A Scriptural Commentary for the First Sunday of Lent [Year A]

 

The Season of Lent is modeled upon Jesus praying and fasting for 40 Days in the desert. He was being prepared for his compassionate ministry to help and save us. The First Sunday of Lent always proclaims one of the versions of the Gospel about this "desert experience" of Jesus.

 

Eventually, the early Church mandated 40 Days of fasting and prayer, as well as almsgiving, as an annual preparation for Catechumens who would be Baptized at the Easter Vigil. At the same time, all Christians would also practice these "lenten disciplines" in solidarity with the Catechumens and in preparation to renew their own Baptismal identity at Easter. Our Baptism calls us to life-long conversion in the life of Christ and Lent focuses especially upon this perennial journey.

 

Looking now to the Gospel of Matthew 4:1-11, when Jesus goes into the desert, he has just come from his Baptism where the Holy Spirit descended upon him and God the Father declares "This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased." (Matthew 3:17) At Jesus Baptism, his identity is publicly revealed as the Beloved Son of God. A similar revelation is made at each Christian’s Baptism: we are Beloved sons and daughters of God by spiritual adoption. (See Catechism #522 HERE)

 

The Baptism of Jesus established for him his identity as the Beloved Son. The striking drama of Jesus then going into the desert is that he is tempted by the Devil and the Devil calls into question the identity of Jesus as we shall see.

"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.

He fasted for forty days and forty nights,

and afterwards he was hungry. The Tempter approached and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread."

He said in reply, "It is written: 

‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’" (Matthew 4:1-4)

 

"Temptation of Christ" by Eric Armusik

We see the Tempter calling into question the identity of Jesus, saying "If you are the Son of God." In some way, all temptation to sin is a question of our identity. A husband or wife who commits adultery violates his or her  identity as a married person. A Christian who does so, violates his or her Baptismal identity as an adopted son or daughter of God: "You shall be holy as the Lord your God is holy." (See Leviticus 19:2) The philosopher and sociologist Erich Fromm defined integrity as "the unwillingness to violate one’s identity."

 

The First Temptation questions the identity of Jesus with great seductiveness, tempting Jesus to prove his identity as the Son of God by producing bread from stones and then consuming them to satisfy his hunger. Though this would truly require a supernatural action, remarkably this is still a "modern temptation." It reminds us of the false identity assumptions of "consumerism" which afflict our modern lives and society which claim

 

"...that persons do not count, unless they are certain kind of persons. If they are not endowed with value by power, affluence, productivity [what they can produce], or national interest, they may be sacrificed...What is ‘ours’, what we possess, what we own and consume has become the ultimate criterion against which we measure all other values." (John Kavanaugh, Still Following Christ in a Consumer Society, p.26; emphases added.)

 

Another commentator observes that this consumerism "begins with two themes: that more possessions mean more happiness, [and] that a person who does or produces more is more important." (Quoted in Kavanaugh, p.32; emphasis added)

 

In the temptations presented in this Gospel passage from Matthew, Jesus is tempted to base (or prove) his identity and worth by an act of producing something so that he could consume it. By resisting this temptation, he shows that he still has value even when he isn’t producing or consuming. He is still the Son of God, also, whether he is hungry or not. These insights also apply to us who follow Christ as adopted sons and daughters of God through Baptism.

 

Jesus counters this temptation by recalling the Scriptural truth: "Humans do not live by bread only, but by every Word of God." (Matthew 4:4)

　

"Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple,

and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you
and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’
Jesus answered him, Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."

(Matthew 4: 5-7)

 

It may be disturbing to us that the Devil can quote Scripture!

 

This Second Temptation is somewhat like the first. Here the Tempter is questioning once again the identity of Jesus ("If you are the Son of God"). We can note that Jesus isn’t being tempted in his divinity as the Son of God, but rather in his humanity. And Satan is tempting Jesus to ignore his human limitations and throw himself off the temple parapet, so that God can rescue him from the natural consequences of such an action.

 

Such a temptation appeals to a claim of being "privileged," someone not limited, not bound by the consequences of his or her  action. A great many people are still tempted by such an attitude. In a way, this temptation was the temptation of Adam and Eve in the First Reading of this Sunday. The Serpent tempted them to not be humanly limited, but to disobey God and become gods themselves.

