On the Temptation in the Desert

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

GOSPEL Matt. 4:1-11 At that time, Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he was hungry. And the tempter coming said to him: "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Who answered and said: "It is written, Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from themouth of God."

Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, And said to him: "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written: That he hath given his angels charge over thee, and in their hands shall theybear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone." Jesus said to him: "It is written again: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

Again the devil took him up into a very high mountain, and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, And said to him: "All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me." Then Jesus saith to him: "Begone, Satan: for it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve."

Then the devil left him; and behold angels came and ministered to him.

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The Split Rock at Horeb

When considering this trial in the desert, its easy to miss the profundity of the temptation. It´s easy to wonder naively: Can someone please tell me why these were the tests? They don´t intuitively make sense. They don't seem so hard. Wouldn't Jesus have wanted water from the rock and not bread anyway? Who wants bread after being in the desert for 40 days? I have done long fasts and you don´t want bread after a long fast, you want watermelon, or orange juice. Ok I haven´t done anywhere close to fourty days but still, why didn't Satan tell him to make a pear or a cold drink of water? We don´t know if it was a dry fast but I somehow doubt Our Lord was getting enough water in the desert. Satan must have had an off day, the prince of this world. And saying no to jumping off a building? Even I could pass that test! It's easy. Also not worshiping Satan for all the money in the world, again, mo money, mo problems and who wants to worship the devil anyway. I could handle this sort of thing? But Satan doesn´t have off days, but I guess, in another sense, he is always having an off day, so what is going on here?

If we look closer, we discover something very significant is transpiring, perhaps the most intense trial Our Lord experienced rivaling the Garden of Gethsemane. What are we missing? Our Lord's Temptation was just as much about willing the Glory His Father had prepared for Him as it was about the goods that Satan had to offer. It may seem controversial, but I am convinced that, whether intentionally or not, the combat with Satan was being used to announce the coming Glory of Our Lord. This is usually the case with us as well, the points of attack of the forces of darkness are instructive, either pointing out weaknesses or crucial aspects of our vocation. A wise monk once told me, “that the virtues God most wants you to excell in as a Saint are your weak spots by nature.” These are the exact spots Satan will attack, because they are weak spots. But in this way, demons are made to reveal God´s plan.

And I think what was going on here was similar. These temptations involved Our Lord consenting wholly to His Father's plan, a plan Satan himself was outlining by his very points of attack. Here more than anywhere else we are given the Form, the Matter, and the Intention of The New and Eternal Covenant in concise summary. His Word is the Form, His Body is the Matter, and His Kingdom is the Intention. Yet, it is Satan who confesses this in his manner of tempting Our Lord, which constitutes part of the temptation itself: Do you want to be the Rock, The Temple, The Law? Do you want to be Prophet, Priest, and King?

His Human Nature likely recoiled from the Gravity and Consequence of this task as at Gethsemene. The Unity of Our Lord´s Divine Nature and Human Nature is a mystery. But sometimes we think that Our Lord´s Divinity made Him somehow less of a man, rather than more of one. This is a mistake. And if we think of a normal, sinful man going through something like this. So a man, weakened to the brink from fasting, burnt to a crisp from weeks spent in the desert sun, and then being tempted by the devil who at the same time revealed a supreme sort of desinty awaiting him should he triumph, the devil giving him an apparent way to escape the destiny. We can easily imagine a man in this circumstance feeling psychologically crushed by the weight of his destiny and his decision. He would both question whether he was up to the task, and whether he was willing to pay the price, and if he should trust or take the out. But the better then man, the more the first aspect is the troubling one, feeling the weight of responsibilty that is, the inadequacy and weakness of feels in the face of such a tremendous task.

