Scripture Reflection for the First Sunday of Lent:
Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Psalm 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15
Romans 10:8-13
Luke 4:1-13
What the Church seems to whisper through these readings at the beginning of Lent is a simple message. God is with you is that simple message.
Nothing esoteric, nothing too dramatic, only the plain truth: it is God’s ancient and contemporary and constant assurance. God is with you as you begin this season of Lent; he, of course, is always with you. But the Church seems to want to remind us of the fact as we begin the journey of this holy season. It is a good reminder.
As I said, it is a constant truth. It is found throughout the Scripture. “I will be with him in distress,” God says in the Psalm (Psalm 91:15). It is the same thing he said to Jacob at Bethel while wrestling that stubborn patriarch: “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go” (Genesis 28:15). It is the same thing prophesied and fulfilled in Matthew: “I am with you always, to the close of the age,” Jesus said (Matthew 28:20). It is what God has always done – he has always stuck with us – since at least that time in Eden when he went looking for us in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:9).
Thus, it remains true even when you enter the desert, even when Satan draws near in the battle of temptation – God is still with you. That’s how I’ve always interpreted the little detail Luke gives, that Jesus was “led by the Spirit” into the desert (Luke 4:1). The interior battle, the brutal moral battle for the soul: it is also a spiritual struggle. The darkness of it is not like the darkness of a horror story but more like the shadows of a quest. God allows the struggle; we can only mysteriously describe it that way. Somehow the battle is necessary. Between earth and heaven there are not just stars but a desert too. These, of course, are images of purification and redemption, images of the soul’s return to God.
Which is the deeper purpose of Lent. It is, of course, primarily a season in which we prepare ourselves for the Easter celebration, purifying ourselves to celebrate the Paschal feast. But that ultimately is just a sign for the spiritual life generally, an image of each soul’s journey to God. What the Church says each Lent, reading us again the story of Jesus’s temptation in the desert, is that there is a desert for each of us, a place and season of testing we each must enter, a spiritual battle each of us must undertake.
We should, therefore, pay attention to the ways Jesus fought the devil. We should fight the devil just like he did. Akin to the Church’s ancient Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, what we see in Jesus’ testing in the desert are those practices figured as spiritual warfare. Lenten discipline is neither self-improvement nor therapy. It’s a battle. It’s a war with the devil himself, that evil lion that prowls about.
Tempted, then, by material desires or by gluttonous bodily wants, what should the Christian do? Remember the Scripture that we live not on bread alone but on the word of God, the promises of God that he would care for us as he cared for his people in the desert, if only we had faith the size of a mustard seed.
Tempted, too, by a lust for power and control, political or personal, what should the Christian do? This is an all too relevant temptation. Worship God alone – no man, no office. Serve the God who tells you to serve him in the poor and not the partisan who tells you otherwise. Your allegiance is to Christ. Do not give in or change or twist the truth! Remember it is Satan that offers you power in this world. Renounce that willfulness that makes a wreck of things, the willfulness that makes you want such power.
And, finally, tempted by the fear and impatience that makes us sometimes demand signs from God, or some answer to our prayers and pleading, Jesus reminds us not to put God to the test.
The way of faithfulness we’re asked to imitate is that of Jesus. And he entered the darkness of Good Friday, that felt forsakenness which demanded of God nothing; we are called to be faithful like that, come what may. God’s hesed is what that is – his steadfast loving kindness we’re called to make our own.
Trusting in the word of God, renouncing Satan’s power, insisting only upon faith and not any reward: that’s the deep teaching of Jesus in the desert. That’s how God is with us as we enter our own deserts; he is with us by means of his truth. If only we will keep close to his truth and heed not today’s devils.
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books.