 

This temptation to not recognize legitimate limits is also part of the seduction of addictions (notice Satan takes Jesus to a "high" place) Someone abusing alcohol or drugs, for example,   never wants "the buzz" or "high" to end. To regain sobriety, one has to accept that you can’t get drunk or be stoned without consequences. That’s just how our human bodies are.

 

Second, there are some limits that we may legitimately try to transcend: like when someone sets out to climb a mountain; at other times, we must accept the limitations of human nature, like the need to rest. This has given rise to the famous "Serenity Prayer":

 

 

Jesus resists this temptation to be privileged and to reject human limitations.

 

"Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me."
At this, Jesus said to him, "Get away, Satan!
It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve." (Matthew 4:8-10)

 

In the Third Temptation, the Tempter doesn’t say a third time: "If you are the Son of God..." Yet he still attempts to change the loyalties of Jesus to God his Father. The Devil tempts Jesus with power, in fact the ultimate political power of ruling all the nations–but at a great cost: Satan wants Jesus to worship and serve him. This is the temptation of power that does not serve God and life, but rather would serve self and what is opposed to God’s way.

 

Power is still a potent temptation. Power, like bread or trusting God to save is a good thing, but sin always wants to distort what is good. The temptation of unlimited power is exactly what is wrong with not accepting proper limitations and wanting to be privileged rather than to serve (the Second Temptation) and the belief that one can "buy" happiness in life" and protection from hungers by what one owns and can consume (the First Temptation).

 

Priest and author John Shea sums up the Temptations of Christ in this way:

 

"Jesus may be conscious of his true identity in a clear and immediate way, but for most of us it is a more labored and reflective effort. We do not always remember our spiritual identities [as the children of God]. So temptations appear to us as options, possibilities that have to be weighed rather than demonic invitations that have to be dismissed. In particular, temptations are attractive because they appeal to our fantasy selves, those aspects of ourselves that we want to be above it all. And this is the opportunity, our [supposed] good fortune to have what we always wanted–a life that is always satiated, without injury, and rippling with splendiferous power." (John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Preachers and Teachers. Year A. On Earth as It is in Heaven, p.107)

 

"Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him." (Matthew 4:11)

 

Just because Jesus was tempted to sin, tempted by his hunger, by a desire to be unlimited by human nature, to be all powerful does not change at all his identity as the Son of God in human flesh. Some speculate that this desert experience by Jesus could well have been his struggle to know just how he would serve God in the flesh, in this world of ours. Our deserts may do exactly the same for us.

 

This will not be the only time that Jesus is tempted, and if we follow him, we shall also expect periodic times of temptation and struggle in life. It will be instructive to us to recall another time of temptation in the life of Jesus: when Jesus is tempted in the Garden of Gethsemane, before he was arrested and began his suffering that took him to the Cross. In the Gospel accounts he is shown in a great struggle, hoping that the Cup of Suffering that he forsees as coming to him might pass him by. Though Satan is not mentioned in these Gospel accounts, in Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, great effect is made of Biblical symbolism in the Garden scene. As a commentator on the movie observes about the Garden scene:

"The scene cuts back to the garden, where Jesus is again praying. Satan makes his entrance - which is not in any of the gospel accounts. However, I believe Mel Gibson is using the appearance of Satan to explain what Jesus is going through and why. One of Satan's most important lines is 'Saving their souls is too costly.' ... A snake appears and slithers towards Jesus. The snake, of course, represents the serpent from the garden of Eden, when Satan took on the form of a snake to tempt Adam and Eve into sin. The snake is not in the gospel accounts either, but is used to demonstrate the literal fulfillment of Genesis 3:15,6 as Jesus crushes the snake's head in resisting the words of Satan by submitting to the will of the Father." (Citation HERE)

 

The point is, that in the greatest moment of Jesus’ temptation to avoid the suffering required by love, and to accept the powerlessness of the Cross, i.e. the saving mission of Jesus which is why the Son of God became human, Jesus prays: "Not my will, but your will be done, Father." (Luke 22:42)

 

It seems he learned such obedience to God’s will in the desert. There in the Garden, as in the desert, the Gospel of Luke says: "An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him." (Luke 22:43) If we would follow him, we too will find that the best defense against temptation is this prayer: "Not my will, Father, but your will be done."

 

 

 

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Lent and the Image of Desert

The beginning of Lent with its various Biblical and spiritual images gives us an example of the sacramental imagination at work (See "The Catholic Imagination is a Sacramental Imagination (Part II)" HERE). Recall, I wrote about how we have this capacity to "think with images," what we call imagination, and through images we understand reality, in complement with reason also. We live more from images, many would argue, than from abstract thinking.