But what if Our Lord being the Incarnation of God is something that makes Him more, rather than less human. What if being God makes him feel the weight of responsibilty more rather than less than a normal human? What if being fully God and fully man means being more aware of the weakness and limitations of the human frame, more in tune with how ungrateful and stupid humans are who would reject the Salvation He offers? If this is the case, then, I think, the beauty, magnitude, and intensity of this scene begin to appear more clearly. Of course responsibility harnessed is a great strength, but this is the greatest possible responsibility that can be concieved. To stand before a rock and (possibly) think, My Word is the Rock—An Unshakeable New and Eternal Covenant—to stand on the Temple with the knowledge that, I am the New Temple—The Lamb of God to be Offered—and at the top of the Mountain reflecting on the truth— the New Law of Charity will be revealed through My Crucifixion. This sort of responsibility is daunting and the cost, of course, was a terrible one, but Our Lord seems to be confronted with it here, as He is being tempted by Satan, similar to the scene in the Garden on Holy Thursday.

Fasting brings clarity, insight, and Our Lord must have been dwelling for forty days on what sort of Kingdom He was going to build. He was a builder, but He hasn't really started building yet, He was preparing in the Desert. He must have been thinking about how He was going to build His Kingdom, how He wanted to promulgate His Law, in what manner He would signal His Kingship, perhaps begging His Father for clarity as to how exactly He was supposed to redeem Mankind. Let's get clear on this for one moment: Jesus has a Divine and Human Nature, so He knows all things, because He is God, but His Human Nature matured as all humans do. He had real insight and moments of real decision, real drama. I don't think it is so appropriate to speak of Him learning, as it is to speak of His Human Will deciding. And this was obviously one of these moments of decision: here he is radically committing Himself to the specific contours of His Kingdom for the first time in scripture.

The drama only stands out all the more when we look at what these signs mean together. The Rock, The Temple, The Mountain. The Bread, The Body, The Law. The Word, The Sacrifice, The Kingdom. The Rock is The Bread is The Word. The Temple is The Body is The Sacrifice. (On) the Mountain is the Law is The Kingdom. “This is My Body, Broken for you, do this in remembrance of Me.“ What splendid and simple profundity here in these three trials as if to clarify the tri-partite words of consecration. What is Satan doing? Shooting himself in the foot? Is the great deceiver being used to confess the truth about His Kingdom to Jesus Himself? Is this what The Eternal Father is up to here, using Satan like a tool to build up Our Lord? This is the effect of the attacks of Satan on the Just.

These ideas come together so clearly in His temptation that we see they constitute the overlooked, and likely more important, half of the temptation itself. It´s what we so often overlook in our own spiritual lives: the high glory to which we are all called. And the difficulty we have of imagining it let alone willing it. Again, Jesus willed to die from all eternity and knew His Destiny, even at this point, but this seems to be The Father, very clearly communicating to The Son. And telling Him about the Passion He was to Suffer, as Satan was seeking to attack the most crucial symbols—rock, temple, mountain—and actions—Word of God, Sacrifice, Law-Giving\Worship— and pervert them toward his ends. Yet, in his attack, Satan seems to highlight and summarize the essential mission of Our Lord, also the universal and eternal scope of His Kingdom. And offers Him a cop-out.

And from this frame, the specific temptations seem legit, perfect even. They seem incomprehensibly intense, which is what Scripture indicates they were. The only other time we hear of angels coming to tend to Jesus is after His trial all night in the Garden. And Jesus is putting it all together as it happens. The Rock, The Temple, The Mountain. The Word of God, the Body of the King, The Giving of the Law. There are these wonderful overlapping sets of threes with this temptation, that stand out and beg to be made sense of. I think His Humanity is being confronted with the weight of Glory being offered to Him, also perhaps recoiling from the depths to which he must descend to pull off this task. Our Humanity too, weighted in addition by sin, recoils from the offer of Eternal Glory through sloth, and rejects the Way of Salvation through pride. The message is clear, the temptation comes down to this, as it does for all of us: does He really want it? This is our temptation as well: do we really want Him, and His Way and His Law? How will we find, and if we do, will we even choose the path God has prepared for us? Or will we settle for a cop.out? Are we all too eager to compromise for something less good?

