Today Jesus is led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted. “Fly,” says Satan. “Turn stones into bread. Be super-Jesus.” Or worse, “Be
sub-human. Worship me.” It seems clear that Satan is
tempting Jesus to deny his humanity. As if to say, “Why bother? It will be too
messy.” But this would be for Jesus to deny His very Self, for Christ’s humanity
is the sacrament of His divinity; the full, real expression of God’s love for
all creation. Satan wants Christ Jesus to deny the self-forgetful Love that he
enfleshes. He desperately wants Him to forget the Love that will lead to his
excruciating self-emptying even unto death, death on a cross.
The incarnation drives Satan crazy, he who is
the Accuser, for he knows it will be his undoing. If only God would just stay
in heaven, if only Christ would leave the earth as Satan’s domain, the domain
of beasts and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night. If only Christ Jesus would deny
his humanity- the reality of his love for us, in us, with us. It is the cross
that will be Jesus’ final answer to Satan. For on the cross God will let
Himself be murdered for our freedom from all accusations against us, and death
will die in Him. The Accuser does not have a chance. He knows it
and he’s frightened to death. Jesus
the Lord is undaunted by Satan’s foolishness. Jesus is sovereign, self-assured, victorious. And so this scene in the desert is a foretaste of His paschal victory over sin and death, which will be accomplished in quiet trust and obedience to the Father.
God has taken our flesh as his own; our flesh that
blemishes, blushes, bruises and blotches; our flesh that burns with passion,
and aches, gets dirty, even smells. Christ Jesus is not embarrassed to clothe
Himself with our ruddy flesh. His temptation by the Accuser was to be other
than He is, God with us, God for us. Our temptations are perhaps a zillion
variations on a similar theme- to be other than who we are- dearly beloved
children of God.
Like Jesus we live with beasts, our inner
demons, but we too have angels ministering to us, if we dare notice. We are day
in day out persecuted, beguiled and tempted but never, ever abandoned for we
carry about in ourselves the dying of Jesus so that his risen Self may also be
revealed in us. This is our hard and beautiful destiny, our baptismal truth- we
are in Christ.
Christ
Jesus, our refuge in all temptation, is tempted today and is victorious to
reveal to us our own power as members of His Body. We too are majestic
even in our fragility, because our flesh is his flesh. The Eucharist we celebrate each
day makes explicit this truth of our commingling with God in Christ.
Duccio di Buoninsegna (c.1255 - c.1319), The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain, 1308-1311, tempera on poplar panel (cradled),
Duccio di Buoninsegna (c.1255 - c.1319), The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain, 1308-1311, tempera on poplar panel (cradled),
17 x 18 1/8 in., The Frick Collection, New York.