For Sunday, February 14, 2016 – Luke 4:1-13
Even if we fine tune our minds to their most compassionate settings, it is nearly impossible to comprehend the extent of the suffering Jesus experiences in this potent confrontation with evil. However or whatever or whomever we imagine Satan to be—whether physical incarnation or mental apparition—this adversary is anything and everything in our lives that rejoices in deception, seeks to destroy the good, craves ultimate control. The Satan factor is whatever comes to us as a mindset, a strategy, a system, a person or group disguised as desiring only our best while stubbornly conniving for private benefit.
Usually we encounter such shining-with-empty-promises entities—which cleverly can shape-shift into outer forces or inner—when we are at our most vulnerable. Jesus, we learn, is famished, exhausted and alone. He is full of the Holy Spirit, yes, but also full of the human condition. Separated from his community, uncertain how to navigate current conditions, Jesus is going through what we all go through, way out there at the limits of our limits, facing the core temptations deep in the heart of us all: (1) the temptation toward comfort and sustenance; (2) the urge toward power and control; (3) the lure of spectacle—the ‘wow’ of achievement and success.
How easy it is to see these tendencies in others—from political candidates to colleagues—and to point the fingers of shame. But will we dare to see them more clearly in ourselves? Will we humble ourselves enough to admit our own longing for an easier, more comfortable life, how we, too, would like to make great impact without suffering very much? Revealing ourselves to others, maybe we will start to see that our greatest temptations grow from the same soil as our greatest strengths. Wow! We want to make a difference! What a holy desire! We want to strive for more than mundane drudgeries; we want to truly enjoy this amazing life! Maybe our temptations are in fact gifts.
The very same Spirit who companioned Jesus into the wilderness and sustained him there walks also with us through the desert of our own unfulfilled longings, teaching us to rejoice in our suffering, knowing that when we are tempted much, it is because we are being given much. Temptation reveals weakness as well as strength. It is a spiritual practice, uniting us in humility to the whole family of God.