We fast in lent to that His Kingdom might come into view at the close of these forty days and we will say ´yes´ to it, that the glory to which we are all called may come into view between reciting “we want Barabbas” on Good Friday and singing the Vidi Aquam to start the Easter Vigil liturgy. Will we see Him, draw closer to Him, and our Path in and with Him, in this Holy Season? If we see it, will we choose to desire it? Or some lesser good thing that Satan has been offering us?

But do we fast and pray so as to solicit combat? Do we fast and pray that we might draw demons to attack us in this Holy Season, demons who God will use to tell us of our future glory? as Satan does to Our Lord here. So few of us fast and pray so as to even concern demons in the slightest. And often never find our mission having failed to even once concern them that we might be headed for eternal Glory. For most of us we do not even take aim at perfection, despite knowing everyone in heaven will be perfected. Those who postpone desiring perfection until after death will have waited too long. Our Lord says, “Be ye Perfect as Your Heavenly Father is perfect“ in the Sermon on the Mount, and the time is now to aim at Eternal Beatitude. This is why we fast, and pray, and observe lent in the preparation to behold the coming of the Kingdom on Good Friday and Easter Vigil. To know Him is also to know The Way, and to have a Calling. And to increase in knowledge of Him is to increase in knowledge of these things. Lent is both the rehersal and the Real Thing. Just like every single Mass.

Moving to the specific temptations: to the first, Our Lord responds: “Man ought not to live, from bread alone but from every word that comes from the Mouth of God.” It is as if Our Lord speaks back to His Father. “Yes! My Life Itself given through Living Bread Signified by My Word to Nourish the Elect.” How can we fail to see this aspect here in this first temptation?! Furthermore, He is the Word made Flesh, His Incarnation itself is the Transformative Word bringing Eternal Life for the Elect.

Perhaps you recall another key rock-event in scripture. It´s very important for grasping the symbolic significance of this interpretation. The Patriarch Moses was not allowed into the promised land after striking the Rock at Meriba, rather than speaking forth water out of the Rock. Why did that matter so much? This scene here tells us everything: why God wanted Moses to call water out of the Rock, and why The Father wanted Jesus to refuse to call forth bread out of the Rock. Moses, partially because he was so angry, failed to make this sign in a manner that would bind Him to Jesus Christ, living water called forth by a Word, a practical sign.¹

Satan was tempting Jesus to abuse His Word, and make a practical sign to satiate His hunger, rather than create His Kingdom. If we ask the question I asked earlier: why did Satan tempt Jesus Christ in the desert with the prospect of bread rather than water? The most plausible answer is that Satan was tempting him to reject His Glory, to reject being Crucified, to reject the sacrifice he was to offer which would be represented sacramentally by His Word transforming the substance of bread into His Flesh. Satan was outlining the contours of Jesus´ own Kingdom in the attempt to get Him to reject it. Satan attacks weak points, yes, but He also seeks to spoil the most precious and essential things, even if they be well guarded. Furthermore, Satan tempts us with what we like, and if you look at scritpure, both the God of Israel and Jesus Christ like bread miracles. Here, as with all the other three temptations, Satan tempts Jesus with Good Things, and for the just it is always so. Bread is good, God working Miracles is Good, Jesus Christ being a this-Worldly Emperor would have been awesome while it lasted! Except that all humanity would still have to go to hell for eternity.

Yet, the Word of Our Lord was not for turning stones into bread to satiate His own hunger. Or even to bring forth water out of the rock, as Moses did. Instead, Our Lord wished to reserve His Word for saying things like “Take your mat, stand up and walk,” “Your sins are forgiven thee,” and “This is My Body, This Is My Blood, for a New and Everlasting Covenant.” His Word is Creative, His Word is Our Rock. Thus, Moses striking the Rock in anger, rather than speaking forth water out of the rock, was, unbeknownst to him, cutting him off from likeness to Christ, and one the echaristic doctrine of the New and Eternal covenant. He was severely punished for this mis-step, as he was forbidden entrance into the promised land because of it, a warning to all protestants who downgrade the manner of signification from practical to speculative in the case of the Blessed Sacrament. Had Jesus turned the Stone into Bread, it would have been even worse than Moses, it would have violated the literal Heart of His Own Mission, which is His Own Sacred Heart.

