Dear Friends in Christ,
During Lent, our Sunday readings are opportunities to revisit familiar readings and learn from them. The intention is not to make us feel bad but to help us grow closer to God through the wisdom and grace that these stories offer.
This Sunday, we encounter two stories about temptation. The first is the serpent tempting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The second is the devil tempting Jesus in the wilderness.
Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest who lived in the second half of the 20th century, helps us understand the temptations that Jesus encountered in the context of our own lives.
Nouwen suggests that when the devil invites a hungry Jesus to make bread out stones, we are learning about the temptation to be relevant; to be the ones who fix things, who make sense of things when others cannot. Nouwen offers the thought that it would be better to acknowledge the world as broken than pretend we can fix it. It is better to be in solidarity with those who are suffering than promise we can heal them when we cannot.
When the devil invites Jesus to jump off a tall building and show the world that God will protect him so that he will not be hurt as he falls, Nouwen tells us that Jesus did not come to be a stunt man.Nouwen reminds us that we all want others to watch us do what we do and be impressed. We all want to be relevant and important. The temptation of relevance leads us away from the quiet, selfless work of being good members of our communities and putting the needs of others before our own.
Finally, as we read that the devil tempted Jesus with the power to rule the world, and we are tempted ourselves to grab that power, Nouwen observes that
“it seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life,”
Faithfully yours,
Rebecca