 

Our Catholic religious imagination, which uses many images and symbols, has highly developed the spiritual imagery of the desert, especially when it comes to Lent, but even more so in what is called "desert spirituality," (See "Desert Fathers" in Wikipedia HERE) and in monasticism.

 

 

Like most geographical images, the image of the desert evokes a wide range of experiences and meanings. Some of them are:

 

A place of few distractions due to a landscape of few elements: sand, rock, some vegetation, open, vast spaces and few residents. We usually think of the sand deserts, but other landscapes can be desert-like, for example a deserted place, island, or property.

 

Can be a place where all questions get reduced to what is essential for life, especially water. The desert evokes the need for water.

 

The desert can be a place, then of challenges. It can feel like a lonely place, a place where there is the threat of dying or perishing. A place where the question is "Will I survive?" Thus it often represents the times and feelings of being in a crisis, especially where one’s life in thrown into question or desolation.

 

On the other hand the desert can be a place for experiencing God. There is so little to obscure the vastness of the skies, especially at night where the night sky is illuminated with the vast array of stars, and the awesomeness of "God on High" is evoked.

 

For most, the desert is a place to pass through, not to remain in longer than necessary. There are easier places to live than the desert, but there is no place like the desert to fast from all the distractions and overload of the stimuli of modern life and just have time to be quiet and listen.

 

As one author notes: "The desert often invokes images of a vast expanse, a timeless space of beauty, wonder and longing. Many come to the desert to commune with a higher power or the forces of nature. Indeed, for much poetry about the desert was an allegory for a spiritual quest."

 

 

The desert (sometimes also called "the wilderness") serves a symbolic function in life and in religion. In the history of God’s People Israel (recorded in what we call the Old Testament of the Bible), the "founding Patriarch" Abraham and his wife Sarah lived a nomadic life in the desert. In the early stories of the Old Testament, "city-life" was often suspect (Abraham’s nephew Lot lived in the city of Sodom and met tragedy there: see Genesis 19:13-13).

 

Later, Moses led the People of Israel out of the slavery of Egypt into the desert, where for 40 years they wandered (detailed in the Book of Exodus). This freedom and Exodus became the defining religious event for the Israelites, celebrated annually as Passover. The children of Israel under Moses were journeying through the desert to the Promised Land, the land of Canaan, corresponding loosely to the modern country of Israel and surrounding areas.

 

For the prophets, the desert was a symbol of the intimate relationship of God and his people when the people were dependent upon their God who led them out of slavery and sin. For example, the Lord speaks through the Prophet Hosea to Israel in spousal imagery, for Israel was unfaithful to God, her "covenant partner":

 

"But then I will win her back once again.

I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there.

I will return her vineyards to her

and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.

She will give herself to me there,

as she did long ago when she was young,

when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt." --Hosea 2:14-15

 

In the New Testament, the desert continues as a place to go to get away from life’s complications and preoccupations and to get closer to God. Thus, John the Baptist first appears in the Gospel, ‘beyond the Jordan River" (but close to it, also), in the desert preaching repentance and works of salvation. He describes himself as "A Voice in the wilderness crying, "prepare the Way of the Lord.’"

 

Famously, Jesus himself goes into the desert for 40 days and nights to be tested and tempted, to also prepare for his mission as Savior. Like a new Moses, he will lead humanity from the slavery of sin and into the Kingdom of God, eventually to the Promised Land of Heaven. But first we must pass through the desert, or in this case death and letting go, to experience his New Life. We Christians also have a Passover: the Passover with Jesus in his dying and rising (the Paschal Mystery).

 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church #540 states: "By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert."

 

Obviously Lent is patterned on the mystery of Jesus in the desert, imitating his practice of fasting and praying while we are voluntarily led into the spiritual desert of Lent. The Church from the very beginning has fasted and prayed. However, Lent developed over time, in various ways and in various places. It was created as preparation for Baptism at the Easter Vigil (the night before Easter Sunday) when this became an established practice, fully by the mid 4^th century when Christianity was no longer persecuted.

 

Still today, the purpose of Lent is to prepare our Catechumens for baptism and to renew our own Baptismal commitments at Easter. The preparation of the spiritual desert well serves this goal.

 

The Desert at Night

 

See also my past Personal Blog HERE for more on the desert and Lent
 

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