And here we can see ourselves, moreso in Moses, when we wonder if obedience in small things matters in the spiritual life, sometimes they do immensely, in ways that we couldn't have predicted. The temptation here was to remind Jesus that it would be His Eternal Word, also His Sacramental Words of Signification, This is My Body, that would be the very form of His Kingdom, His Body, The Church on Earth. But the cost was unimaginable suffering and the most horrible death. Satan was reminding Him of the Cost, and giving Jesus a cop out saying “Do you really want to offer your Sacrificed Body under the appearance of Bread through the sacramental signification of Your Word?“ Have you counted the cost? You would have an excuse, you could say: “but I was hungry, I hadn't eaten in 40 days, etc.”

This is how Satan often tempts us, and How God uses Satan to reveal the great things He has planned for us: Our Rock is His Creative Word, not merely in scripture, not merely His existence as Word of the Father, but also His Sacramental Signification in the Blessed Sacrament and all sacraments really, these are effective because Jesus can create anything with His Word, Satan knew this, including His Own Body, the Bread of Life. The Form of His Kingdom is constituted by His Word from which His Life is given to us: hoc est corpus meum. Jesus seems to confess this in His response to Satan, which is truly awesome.

The Second Temple

The second temptation has the exact same structure but concerns, not the Form, but the Matter of the Kingdom. And that is the Temple, the Body of Our Lord, and His Act of Self-Offering is what opens this Temple to men. Again, Jesus is tempted to abuse the very thing wich constitutes the essence of His Kingdom, first His Word, now His Body. which is the matter of His Kingdom. It is a mock sacrifice, jumping off a building. The only thing that would make me want to jump off a building is realizing I was responsible for the salvation of all mankind. And Jesus is, if not learning that here (for He already knew it), concretely confronted with that here for the first time since the prophecy of Simeon from what we know in scripture. By not throwing himself off the temple, He was preserving His Body and his pure wish to offer his Body for the Salvation of the World.

Satan, instead, was asking Him to seek His Father´s deliverance from the mock destruction of His Body falling from the heights of the Temple. Again, he was offering an out, by reminding Him of the immensity and gravity of what He had signed up for. Its not spoken but on this reading I am suggesting it is implied, Satan is asking, Are you really going to replace the temple with your own flesh? You do know what that is going to cost you? Satan was tempting Him to ask His Father for deliverance from certain suffering and death, but really it's what Satan himself was offering Our Lord, deliverance from His Mission and His Father´s Plan. And if Satan's first move is to tempt us with good things, like bread. His second is to get us to think God wants what He wants and to act accordingly. So it was with the second temptation. Our Lord´s response seems, like the first, to be revelatory. “Thou shall not tempt the Lord Thy God,“ the referent could be His Father, as Satan intends it, but Jesus could be confessing to Satan His Own Identity as God.

Scaling the mountain of course recalls the giving of the Law at Sinai. On this mountaintop with Satan, Our Lord must have recalled how His Law would be chiseled into His Own Flesh. And again, it is only in contrast with the price of Our Lord's Kingdom, that the riches of the world could have any appeal. He had to pay the ultimate price for His Kingdom, He had to take the Punishment of Men upon His Shoulders, and purchase souls freedom with His Own Flesh and Blood, with His Suffering, and Abnegation. Our Lord sweat Blood in the Garden, and I imagine Him, at the very least, sweating bullets here, as He scales the mountain. He recalls the unfolding events of the day, putting it all together, He knows something big is happening, “the Rock, the Temple and now almost at the peak of the Mountain. My Word signifies My Body which signifies the Giving of the Law on the Mountain. My Life, My Death, My Kingdom. “This is My Body, Broken for you, Do This in Remembrance of Me.”

