Jesus is tempted
Jesus, our Lord and God, had a choice to make. How will He save humanity? He could have easily chosen to crush Satan with His power, and to prove Himself to the people with His power. But instead Jesus chooses the path of humility and weakness. He chooses the path of humanity. All three temptations that Jesus endures are geared to make Him exercise His power. Instead, Jesus chooses to reject that path and to embrace the path of humility and suffering. The first temptation was to turn stones into bread. The suggestion was that Jesus should bribe people into following him by means of his power to perform miracles. Jesus rejects this temptation by reaffirming that “a man will never find life in material things”. How many people today use the same argument as the devil did to tempt God. They require signs, miracles, and proofs. They tempt God to give them what they want, only then will they know that He exists. In the second temptation Jesus stood upon a mountain from which the whole civilized world could be seen. The devil tempted Jesus by offering Him help to win people: “Worship me, and all will be yours”. This is the temptation to compromise. The devil said: “I have the people in my grip. Don’t set your standards too high. Strike a bargain with me. Just compromise a little with evil and men will follow you”. Jesus response is very clear: “God is God, and evil is evil. There can be no compromise in the war on evil”. It is a constant temptation to seek to win men by compromising with the standards of the world. G.K. Chesterton said that the tendency of the world is to see things in terms of an indeterminate grey; but the duty of the Christian is to see things in terms of black and white. We are called to see clearly the difference between the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of sin. In the third temptation Jesus is asked to throw Himself off the Temple of Solomon’s Porch in order to prove his divinity. Again his response is that He will not be put to the test. No one has the right to put God to the test.
Fr. Wojtek Kuzma
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