He Is Our Way

He is our Way

Scripture

Deuteronomy 26:4-10,

Romans 10:8-13,

Luke 4:1-13.

Dear sisters and brothers,

Today, we are in the first week of Lent and we read from the Gospel of Saint Luke (Luke 4:1-13):

“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan

and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,

to be tempted by the devil.

He ate nothing during those days,

and when they were over he was hungry.

The devil said to him,

“If you are the Son of God,

command this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered him,

“It is written, One does not live on bread alone.”

Then he took him up and showed him

all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.

The devil said to him,

“I shall give to you all this power and glory;

for it has been handed over to me,

and I may give it to whomever I wish.

All this will be yours, if you worship me.”

Jesus said to him in reply,

“It is written

You shall worship the Lord, your God,

and him alone shall you serve.”

Then he led him to Jerusalem,

made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,

“If you are the Son of God,

throw yourself down from here, for it is written:

He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,

and:

With their hands they will support you,

lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

Jesus said to him in reply,

“It also says,

You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”

When the devil had finished every temptation,

he departed from him for a time.”

Reflection

Our Gospel today is on the Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.

Three temptations:

To change stone into bread,

To fall down and worship the devil, and

To jump down from the pinnacle of the Temple.

These three temptations happened in the wilderness.

The wilderness can be a rough phase of our own lives.

What is our response when we face the rough phase in our lives?

What did we do during the pandemic time?

Did we use what we have to get what we want?

Or

Did we respond like Jesus, during the pandemic or during the rough time of our lives?

I am sure that we have heard:

“Use what you have to get what you want.”

Many people indeed take this as their philosophy of life.

However, Jesus shows us that the principle of using whatever you have, to get whatever you want, is not always right, through the Gospel reading of today.

In fact, when the principle: ‘use what you have to get what you want’, is applied without putting God first, it becomes a philosophy of the world.

In other words, it becomes the devil’s own philosophy, a philosophy that should be rejected as Jesus did in his life.

The gospel of today starts by saying:

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returns from the Baptism.

At the Jordan, after the Baptism of Jesus there was a voice from heaven (Luke 3:21-22) saying:

“Now when all the people were baptized,

and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,

the heaven was opened,

and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.

And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved;

with you I am well pleased.””

In the first temptation, the devil puts an idea into Jesus’ head:

“If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3).

Notice that the first thing the devil does is sow a doubt in his mind: “If you are the Son of God...”

Jesus came with the belief that he is the Son of God after his baptism at Jordan.

Now, the devil comes asking Jesus: “Are you really sure that you are the Son of God?”

There is a doubt.

We read the same thing in the book of Genesis in the Garden of Eden.

The first thing the Tempter said to Eve was:

“Did God really say you should not eat of any fruit of the garden” (Genesis 3:1).

There was a doubt in the mind of Eve after this question.

Every temptation always begins with a doubting thought.

A doubting thought can be:

Does God really exist?

Will God answer my prayer?

Did God really say this?

Are you sure God is with you?

These are the doubting questions.

We often face these temptations during the rough times in our lives.

Our rough time can be a suffering, a sickness, a death of a loved one, a pandemic and so on.

What did we do?

What do we do?

We ask a question:

“What did Jesus do when the same doubting question or temptation came up in his life?”