Luke 4:1-13
As some of you know, if you've been
listening to my sermons over the last 22 years, I used to be a cancer
doctor. Patients with cancer sometimes show amazing heroism; others
get pretty depressed. And one of the things I heard patients say
many times was “Why me?” Sometimes they or their loved ones
would elaborate on this. “He's always been such a good person1”
; “She's been such a wonderful wife and mother; she doesn't deserve
this!”; :He's way too young; he has a whole life ahead of him!”“Why
do bad things happen to good people?” Cancer is one thing, but
sometimes little things trigger the same response, even among holy
people: Saint Theresa of Avila, who reformed the Carmelite Order
together with Saint John of the Cross, was crossing a river on her
horse one day as she was on her way to visit one of the Carmelite
monasteries. She fell off the horse into the river and as she
dragged herself to shore, she looked up to heaven and said, “If
this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of
them!”
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke
tell almost the same story: Luke and Matthew are gentle; they say
that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert. Mark uses a
different term; he says “the Spirit drove him into the desert” a
somewhat different picture indeed. But all three agree, Jesus didn't
go into the desert because he wanted to, just as he didn't go to the
cross because he wanted to be tortured and killed – he went because
he knew that was what the Father wanted. And I think most of us have
found ourselves in deserts we did not want to be in. Like my cancer
patients, we look for answers, we ask “Why me?” Like Saint
Theresa, we say, “But God, I'm your friend!”
When we read the story about the
temptations of Jesus, it's good to remember that just before Jesus
goes into the desert, he comes out of the baptismal water and hears a
voice from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased!” And I think that event makes the temptations more
understandable.
After forty days of fasting, Jesus
must have been at a very low point. And it's at those points that
it's hard to resist temptation. The first temptation is to turn
stones into bread. But the real temptation is, “If I am God's
beloved, why is he allowing me to be hungry?” Jesus is tempted to
perform a miracle for a perfectly good reason but he does not,
because to do so would deny the fact that He is human. And that's
our cry as well; because we are God's beloved, why are we deprived?
Why can't I have what I want, why should I or one of those I love be
in need of anything?
I imagine that Jesus may have felt
very unimportant out there in the desert. Mark tells us that he was
with the wild animals. I wonder if Jesus was thinking about his
future ministry – or did that come later? In any event, the second
temptation, to power and glory, is really “If I am God's beloved,
why are things so hard? Why doesn't he give me a short-cut; if he
gave me power and glory, I could bring about the kingdom of heaven
without breaking into a sweat.” And you and I are God's beloved,
and sometimes we wonder why things are so difficult, why our hard
work is not recognized, why our efforts to do good are sometimes met
with so much resistance.
The desert is a terrifying place,
especially at night when you are alone. Native Americans knew this
and a rite of passage to adulthood was to go out and be alone in the
desert or the forest until you had experienced a change in the way
you looked at life; you would recognize it when it happened. But you
had to go through that helplessness. The third temptation is for
Jesus to throw himself off the temple tower, because, as Satan tells
him, “the angels will bear you up”. Again, the real temptation
is “If I am God's beloved, why am I vulnerable? Why will I die
someday, possibly in pain; why am I growing old and losing my
strength and my memory, why do I wake up with pains in my back; why
do I have to take all these pills? Why is my immortal soul in so
fragile a body?” And you and I are God's beloved, and ask the same
question.
Jesus is driven into the desert; he
had no choice. But he chooses to remain in the desert, where he has
to confront what every human being must confront. Why don't I have
everything I need and want? Why is it so hard, doing my work,
nurturing my relationships, raising my children – and worst of all,
no one truly appreciates what I have to do. And why are my days and
years trickling away; why am I getting weaker rather than stronger?
And we see what Jesus does. He
chooses to be hungry rather than to be satisfied; he chooses being
misunderstood and doing everything the hard way (like us) rather than
taking a short cut; and he chooses vulnerability over taking on
superpowers. He chooses humanity.
And he does this consciously,
deliberately, because of all human beings who have ever lived on
earth, he does not have to; he is divine; as we will see as we read
through the gospels, he exercises his divinity for others throughout
his entire ministry. But there in the desert he learned what we also
must learn; Man does not live by bread alone, but by God's words; You
shall worship God alone; and you shall not tempt the Lord. Jesus
learned that the goal of our human struggle is to embrace our
humanity not because it is fragile and limited, and yes, painful at
times; but because it is given to us by our Father, and we are God's
beloved, and if we don't see it now, we will someday see that the
Father has always acted toward you and I as he did towards Jesus; he
brings us through the desert of our lives to Resurrection. Lent is
the desert; fast and pray and help each other; empty yourselves out
so that God can fill you up with himself.
