Lk 4:1-13
1Filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert 2for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ” 5Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. 6The devil said to him, “I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. 7All this will be yours, if you worship me.” 8Jesus said to him in reply, “It is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord, your God,/ and him alone shall you serve.’ ”/ 9Then he led him to
Jerusalem, made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you,/ to guard you,’/ 11and:/ ‘With their hands they will support you,/ lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ”/ 12Jesus said to him in reply, “It also says, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’ ”
13When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.
Forty Days of Test and Triumph
One hot summer afternoon, Benjo was resting under a mango tree. Staring at the big pakwan (watermelon) growing out in the field and then at the small mango fruits hanging on big branches above him, he asked the Lord, “How could you have figured out so badly to let big fruits grow on frail stalks and small ones hang on strong boughs?” All of a sudden, there was a gust of wind, and one ripening mango fell on his head. Nursing his pain, Benjo said, “Lord, you’re clever to keep the pakwan on the ground. How would I fare if it dropped over my head?”
Benjo would have been hit badly. Not always in real life do we have ready explanations: gravity that keeps us close to the ground, molecules that make up the air we breathe, and many more. Yet we trust that even the unknown in life makes sense. We trust that we will not fall off the earth when we step out of the house. We trust that the air we breathe keeps circulating even while we sleep. Hardly anything can be done without certain confidence in the mystery of life, and this is true in time of crises and in the hour of testing.
The temptations of Jesus in the desert are not provocations to entice him to mortal sin; they are a test to prove his true character and to lead him to a deeper self-knowledge. Anyone who has a noble mission laid upon one’s shoulder draws inner strength from knowing oneself as God knows the person. The temptations of Jesus in the desert are not our temptations: turning stones into bread, possessing the whole world, or jumping off safely from a building. We cannot be tempted to do tasks that are impossible to perform. Hence, the crisis of Jesus tells us what mighty power he is capable of wielding. At the beginning of the story, the tempter openly says, “If you are the Son of God…” (Lk 4:3). When the testing in the desert is over, the readers of the Gospel recognize, “Of course, he is the Son of God!”
As we read the story of Jesus, we realize that we have our own desert story to tell. After receiving words of hope from the only girl he loved, a young man named Gavi could never imagine the pain after finding out she secretly loved another boy. To Gavi, betrayal came across as forty days in the desert when questions about life struck his mind as fast as tears flowed on his cheeks. His desert experience may not be so much about turning stones into bread as transforming an excruciating hurt into a loving heart. Not so much about owning the entire earth as having a family that supports him. Not so much about landing safely from a height as jumping trustingly into the arms of a Father who lovingly says, “You, too, are my son. We are in this together.”
When we trust, we understand that our own forty days in the wilderness become a show of strength, a display of hope, and an experience of faith in Jesus whose desert experience touches our own.