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Each year, on the First Sunday of Lent, we hear the story of The Temptation of Christ in the Desert. As we have just begun a 40-day observance of penitence, the Lord has just completed a 40-day retreat. Both we and the Lord face temptation at this crossroad: for the Lord, it was a temptation not to follow through in His public ministry… to take a short cut around His Passion and Death… to try to grab onto the glory that belongs properly only to the Resurrection. For us, the temptation is to blow off the penitential character of this season, making it trivial and arcane, and ultimately irrelevant.
The story of the Lord’s Temptation is placed side-by-side with the story of the Temptation of Adam and Eve, today: they fell to temptation, and thereby introduced sin into the world, but the Lord resisted temptation, and thereby introduced salvation into the world.
The presence of temptation does not necessarily imply moral imperfection on the part of the one who is tempted. If that were the case, then the Lord would not have been tempted at all.
The Lord’s temptations came only from outside of Himself, unlike our temptations, which mostly come from inside of ourselves. So, when Adam’s Fall brought a loss for all of humanity, the Lord’s triumph over temptation brought renewal, and a reversal of fortune for all of humanity.
And yet, evil persists in the world: Very few people believe in the devil in our day, which pleases the devil just fine. Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said: “Satan has very little trouble with those who don’t believe in him, because they’re already on his side.”
All this being said, let’s take a look at the Lord’s own Temptations in order to gain some insight into the great temptations of our day.
On first hearing, the Lord’s Temptations don’t seem like anything we’ve experienced:
- turning stones into bread
- jumping off rooftops
- considering kingship of the entire world.
This is because the devil tailors his temptations toward the strengths of the person being tempted. (Notice I didn’t say that devil tempts us to act upon our weakness — that would be too easy for him.) Our greater sins tend to come from an abuse, or misuse of our strengths.
Jesus knew that He had the power to enact His three-fold identity and mission as Priest, Prophet, and King. The devil tried to trick Him into doing the right thing for the wrong reason: to abuse the power entrusted to Him for His own benefit. And this is just what the devil presented to Him. But look at how Jesus responds:
— As priest, He would have the power to turn bread and wine into His Precious Body and Blood for the sake of His followers in the present, and for generations to come. However, turning stones into bread would have been a self-serving misuse of His priestly powers.
— As Prophet, He would be charged with living a life that, while people would follow Him, He would always lead then not to Himself, but to the Father. But a showy abuse of God’s power with an acrobatic jump from the parapet of the Temple might have stirred interest in people to follow Jesus, but for the wrong reason.
— As King, He would tell Pontius Pilate that His Kingdom would be not of this world. So a grasp for power and adulation would send the wrong message, substituting popularity for true leadership.
But what about us, whose temptations seem paltry next to the Lord’s? I think we can see three of the great temptations against faith in our day, hidden within the Temptations of the Lord. I would identify the devil’s temptations toward us to move us away from our faith as:
- skepticism
- cynicism — and —
- secularism.
Our First Temptation
is aligned with the Lord’s temptation to turn stones into bread. This is a worldview marred by skepticism. This begins with a disunitive self-reliance in which one no longer feels a need for God, nor even wants God to be part of one’s life. Here one dismisses organized religion with the all-too-familiar phrase: “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” One sees one’s strengths and abilities as meant for one’s own benefit and well-being. A self-fulfilling Agnosticism develops from this which often devolves into a feverish “anti-religionism, looking for a values-neutral society, which is, of course, an impossibility.
Our Second Temptation
is aligned with the Lord’s temptation to jump from the Temple. This is a worldview marred by cynicism. Here one doubts there is any such thing as Natural Law, (a law written on the heart which speaks to the nature of Creation, and thus informs and defines human nature) and then defies God’s intentions for Creation and His involvement in the world.
Here one loses respect for the sanctity of human life. Relativism begins to develop here, wherein one doubts that there are any universal or eternal Truths, believing, instead, that each person becomes the source of his own truth, and then timeless teachings are replaced with personal opinion, which brings about the phrase: “Well you have your truth, and I have mine.” Intolerance for Religion and belligerence toward people of faith can lead one to blasphemy against God and all things holy.
Our Third Temptation
is aligned with the Lord’s Temptation to claim the adulation of the world. This is a worldview marred by secularism. When the devil takes Jesus up “a very high mountain,” he does this not simply to give the Lord a spectacular view of the world’s geography, but to try to change the Lord’s worldview. In our day, a new, secularized view of the world can lead to Atheism, wherein the world was not created by God, but came into being through a Big Bang, or something akin, and, therefore, saving the earth replaces the work of saving souls.
For those who don’t go all the way to Atheism, the path will frequently lead to Syncretism, in which all religions are considered to be about equal, and, therefore, the practice of religion should be privatized and held as little more than a personal hobby. Religions, all being about the same, are believed to be equally without value.
Here, a government might speak of “Freedom of Worship” while attempting to curtail true “Freedom of Religion,” keeping religion and perceived religious values out of the Public Square.
To review how our temptations align with those of Our Lord:
First: This temptation to skepticism leads to a self-centered Agnosticism in which one questions the existence or “knowability” of God and thereby dismisses organized religion.
Second: This temptation to cynicism, which doubts there are any universal or eternal truths, reducing long- and widely-held beliefs to the realm of opinion, can lead to Atheism.
Third: This temptation to secularism can lead one to syncretism, in which all religions are thought to be equal, and, therefore, equally without value.
So, where will all of this lead us? … to the final temptation to despair? No: because for each of these temptations, the late Pope Benedict posed that there are three “transcendentals” — that is — revelations of God to human perception, to counter-balance the dark side of humanity and lead us to holiness.
These transcendentals are:
- Truth
- Goodness — and —
- Beauty.
We humans have an innate ability to grasp these divine attributes as they are revealed to us, as well as to adopt them into our lives so that we can bring something of divine revelation to earthly experience, especially when tempted away from God by the Evil One.
Grasping God’s revealed Truth prevents us from falling into a skeptical worldview and to embrace mystery, especially the mystery of God which our limited minds can never fully grasp.
Opening ourselves to God’s Goodness will keep us from becoming cynical and self-absorbed. Now we can say, “Yes” to eternal and universal Truth, which will lead us to lives of virtue that reflect God’s goodness to the world.
Appreciating God’s Beauty will help us to see the beauty of God’s Presence in our souls. We can look at the world, the Church, the parish as an opportunity to serve God because we can see something of His Beauty in each person.
The devil’s temptations can be overcome, but only with Gods’ Grace. This Grace can be renewed within us by way of the Lenten disciplines we choose, especially those recommended by the Lord: praying… fasting… and almsgiving.
So now we can look at the Lenten season before us not with dread — but with hope that God’s Truth, Goodness and Beauty can draw us to Himself beyond temptation and sin, and renew us in holiness.