Satan, one can wonder whether He did it knowingly or not, gave Our Lord a semiotic summary of His Mission and Task. And here as well the final question for Him was, do you want this Kingdom? There are other nice ones that won´t cost so much. Do you want to deny yourself, take up your cross, and offer your life. You could do a lot of good in this world if you became rich… If you garnered political power… if you were well regarded…

Satan's strategy, it seems, was to force the issue, to remind Him both of the Cost of what he was doing and offer an alternative. And, in His Blindness and Pride, He overplayed his hand, and Jesus seems to have run with it. And this is so often the case with the voice of the enemy. When we hear, your sin is too great, it is too late, you are too weak to do God´s will, you will never break this habit, etc, its usually as simple as saying “in Hope and confidence, “well Good, all the greater Glory to God who loves me and wishes that I fulfill His Holy Will, if I were perfect or strong, or less pathetic, people might have suspected my growth or transformation was of my own efforts and not Divine grace?” In this same way one we can see Our Lord turning these temptations against Satan. When He says one should live from the Word of God, He speaks of Himself, who is the Bread of Life. When He says not to tempt the Lord thy God, He could be literally reproving Satan for tempting Him, because He is God. And finally, on the mountain, Our Lord sees His Glorification, it is here on the Mountain where the elect will adore Him, and He will be glorified and glorify His Father. Here, on the mountain, The Crucified One, the Suffering Servant, who will speak out from the Cross the Messianic Psalm 21: which yes, begins, Oh Lord, Oh Lord why hath thou forsaken me” but closes with the declaration of the triumph of the Messianic Kingdom from atop Mount Calvary:

“I will declare Thy Name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.

For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.

My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

For the kingdom is the Lord's: and he is the governor among the nations.

All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He hath done this.”

Our Lord Jesus Christ should alone, with the Most Holy Trinity, be worshiped. Satan asks Him to abuse that here, at the place He is to be worshiped and will restore all worship to His Father. Satan wishes for nothing more than to be honored at the very place designated for divine worship, which is why the takes Jesus to the mountaintop, attacking the very End for which Jesus Christ became Incarnate, i.e. to restore all glory and honor to His Father, and Redeem man the Elect. On this mountain, He would promulgate His Law through His Sacrifice: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). On Mount Cavary, He would be worshiped by all men. Our Lord says “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.“ (John 12:32).

And reversing the relationship between means and end is a common temptation: Satan offers the worship of himself as a means to the end of unparalleled wealth and power. Jesus could have used this wealth and power to great good, but the ends never justify the means. Satan works in insidious ways in our life, similarly by turning God into a means to get what we want, and when we do this, we aren´t dealing with God. Jesus was a King, He was made for Kingdom, and Satan was offering Him one, but the means to the end was apostasy, false worship. But so often, in the Church, Jesus Christ and the Gospel are made to serve this worldly ends rather seeking a proper ordering of this world to honor God.

Satan can offer us really nothing at all in comparison with the Good things God offers. It is only when we do not care to look at or care to desire what God wants, that satans devices can be alluring. What are the riches Satan had to offer compared with resurrecting and nourishing the Saints! It is nothing! But what God wants is often so much higher than we can imagine, and so much better than we can imagine, or than we ever wanted. And so few of us ever really learn to aim properly in the spiritual life, and we don´t go where we don´t aim. And God respects our freedom.

The battles fought in this holy season can bring forth the designs for our glory into the open, they should prepare us to behold the Charity of God revealed in and through the Crucifixion of Our Lord. But we must desire this, to know Him and His plan. We must desire perfection: not to be superhumans, but to be fully united with Jesus Christ and His Sacrifice and Reign. By entering the desert, through fasting and prayer, we solicit the enemy who will seek to attack our weak points, as Satan sought our Lord in the desert. For the just, these attacks are valuable, because they help point out the weakness God needs to heal.

Lent is a time to reflect on our mortality, on the stain of sin in our lives, and to seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, but those who profit the most from this time know that it is a time for combat and consent in the anticipation of a future glory, and in preparation to behold the coming of the Lord.

Mount Siani, where Moses Recieved the Law

1. I write about the importance of this sort of sign here:

Distinctiones S- XIII. Signum Speculativum-Signum Practicum (2)