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1. On this the first Sunday of Lent we always read one of
the accounts of the several weeks Jesus spent in the
desert and the temptations, which he experienced
there. Matthew, Mark and Luke, each tell the story in
their own way. But the story could only have originated
with Jesus himself. Only he could have told his disciples
and friends of what happened during the forty days which
he spent alone, by himself, in the wilderness. Obviously
he must have felt that what happened then was important
for them to know, that it was significant enough to have
shaped the last years of his life
We recall that the experience took place immediately
after Jesus had presented himself to be baptized by John
the Baptist in the river Jordan. And we recall too that
that must have been a dramatic moment in the life of
Jesus. For the previous thirty years he had led a quiet
and hidden life with his parents at Nazareth. Now he
decides it is time for him to give himself to the service
of God in a public way, much the same as John the Baptist
was doing. His being baptized marks the beginning of a new
life. From now on he will be living the life of a
wandering preacher. The change, the contrast with his life
as he had lived it up to now, must have been unsettling to
say the least. How can you make such a drastic change
without being upset and worried about the implications,
the consequences, of what you are about to do? How can you
leave a settled, ordered and familiar life for a life
where nothing is certain or sure without some inner
turmoil and anxious questioning? Surely that must have
been what Jesus experienced once he had made the decision
to begin what we call his public ministry.
2. We can understand easily enough why he felt the need
just then to spend some time by himself pondering and
reflecting on the implications of his decision, what that
decision was going to mean for the years ahead. Saint
Matthew says - "He was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness ... " And there, alone by himself all the
doubts and hesitations about the rightness, the
correctness, of his decision began to assail him. It’s a
common enough experience for us to appreciate something of
what he went through during those days in the desert. It
is precisely at the moment of making an important
decision, one which is to change the course of our lives,
that we are assailed by many doubts as to the correctness
of the path we have chosen. It is then, at the moment of
choosing, that we are most vulnerable. It is then that all
the reasons and arguments against the decision come
flooding into our minds, and it is there in the loneliness
of one's mind that the matter has to be settled one way or
the other. So, what we refer to as the 'temptations' of
Jesus are really the account of his struggle to come to
grips with what he had decided was to be his vocation in
life. It was a time of testing, of trying to see what
might be the implications of remaining faithful,
steadfast, to the path he had decided he should take.
Forty days and forty nights it took him to resolve the
matter, to work his way through all the doubts and
misgivings which assailed him. That it took so long gives
us some idea of the inner turmoil which he must have
experienced. It was a long battle between the Spirit and
Satan before the matter was settled. And while it was
going on, Jesus must have felt that he was being pulled
and tugged in both directions, that he was being torn
apart in the depths of his being. What we have in the
Gospel accounts can only be the bare bones of what
happened during that struggle which lasted for so
long. But what we find there must be the heart of the
matter because that is precisely what Jesus himself told
his disciples and friends about his experience.
3. And indeed, the very first doubt that came to him
struck at the heart of what he felt to be his vocation. It
took the form of the question or rather the taunt - "If
you are the Son of God". We have no way of knowing what
exactly was Jesus' consciousness of his being the "Son of
God" at that moment of his life. All we can say is that he
must have felt some inclination, some premonition, that he
had a very special and singular relationship with God. And
we know that something special did happen at his baptism
which Saint Matthew has expressed in this way - "As soon
as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At
that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of
God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a
voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son, whom I
love; with whom I am well pleased." (3: 15-17). But the
things of the Spirit, the things of God, are not
quantifiable or measurable and so, in terms of concrete
human experience, they always leave room for
questioning. That means, while Jesus felt powerfully moved
to accept his vocation as the "Son of God", so much so
that the rest of his life was to be shaped by that
conviction, there was still room for doubts to be sown -
"If you are the Son of God.
The voice which tempted him seemed to be saying - ' you
are not really all that sure, are you! / ' and, supposing
it's not true, what then! / would not your whole life be a
sham! / and if you are not absolutely sure, why not test
yourself - "command these stones to become loaves of
bread." / surely that would be proof that you have
extraordinary power / it's as easy as that to get rid of
any doubts you might have'.
That Jesus did have extraordinary powers was to be borne
out many times out during the next three years of his
ministry - he did heal the sick, he did raise from the
dead, he did multiply the loaves and the fish. So, why not
change a few stones into loaves of bread if by so doing he
could prove to himself that he was truly the "Son of
God"? But no, he refuses, and he appeals to something
which he remembers from the Scriptures - "It is written,
'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God',"
4. What, then, is the significance, of his refusal to give
way to any of the three temptations which came to him. He
must have thought - 'if my vocation is as I think it to
be, then God will show me to be truly his Son in his own
good time. For the present what is being asked of me is to
show my solidarity with those to whom I have been
sent. And surely that must mean that I too, like them,
have to live with the uncertainties, the doubts, the
confusions even which are part of human existence'. Joannes
Metz puts that well - "Christ .... he professed and
accepted our humanity, he took it on and endured our lot,
he stepped down from his divinity. He came to us where we
really are - with all our broken dreams and lost hopes,
with the meaning of existence slipping through our
fingers. He came and stood with us, struggling with his
whole heart to have us say 'yes' to our innate poverty."
(J.B. Metz, Poverty of Spirit, Paulist Press, New
York, 1968, p 7)
This
then is the resolve, which Jesus reached at the end of
those forty days in the desert wrestling with the
implications of the life and ministry he was about to
begin. He will not set himself apart from those whom he
wishes to serve, he will not distance himself in any way
from them and from the limitations of the human condition,
its uncertainties and insecurities. There is a continuity
here with the stance which he took at his baptism. On that
occasion, he took his place with all those who were
waiting to be baptized by John the Baptist. He was just
one of the crowd, simply standing there with them without
saying a word.
5. While it is a comfort to us to know that Jesus is one
who stands by us in all the uncertainties and insecurities
of life, there is another valuable lesson to be drawn from
what happened to him during those forty days in the
desert. It is the fact that Jesus, under pressure to take
a different pathway to achieve what he had set out to do,
deliberately refused to use power, prestige or any
position of advantage to further what he was convinced was
his vocation, which was no less than the redemption of all
mankind - as Saint Paul reminds us in today's second
reading (Rom. 5; 12-19). Neither can we ever turn to power
or to a show of strength to further the cause of
Christ. And that might be a temptation in a time when
others are using just such means to belittle, if not
attack, the cause of Christ here in India. |
