth of the Scripture taken from the
Ten Commandments to worship God alone and no other gods. Jesus
is not swayed. He
indeed has won over the subtle temptation of the devil.
In
the aftermath of the contest we read how the devil left Jesus and
angels came and ministered to him. All
the three temptations can be summarized briefly as a suggestion of
short cut by the devil to be unfaithful to the call and mission of
the Father. He rejects these possibilities and shows that his purpose
is different.
These
three temptations are also our
temptations,
and to them, somehow, are perhaps connected all temptations. The
devil invites us to turn towards self. Jesus invites us to turn
towards God. In
fact, these three tests are really symbols of real tests that we find
in the life of Jesus. In reality all of the temptations can be summed
up as temptations to the three A's - Appetite, Ambition &
Arrogance, or
the three P's - Pleasure, Power and Pride. It is also
important to realize that all temptations – and these tests are no
exception – come to us under the guise of some kind of goodness. No
sane person chooses the purely evil unless some positive benefit is
seen to come from it. In each of the three tests today, Jesus is
being led on to do something which would seem to enhance his mission
as Lord and Savior.
THE
1st
ADAM AND THE 2nd
ADAM:
In
the Second Reading of today from his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul,
taking into consideration the above two events, compares them and
goes on to say that Jesus is the 2nd
Adam. His
main interest is not to talk about sin or death, but rather to draw a
contrasting picture of Adam and Christ, prominent figures of the
beginning and the end time respectively. He uses what theologians
call ‘typology’
to help us understand exactly what Jesus has done for us and how he
established for us a new life, overcoming what Adam and Eve wrought
for us. He sees Adam as a ‘type’
or 'foreshadowing'
of Christ.
St.
Paul begins by establishing a basic equivalence between Adam and
Christ: both are the 'first'
or the 'beginning'
of different eras. Adam stands at the beginning of the first
creation; Christ is the beginning of a new creation. While typology
usually stresses common elements, Paul stresses differences. Reading
today's passage from Romans carefully, we notice these contrasts
between what Adam and Christ bring: Just as sin came into the world
through Adam and with it death entered the world affecting all
people, so also through Christ uprightness came into the world and
with it life eternal. With the disobedience of the 1st
Adam death entered the human race, but we have received abundance of
grace and new life through the 2nd
Adam, Jesus Christ. He stresses that the free gift of the grace of
God received through Jesus far surpassed the outcome of sin. Hence
there is no comparison between the free gifts of the grace of God
versus the consequence of one’s sin. While one’s trespass brought
condemnation, the free gift of God brought justification
CONCLUSION:
We
are into the Holy Season of Lent. It is a time that reminds us of the
human journey of fall and redemption. Like Adam and Eve, and Jesus,
we all face temptations. Original sin reminds us that we humans tend
to give in to temptation. It is a family trait. The mother and father
of the race did it and we do it too. So, when we are tempted, we
should not trust in our own abilities or strength, because we are
sinful from our origins. Instead we should trust in Jesus and his
strength, because God is gracious from the beginning. Where humanity
fails, Jesus prevails. So the point is that we should follow his lead
when we face temptations. We should look at how Jesus faced
temptations. We should learn from his example. Then when we face the
same temptations, which we do, we can resist them as well and be
victorious over them.
Let us then
during this Lenten season very earnestly pray, as Jesus has taught us
to pray to Our Father in heaven – “Lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
And this is the Good News of today.
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