Since I was ordained a priest almost 18
years ago, one of the temptations for me has been to wish that God
would do more spectacular things through me, which would convince
people of the presence of God. I believe that God does
extraordinary things through the priesthood, such as becoming present
in each mass in the bread and wine, but as you know it happens in a
very humble and hidden way. It is not spectacular and if you
don’t believe in it, then it just seems to be some kind of a
strange religious ritual. So why doesn’t God do something
more spectacular every once in a while to help people believe?
The account of Jesus’ temptations in
the wilderness is really the explanation as to why God doesn’t do
more extraordinary signs and wonders to convince us of his presence.
This is an extraordinary story because it must have come directly
from Jesus himself, since no one was with him during this time of
temptation. At some stage he must have told his apostles what
happened there and what he had to go through.
Jesus was about to embark on his public
campaign to teach people about God and to win people over for God.
Now for any campaign you must choose the weapons you are going to
use. Jesus must have been aware that he had extraordinary
powers, otherwise Satan wouldn’t have tempted him to use them.
There would be no point in tempting any of us to throw ourselves down
from a great height or to turn stones into bread, because we couldn’t
do it anyway, so this must have been a very real temptation for
Jesus, to misuse his power.
The first thing he was tempted with was
to find satisfaction in material things. ‘Give people the
material things that they want and they will love you.’ In
this case it was bread to a man who was starving. But Jesus
said, ‘No. Man does not live on bread alone.’ The
human being is not satisfied by material things. Jesus was
saying, ‘I am not going to try and win people over by offering them
what they want.’ We are much deeper than that and we can only
be fully satisfied by God because we are spiritual and not just
physical.
The second temptation was to compromise
with evil. This is a huge temptation for most people.
When you hear people say ‘the Church needs to get with the times’
this is often what they mean. The Church needs to ‘adapt’
(compromise) some of its teachings to the more difficult moral
demands of our age. It is always a temptation for me as a
priest to water down the teachings of God so that they are easier to
swallow, but that is not what we are asked to do. And when
Jesus was tempted this way he rejected it outright. He was
being tempted to compromise with evil just a little bit, so that it
would be easier for people to be convinced, but right is right and
wrong is wrong. We must not compromise on the ways of God.
It may be more difficult, but if it is the truth then it is better to
struggle with it than to try and change it to suit ourselves. The
teachings of God don’t need to change; we are the ones who need to
change.
The third temptation that Jesus was
presented with was to work signs and wonders for the people.
‘Throw yourself down from the temple; since God will save you.’
If he started doing this then no doubt he would have thousands of
followers in no time. But Jesus also rejected this, because he
knew that the way he had to take was the way of service and the way
of the cross, which would win people over heart by heart. You
cannot buy love, as you know, and that is why Jesus chose the more
humble way, and left it open to us to see what God offers us and then
to freely choose to follow him or not.
In many ways I would still love it if
God worked spectacular signs and wonders now, so that people would be
easily and quickly convinced, but that is not how God works.
I think it is good to remember that, especially when we live in
times of great change when God often seems to be very quiet.
The Lord knows what He is doing and He invites us to follow the same path that He took, the path of humility, the path that is often misunderstood.
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