First Sunday of Lent

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030914.cfm 

If we look through the readings for today, we can see that the common theme is about sin and temptation. The temptation to sin that we all feel from time to time is alive and well in the world today. We all know what that feels like: wanting to eat meat when we are supposed to abstain from meat; having a piece of chocolate when we agreed to give up sweets for Lent; watching another TV program when we know we need to get to work on something; viewing images on the Internet, TV, or magazines that we know are not appropriate; saying mean things or gossiping about a person when we think they can’t hear. These are just a few examples of ways in which any one of us might be tempted to sin.

In the first reading today, we hear about the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve. We also hear about the very first temptation to sin. I think that it is easy for us to hear this story of the fall and assume that if we had been there, things would have turned out different. We say to ourselves, “If I had been there, I never would have fallen for the serpent’s lies. If I had been there, I never would have eaten that fruit and we would still be in paradise”. Well, there is no telling how different things may have turned out had our parents not taken the fruit, but it is important that we remember who it is that we are dealing with. Satan is the master tempter; he is the expert trickster. He is also very prideful. He is envious that we are so important to the Father that He would send His Son to be just like us in order to save us. Because of that, Satan will do whatever he can to stop us from getting closer to God. A priest once explained to me in a seminary class that we need to remember that Satan is a fallen angel. When he was an angel his name was Lucifer, which means “light barer.” Satan still loves to use light and he uses it to trick us. He doesn't mind if we do good things, like helping the poor or giving things up for Lent, but if he can tempt us into doing those things for the wrong reasons and not doing them for God, then he's happy. Have we ever felt tempted to pat ourselves on the back because we just volunteered several hours of our time at a charity or wanted to tell all those around us about what we gave up for Lent in order to complain about how hard it is, “But I'm still doing a good job”? That is one of many sneaky ways that Satan tries to fool us. We can keep trying to tell ourselves that we wouldn't have fallen for the Devil's tricks in the Garden of Eden, but in reality we fall for a lot of his tricks in our day to day lives as Christians.

Now at this point, it may feel like I'm trying to bring everyone down with all this talk about temptations and Satan's tricks and deception. This homily is not meant to be a guilt ridden homily; I simply want to make a clear point in this first part that Satan has been tempting humanity from the very beginning and is still going strong. However, the readings today are not all about Satan's success at tricking humanity or about his power of temptation. We are also told about the hope that we have in Christ for getting past those temptations and coming to be with God in Heaven.

The Gospel is that famous scene with Jesus in the desert as He is tempted by the Devil. A big theme that Matthew is trying to show in this section is that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. I still get a kick out of reading the line, “He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry.” I always want to say, “Well no kidding Sherlock! What was your first clue?” Any of us would be hungry after fasting for one day, let alone forty. But the point is, we would never expect the Son of God to be hungry after fasting for forty days. The fact that He is hungry, means He is human like the rest of us. Another indication that Jesus is human is that Satan can tempt Him. Jesus was like us in all things except sin. That mean the Devil could tempt Him, but as the Son of God He never chose to give in to those temptations.

This story of Jesus' temptation in the desert should give us, as Christians, great hope. From the beginning of time, Satan has been trying to sabotage humanity's relationship with God. Those temptations he lays before us are meant to play to our own pride. When you think about it, the original sin of Adam and Eve was the sin of pride. They thought they knew better than God what was best for them, so they took the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If we continue to think this through to the next step, we realize that all sin is rooted in pride. Whenever we sin, we are essentially making a statement that God's Commandments do not apply to me. Maybe we claim that we are somehow exempt or maybe we just claim to know better than God what we truly need. We are tempted to follow Satan's example of pride. However, when Jesus comes into the world, we now have one whom Satan in unable to tempt with pride. Jesus has no sinful pride; no ego which He so desires to puff up. This is a great hope for all of us, because Jesus was human. He could be tempted, but wouldn't give in. All humans, all Christians, now have hope that we too will one day be free from pride and all sin.

This is accomplished through God's grace. This is what St. Paul is talking about in his letter to the Romans when he wrote, “For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.” Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. One man brought suffering and sin into the world. One man, is able to make it possible to get past those sins and be closer to God. Thanks be to God for His abundant grace.

We need not fear Satan, or his temptations, or his tricks. Jesus came and died for us that me might have the grace to get past our own pride and focus completely on the love of God. Let us praise God for that wonderful gift of love and mercy.