Faithfulness Even in Temptation
We begin our first week of lent
by reflecting on the meaning of temptation in our lives. Our life should always
of being faithful even when we are tempted.
The Gospel of Luke which we are
reading in this year speaks about the three temptations of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It narrates how Jesus was tempted against material needs, human power,
and against asking God for an extraordinary sign of protection (Cf. Luke 4:
1-13).
Temptation is an inducement to
sin. It is a trial in which one has a free choice of being faithful or
unfaithful to God and His commands. Temptation is not a sin certainly. It is
just a situation of choice: “between the
Eternal Good (God) and temporal good (in- ordinate love of self).
The first temptation Christ experienced
was that of hunger or against material needs. We want to have good clothes,
money especially in this time of poverty. These temporal needs are important to
our lives but they are not an end in themselves “Human beings live not on bread alone.” If we have too much appetite
for these needs and we don’t get them, then we will begin to murmur like the
Israelites (Cf. Deut. 8:3). One parent told me that if ‘I have just enough
money to feed my children, take them to school I will be fine.’ Maybe that is the
spirit we need to embrace today.
The second temptation is human
power. Power is a great temptation in
one’s life. We want to be powerful by all means (even by evil means) because
only powerful people count in our world.
People always want for the opportunity to gain power probably to enrich
themselves. Jesus too, had an opportunity to get glory for himself. He could
have used his miraculous powers to gain popularity and become the most powerful
and famous person in the world. But he reminds the devil that he had to be subservient
to God: “Only God is to be served (Lk.
4:8; Deut 6:13). After all
in essence all power and glory belong to God alone.
The third temptation is to ask
God for an extraordinary sign of protection by jumping from the top of the Temple
“He has given his angels orders about
you, to guard you and carry you in their arms in case you trip over a stone” (Lk.
4:10-11). Today many of us challenge God to show extraordinary signs of his
presence. “Come for Miracles or
healings.” We call on God to cure incurable diseases like HIV/AIDS, Cancer
or High Blood Pressure. Perhaps we pray
to make all students pass their exams and all youth to find employment. Rarely
do we stop to ask what the root causes of these problems are, and how can we, ourselves
fight them. God has given us intelligence precisely so that we can create a
better world. To force God to act in our place is to put God to the test. We
always have to “pray as though
everything depends on God, but work as though everything depends on us.”
The temptations of Jesus should be
seen as constant daily struggle or conflict of God’s reign with the reign of
Satan. This is our daily struggle. We
need with the help of God’s grace to resist the power of Satan.
Points for reflections
·
Resistance
to sin is a moral imperative
·
Prayer
and disapproval of sin, no matter what
and where, is our only positive resistance to
sin
·
God will
never tempt us beyond our strength
·
Readings
§
Gen.
3:1-6 a snake is symbol of our
earthness – temptation to do evil
§
Gen. 4:
7 sin is around the corner but we can
master it
§
Matt. 6:12 do not lead us into temptation
Comments
Post a Comment