Reflection on the Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent -- Luke 4:1-13 by Sr. Carol Falkner, OSB
“Jesus, full of the Holy
Spirit, then returned from the Jordan and was conducted by the Spirit into the
desert for forty days, where he was tempted by the devil.” Here we have a passage that is
definitely linked to the days of Lent and Lenten disciplines. Not eating for forty days was Jesus’
test while for us it could be giving up something that is difficult to do or
reaching out to someone in need. No matter what, it is to be a time of prayer
and spiritual discipline in some form.
Our story today is the story
of Jesus being tempted by Satan. The key word is “tempt or put to the
test.” One finds that word
appearing several places in the gospel tradition as in the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead
us not into temptation.” We all
wish to be delivered from the time of testing however this manifests itself in
our lives, but how aware are we when we pray for this very grace each day at
the Liturgy of the Hours or the Eucharistic Liturgy – “…lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
The first temptation to turn
stones into bread comes after forty days of fasting. Jesus is very hungry as were the chosen people in the
wilderness. The latter get their
hunger satisfied when God sends manna from heaven. Although there is no indication that Jesus gets bread, He
does respond to Satan by quoting Deuteronomy when He says, “A person cannot
live on bread alone.” We, too, experience
a hunger only satisfied by God.
Lent is an ideal time to ask God to satisfy this hunger by what Benedict
says we are to do “…devote ourselves to prayer with tears, to reading, to
compunction of heart and self-denial.”
The second temptation is that
of power. Satan shows Jesus all
the kingdoms of the world in a single instance and offers them to Jesus if he
will only worship him. Power is
seductive. Often people in
authority are perceived to have great power. Jesus answers, “You shall worship the Lord, your God, and
God alone shall you serve. “ Real
power is anchored in humility because one realizes that real power is rooted in
God. Let us summit to humility as
Benedict would encourage us to do and allow it to teach us about real power.
During the third temptation
Jesus is asked to throw himself down from the temple leaving God to save him. This temptation asks Jesus to use the
power of God to do miracles that would be in his own self-interest putting God
to the test. Jesus warns Satan,
“You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” Jesus reminds us in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Pray that you
may not enter into the time of testing.” Lent serves as a reminder to surrender our lives to
God.
Let us then allow these forty
days of Lent to be our time in the desert, our time to make God the center of
our lives. Then we will be able to
“look forward to holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing.”
