In today’s Gospel (Luke 4:1-13), Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days of prayer. Prayer was Christ’s usual practice to discern and obey the will of the Father, and to prepare himself for whatever momentous event was ahead of him. Sustained by only grace and prayer, Christ encounters the devil. Imagine the audacity of the devil as he tries to put God himself to the test! The devil tempts Jesus three times here in the desert. He commands Jesus to turn stones into bread to satisfy his physical hunger. Jesus refuses because one does not live by bread alone (Deuteronomy 8:3). The devil asks Jesus to worship him, claiming that he will Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. But again, Jesus refuses, stating that “you shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve (Deuteronomy 6:13). Finally, the devil tempts Jesus to prove that he is the Son of God by throwing himself down from the highest point of the Temple because the angels would guard him. Jesus again refuses, saying: “you shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test” (Deuteronomy 6:16). Each time, sustained by the Holy Spirit and with a command of God’s revealed word, Christ can resist temptation. He is victorious over temptation just as he will be victorious over death in his Resurrection.
Like that devil in the desert, how often do we put God to the test? How often do we “negotiate” with God and ignore his will in order to suit our own will? How often have we prayed that “yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” yet turn away to seek our own glory, to demand our own power, and to build our own little kingdoms?
This Lent, let us resolve to be fortified by the same thing that gave Jesus strength against the temptations of the devil. Like Jesus, let us cultivate a deeper prayer life. Let us turn to Sacred Scripture to discern God’s will for us and to hear God speaking to us. Let us rely on the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit when we are weak and thank him when we are made strong. Remember well the words of Saint Paul who wrote: “In him who is the source of my strength, I have strength for all things” (Philippians 4:13). And when these forty days of Lent are through, may we sing ever more joyfully that Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death, and offers us eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven.