1st Sunday of Lent Year C (Luke 4:1-13) Signs and wonders

 

Since I was ordained a priest over 23 years ago, I have often thought it would be great if God would do more spectacular things through me, which would convince people of his presence and help people to believe. I know that God does extraordinary things through the priesthood, above all, transforming the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, 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 is just a strange religious ritual. So why doesn’t God do something more spectacular to help us believe?

The account of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness answers this question. This account of Jesus’ time in the wilderness is extraordinary, 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 the 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. For any campaign you must choose the weapons you are going to use. Jesus must have been aware that he had extraordinary powers, or otherwise Satan wouldn’t have tempted him to use them. There would be no point in tempting me to turn stones into bread, because I couldn’t do it anyway. So, this must have been a very real temptation for Jesus. The temptation was 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 alone. 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. Nothing will fulfill us, but God.

The second temptation was to compromise with evil. This is a big temptation for most people. When you hear people say, ‘The Church needs to get with the times,’ this is usually 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 more appealing to you, so that people will like me, but that is not what I am called to do. 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. Heresy is 90% truth. If you start to change it just a little bit, the division gets wider and wider.

In Isaiah 5:20, it says, ‘Woe to those who call good, evil and evil, good.’ That is exactly what our society is doing right now. Abortion is now considered a human right, a good thing, a necessary thing. And if you criticize it, you are considered evil.

 

Sadly, a number of bishops and cardinals have recently contradicted the teachings of the Church on sexual immorality, saying that the Church’s teaching is no longer correct and the Church needs to move more with society. Since when did the Church ever change its teaching to please society? If the Scriptures are the word of God and the Church’s teachings are the teachings of God, then woe to anyone who changes them. Referring to teachings of sexual morality, St. Paul says, ‘Do you not know that the unjust (sexually immoral) will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not let anyone deceive you.’ In the past, when any group did this, they ended up breaking away from the Church, just like the time of the Reformation, when Martin Luther objected to the teachings of the Church and eventually broke with Rome.

We must not compromise on the ways of God. Yes, it is 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 was to work signs and wonders for people. Satan taunted him, ‘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 and that is why Jesus chose the humbler way and left it open to us to see what God offers us and then to freely choose to follow him or not.

Jesus was tempted to ‘bend the rules,’ to settle for less, but he resisted these temptations even though they must have really been tempting for him. We are continually presented with similar temptations; the temptation to reject the parts of our faith that don’t suit us: ‘Just take the easier parts, let others worry about the difficult parts’. But that is not what God asks us to do. There is a reason why they killed all the prophets, most of the Apostles and thousands of others throughout the centuries who preached the word of God, because people didn’t want to hear it. The Lord says, ‘If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself, take up his cross and follow me’ (Luke 9:23). It is not an easy path that leads us to God, but it is the most worthwhile path that there is. What could be more worthwhile than to follow the one path that will lead us to heaven, to total fulfillment?

Jesus says, ‘I am the Way’. ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’ There are many other ‘lesser’ options, apparently easier ways, but they don’t lead to God. This is why Jesus was definite in his teaching. If you want to follow me, this is the path you must follow. It is the path of trying to live his teachings, even though we are continually hearing the voices that say, ‘It’s too difficult. It’s not realistic. You need to get with the times.’ We say we believe this teaching is from God and so the challenge is to be faithful to it, even if it doesn’t always suit me; even though I won’t always understand it.

Remember Jesus’ own words: ‘It is not everyone who says “Lord, Lord,” who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven.’ (Matt 7:21)

In many ways I would still love it if God worked spectacular signs and wonders, so that people would be easily and quickly convinced, but that is not how God works and 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 puts it to us continually to follow him freely.