Lent I

That ye receive not the Grace of God in vain.
(2 Cor. vi. 1)
     
On this First Sunday of Lent, we confront the reality of sin. If we don’t take sin seriously, we cannot move to the Cross of Christ on Good Friday to find meaning in it. Sin as a concept that troubles men in all ages. The ancient Greeks and Romans were mostly embarrassed by it and chalked it up to irrationality or a failure to think clearly. For the Jews, it was a palpable reality and something with which they struggled continuously. Sin emerges onto the pages of history then not only as bad philosophy but as what distracts man from serving God.
        
The problem of sin comes to a head in the New Testament. In the Gospels alone we find the baneful power of sin expressed fully. If sin is not real, if sin is only a philosophical error, missing the mark, or an absence of the good, then the teaching of Christ is useless. The purpose of the Incarnation of Christ will have no meaning unless He came down from Heaven to deal with the malignant presence and power of sin. Christ came down from Heaven to declare God’s power and judgment against sin. In so doing, He would reveal to man what sin does and then how He conquers it. If we study the life of Christ, we shall discover how sin condemns us. Christianity has no meaning if sin has no power. But in Christ, we find that its power is only as great as we allow it to be.
        
Of course, Scripture gives us a remedy for sin. But first it locates the cause in ourselves. We need not blame our genes, or our family bloodlines, since a little study of the issue will lead us to admit that we have only ourselves to blame. The root cause of sin is prideful selfishness. Our awakening is a call to self-knowledge. If the moral conscience is not awakened, we cannot diagnose sin as a real problem. If we do not grow up to the extent that we claim and confess our own role in our sinning and in the damage that it does to us and others, Christ cannot help us. Christ comes down from Heaven to awaken in us that integrity of character that knows itself, confesses its sin, and then finds its remedy in Him.
        
In this morning’s Gospel, Christ reveals to us the origin of sin’s problem in His own temptations. That He was tempted as we are to sin is a revelation that should be endearing to us. The Son of God made flesh comes down from Heaven to redeem and save humanity by becoming one of us. He comes into our condition and gets under our skin to tackle the problem of Original Sin. That Christ was made man is no magical remedy against sin. Christ exposes Himself to what every fallen man endures each day and puts Himself into our predicament. What Christ does in His temptations is to bless and sanctify, make good, the necessary battle which we must wage against sin if we would be saved. Because nothing can be too hard for God, even the battle against sin can reveal God’s power to conquer it.
        
The temptations that Christ endures are, respectively, temptations for the body, soul, and spirit to prefer some subjective good to God. The Devil tempts Christ after he had fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, and he was hungry. (St. Matthew iv. 2) Fasting in a wilderness separates Christ from all things. Imagining that the fast might be over, Christ is tempted to put earthly hunger before God and to forget that God has supported him with spiritual power. The first temptation is to perform a miracle to secure immediate comfort by rushing into the satisfaction of earthly hunger. If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. (ibid, 3) Christ the Son of God made man is tempted to secure our salvation by making stones into bread. Christ is tempted to prove that He is the Son of God by performing a miracle that violates the laws of nature. No man makes bread from stones. No man should expect it from God either. The fast, which depended only on God’s power, must continue until Christ situates Himself correctly with His Father. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness (St. Matthew v. 6) is the Son of God’s first business. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. (St. Matthew vi. 33) Christ as man will redeem us by putting the nourishment of the soul before the body, so that we too might do the same. Christ rebukes Satan and says, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (ibid, 4)
        
Christ is tempted a second time.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,  and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. (ibid, 5,6)

If Christ does not come into time and space to make fleshly nourishment and comfort into a god, perhaps the Son of God might be tempted to win our salvation by rejecting the body altogether.
Now, Christ is tempted to threaten his body by throwing Himself off a skyscraper to prove that He is the Son of God. Here, the soul is tempted to reject the body in a vain attempt to provoke God to rescue Him. But Christ knows that God will redeem human nature in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, and in fastings. (2 Cor. vi. 4,5). Christ will not prove that He is the Son of God by provoking God to perform another irrational and unnatural miracle. Christ is still fasting and hungry! He can only prove that He is the Son of God by putting first things first. If Christ is to redeem human nature, He must suffer. Christ is still suffering hunger pangs! No good is ever achieved without suffering and sacrifice. Every farmer, craftsman, and artist knows the same. Earthly hunger is good and must find its proper place in relation to fasting. Christ still fasts to resist temptations to false gods. He must suffer in body and soul to perfect our union with Him. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. (ibid, 7)
        
Christ is tempted a third and final time.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worhip me. (ibid, 8,9)

The Son of God is still fasting and suffering. Finally, He is tempted to prove Himself by becoming another god in this world with a kingdom that competes with His Father’s in Heaven. In other words, He is tempted to be the Son of God without redeeming man, without submitting His spirit to the Divine Will but by severing and detaching from God, altogether worshiping the Devil, only to become another fallen angel. Thus, as Man, Christ, in spirit, was tempted to become His own god. But Christ responds,

Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. (ibid, 10. 11)
        
As Fulton Sheen reminds us, all the Devil’s temptations are shortcuts to salvation, tempting Christ to circumvent the path that alone leads to our redemption. For man to be saved, his body, soul, and spirit must be redeemed for God. Had Christ neglected to endure suffering, sacrifice, and death, He never would have taken on the punishments for sin and made them good. Suffering, sacrifice, and death are the greatest obstacles to God and His purposes. Christ, the Son of God, would be most tempted to become unfaithful to God in the face of the sin that demanded His suffering, sacrifice, and death. But especially here, Christ the Son of God will transform sin into righteousness and death into new life.
        
In taking on our nature, Jesus Christ identifies with the longer and harder way home to God. That fallen man must journey on a longer and harder path, learning to order comfort, tame pride, and learn proper detachment, does not make it either sinful or wrong. Longer and harder journeys after any form of goodness are always more rewarding than what comes to us by instant gratification. Hard work need not be a punishment but a gift. That Christ was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews iv. 15) remains His most appealing draw since He alone consecrates a natural necessity to supernatural ends. Christ did not sin but suffered and died at its hands. Christ rejected any kind of diabolical freedom from God, and because of this, He knew that redemption could only be won once He had defeated Satan in the final battle, the last temptation, from the wilderness of the Cross, where He, wholly innocent, wholly pure, would be most tempted in body, soul, and spirit to surrender. For it was on the Cross that Christ would prove that He was the Son of God, and we believe that there, at last, the angels came and ministered unto Him. (idem)
Amen.
©wjsmartin