LENT 1 [C]: Dt 26:4-10, Rom 10:8-13, Lk 4:1-13

Moses gives some interesting advice in our first reading today. He tells the people: when you finally claim the land that God has promised you and have begun to harvest the first fruits of its soil bring these first fruits to the altar and offer them up to God as a gift. And as you do so, testify: testify before the priest and the people. Begin by reminding yourself where you came from; then, remind yourself how your life has changed, the impact God has had on your life. Finally, remind yourself of the good things that you have in your life now because of your friendship with God. [I wish we all could remember to do that each time we walk into the Church: Where we started from, where we are now, and acknowledge the role of God in getting our here].

 St. Paul asks the same from the first Christians in our second reading: ‘By confessing with your lips you are saved’. The English word ‘salvation’ comes from the Latin word ‘salus’ which means health: it is where we get our English words ‘salve’ and salutary from. To be saved is to be made healthy. To be saved is to be made better after the sickness of sin. Ultimately our full healing will happen in the next life when we will become like God as we see him as He really is.

 

On the first Sunday of Lent we follow Jesus into the desert for forty days and forty nights. Like Jesus we go on the front foot and we confront the sources of sin and temptation in our lives empowered by the Spirit and making full use of the tools that the Spirit gives us for this struggle: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. All of these things are meant to help us remember the Lord and his Goodness. These three means of spiritual empowerment are not practiced by the Christians only. These are common to all major religions.  

[Unlike in Islam, the Catholic Church is very lenient in enforcing the fast-rules. We have a lot of exceptions and loop holes. Even on a fast day we are allowed to have two half meals.  Compare this with fast in Islam. They are not allowed to swallow even saliva from dawn to dusk. The fast is broken even if a little water goes in them through any orifice while one is swimming or taking a shower. One ex-Muslim commented on the stench coming out from one’s mouth if he didn’t even swallow saliva for 12 hours. But that is a perfume for Allah, according to Quran. And when they break the fast they eat the most delicacies available in the world. Muslims spend three times more on food in the month of Ramdan than all other months. They are allowed to eat from sundown to dawn. Not allowed to have sex during the day, but allowed at night. And they say they do rigorous fast. One Hindu girl got converted to Islam after being fascinated by the rigorous fasting of Muslims. Of course she didn’t know the full picture.] They certainly read the whole Quran in the month of Ramdhan.  Do we read some extra bible during our lent? Are there some different things that we do during lent?

The Church assigns temptation stories to the beginning of Lent because temptations come to everybody, not only to Jesus, and we seem almost genetically programmed to yield to them. We are surrounded on all sides by temptations, and they have become so familiar to twenty-first century life that we scarcely notice them.

Bible scholars interpret the graphic temptations of Jesus described by Matthew and Luke as a pictorial and dramatic representation of the inner struggle against a temptation that Jesus experienced throughout his public life.

The devil was not trying to lure Jesus into some particular sin — rather, he was trying to entice Jesus away from the accomplishment of his Messianic mission, mainly through a temptation to become the political Messiah of Jewish expectations, to use his Divine power first for his own convenience, and then to avoid suffering and death.

After being unsuccessful with Jesus, the devil departed from him for a time. He left Jesus but would wait for another opportunity. That “time” came at the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. It came again whenever people demanded signs from him to prove who he was (Lk 11:16, 29-32; 22:3, 54-62; 23:35-39). Ultimately, it came in Gethsemane with Jesus’ agony (struggle to affirm the Father’s will for him) and on Calvary when Jesus was crucified.

We need to confront and conquer temptations as Jesus did, using the means he employed: Like Jesus, every one of us is tempted to seek sinful pleasures, easy wealth, and positions of authority, and is drawn to the use of unjust or sinful means to attain good ends. Jesus serves as a model for conquering temptations through prayer, penance, and the effective use of the ‘‘word of God.” Temptations make us true warriors of God by strengthening our minds and hearts. We are never tempted beyond the strength God gives us. In his first letter, St. John assures us: “The One Who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Hence, during Lent, let us confront our evil tendencies with prayer (especially by participating in the Holy Mass), penance, and the meditative reading of the Bible. Knowledge of the Bible prepares us for the moment of temptation by enabling us “to know Jesus more clearly, to love him more dearly and to follow him more nearly, day by day,” as William Barclay puts it.