First Sunday Of Lent

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT, CYCLE C

LUKE 4:1-13 (Deuteronomy 4:6-10; Psalm 91:1-2, 10-15; Romans 10:8-13)

The gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent is the story of the temptation of Jesus. That Jesus was tempted in his human nature is a tradition embedded in all four gospels and in the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews. In Hebrews 2:18 we read, “Because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.” The author of Hebrews returns to the same theme in 4:15, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us in our weakness, but one who in every way has been tempted as we are,” but with this difference, “yet without sin.” An old Negro Spiritual expresses the same theme in the words of suffering people imported from Africa, “Nobody knows de trouble I have seen, nobody knows but Jesus.” The Gospel of John has its own temptation scene, but so different from the other three gospels that we can conclude no relationship between John and the other gospels in this matter.

The Gospel of Mark is thought to be the original story of the temptation of Jesus. Mark is brief.

Jesus is expelled into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit who had just descended upon him at his baptism by John in the Jordan River. The temptation by Satan in the wilderness is ongoing for forty days.  There is no fasting in Mark’s version, nor any specific temptation. Mark notes “He (Jesus) was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.” That’s it! Mark writes about the year 70 A.D. There is enough material in Mark’s version with its implied references to the temptations of Israel in the wilderness for forty years and its implied reference to Psalm 91 (the angels) to inspire Matthew and Luke to greatly expand their versions with the use of a form of literature called  Midrash. In this form of literature an author develops a theme by combining previous oral and written traditions with Old Testament passages. The author searches these passages, probes them, expands them, and reinterprets them to apply to a new situation, different from their original setting in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.

First of all, Luke does not approve of Mark’s opening words, “The (Holy) Spirit …expelled him into the wilderness….” Luke warned his readers in the Prologue to his gospel that he intended to improve on “many who attempted ” before him to write the story of Jesus. Clearly Luke has a more beautiful introduction, “Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil.” Quite a fulsome beginning to clarify Mark’s “expelled.”  It was noted above that Mark said nothing about fasting. Luke writes, “He (Jesus) ate nothing during those days, and when they were over, he was hungry.” Jesus’ hunger provides the setting for Luke’s version of the first temptation, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to turn into bread.” What is this about?

We may never completely know what Luke (and Matthew) intended to say by this temptation, but it is surely a reference to the hunger of the Israelites wandering in the Sinai wilderness for forty years. The answer of Jesus to the devil makes that clear, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” These words are part of a quote from Deuteronomy 8:3. Moses says to the Israelites, “He humbled you and let you hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, that he might make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” The ancients failed their test of loyalty to God’s word. The One who now represents Israel is about to bring the word of God not only to the People of the Old Covenant but to all nations. He passed the test to be true to God’s plan which is about to enfold. The words that proceeded from the mouth of the Lord in the Old Testament will be renewed and proceed from the mouth of the Lord Jesus in the New Covenant.

The second temptation: the devil “took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.” Luke relies on a tradition that God turned over to the devil authority over the earth and the right to pass on that authority.  Luke’s devil persona is paraphrasing the words of the Lord God in Jeremiah 27:5, “It is I who by my great power…have made the earth, with the people and the animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me.” But there is a condition to be met before the devil can turn over all this authority to Jesus. “All this will be yours, if you worship me.” What is Luke’s intention? A possibility is a condemnation of the seeking after political power by the Christian Community.  At the Last Supper in Luke only, Jesus will say to the disciples, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them…. But not so with you. Let the greatest among you become as the least, and the leader as one who serves.”

The third temptation: the devil takes Jesus to a high point on the temple. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.” The devil quotes words that echo Psalm 91, “He will give his angels charge over you to guard you. On their hands they will bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone.” That the devil uses this quote literally should warn hyper-literalists from doing the same with all the Scriptures.  Is this temptation Luke’s condemnation of lust for popu-larity and recognition, a condemnation of seeking personal glory? All three temptations are open to various homiletic interpretations. In the answers of Jesus to the second and third temptation he rejects worship of the devil (political or otherwise) in any form, but insists on worshipping God alone and rejects tempting “the Lord your God.” Who rather than the devil should have been adored as Lord of all kingdoms? Who has just been tempted? It is possible that Luke uses Jesus’ answers to proclaim him as God, a repetition of what he proclaimed in 1:32, 35, and 2:11.