Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent
“And him only shalt thou serve”
The temptations of Christ belong to the logic of redemption, to the Passion of Christ. Christ wills to be tempted for us even as he suffers for us on the Cross. The accounts of the temptation show us the intensity of the encounter. There is a real struggle, a struggle for what is good and right that is greater than anything we can imagine because we have become so used to giving in and going along with the things that draw us away from our true happiness and good which is found in the will of God.
The story of “The Temptations of Christ” is about our temptations as endured and overcome by Christ. As the Fathers so often observe, Christ is our Mediator who not only overcomes our temptations but also gives us an example for doing the same. The temptations belong to the reality of the human condition. They take us back to the Fall and they point us to the Crucifixion. Strange as it may seem to say there is something good and necessary about temptation. Why? Because what is good and true has to be known as good and true and willed as such.
The temptations comprehend all of the temptations known to us. All temptation, in other words, is brought in under the three temptations of Christ as presented by Matthew and Luke, even though the second and third temptations are reversed by them. Luke presents the second temptation of Christ which Matthew presents as the third. Yet whatever the order they are, by all accounts, a summary and comprehensive view of our temptations. They put us to the test about what truly defines us. They do so after the fact of our awareness of our separation from the goodness of God. In a way, the temptations raise the question about what is the good.
