Our Lenten journey has begun; a season of sacrifice, of discipline, and most importantly of reflecting on Christ’s time in the desert, being tempted. Lent is a season for these things so we can fully prepare ourselves for Christ’s path to Golgotha and His death on the hill, nailed to a cross. In our preparation during our First Sunday of Lent, The Church in Her wisdom gives us the gospel of Luke chapter 4:1-13.
In these verses we read about Christ being led into the desert by The Holy Spirit, a place devoid of most life. No forest to admire it’s audacity, no ocean to reflect on its immensity, nothing of the world that would help point someone to God’s great creation and to His eternal goodness. Christ was led there, to be tempted by the devil himself.
One thing I have missed until this year is the specificity of what Christ was tempted with and it’s correspondence with the fall of men and the angels.
The appeal to the will
“And the devil said to him: If thou be the Son of God, say to this stone that it be made bread.”
When we read this verse we tend to be drawn to the fact that Christ, as a man, was hungry from His forty day fast. Of course the devil would tempt the flesh in this way. But when we think of Christ as the new Adam, here to form and fulfill the final and everlasting covenant with humanity, this temptation brings us back to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were tempted with the forbidden fruit. The great deceiver once more tempting the will of man.
Christ then responds to this temptation saying “it is written, that Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word of God.” A fitting response with even deeper meaning. The fall of man was brought about by a rejection of God’s word, the consumption of the forbidden fruit, and thus humanity’s death. Christ, being the Logos, fulfills His mission and brings salvation back to humanity.
The appeal to pride
“And the devil led him into a high mountain, and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; And he said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them. If thou therefore wilt adore before me, all shall be thine.”
After the appeal to the will and its connection to humanity’s fall. The devil then appeals to pride. Pride, the root of evil, it is what caused the fall of the angels, one third of the stars to fall. The devil himself was driven by pride to reject his God-given objective, and so with a man before him appeals to that very thing that drove his own demise.
“Jesus answering said to him: It is written: Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Christ’s response to this temptation leads us back to the very fall of the angels, just as the first brought us back to the fall of humanity. Christ echoes and strengthens the response of the Archangel Michael, “who is like unto God?” No created being is worthy of the same praise and adoration as the uncreated God. God the father, the everlasting God-head, creator of the Universe, is the only one worthy of all of our adoration.
The appeal to authority
“And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and he said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself from hence. For it is written, that He hath given his angels charge over thee, that they keep thee. And that in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone.”
The third temptation is of an even higher degree than the others. Christ’s Will was not swayed by the first, and He had no pride from which He could succumb to the second. The devil then appeals to God’s (and as such, Christ’s) authority over creation.
“And Jesus answering, said to him: It is said: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”
Christ enacts His authority, even over the devil, in saying this to Him. Within scripture this is one of the few times Christ shows His authority and His place in the Trinity. With this statement we see Christ saying that “I am Him.”
These three temptations in the desert hold great gravity in how we should conduct our forty days. Christ was tempted especially by the two things that caused creation to fall. The greatest temptations we as men and women could face. It would do us well to ponder the responses of Christ so as to further conform our wills to Him.
In this Lenten season, while we remember these of Christ’s temptations, let us make our lives like a desert in imitation of Him who brought our salvation.
A Holy Legacy 