DEVOTIONAL BASED ON: Luke 4:1-13
Introduction
Saint Thomas Aquinas, Italian theologian and Catholic philosopher of the 12th century, considered the devil to be an invention of the human being to understand and explain the absence of God in our lives. For Aquinas, a God of love is incapable of creating bad things; after all, Genesis says that everything God made was good.
Throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition, how we understand this character has changed. In the oldest stories of the Old Testament, the devil is understood as a creature who works for God. Satan (in Hebrew: the accuser) has the mission through temptations, to expose human weaknesses. It was understood that God greatly loved God’s people and Satan came to humiliate them to expose their weaknesses, correct the tendency of those who want to place themselves above God and put them in a right relationship with God (Job 1:6-12; Zechariah 3: 1-2).
In the following writings, Satan, seeking to maintain the honor of God, becomes more hostile and harmful. Not only does it reveal the weakness of the people before the greatness of God, but through temptations and by bringing accusations to God against his people, it ends up affecting and disrupting the relationship between God and God’s people.
What is common to all of these traditions is that despite all the power that God allows him to have to accuse and tempt, Satan is easily defeated because he has no power against God’s people. Satan is defeated by following the will of God; it is overcome with the support of those who intercede for us and through the direct intervention of God.
Lent as a spiritual exercise, inspired by the passage from Luke, provides us with the opportunity to consider our temptations, how they affect our relationship with God and neighbor, and what we can learn from the example of Jesus.
The temptation of Jesus
According to Saint Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is taken to the desert to be tempted by the devil at a time of great human vulnerability (hunger, loneliness, imminent danger in accepting to be the Messiah), which puts to test his faith, his values, his knowledge of God and path.
Under these circumstances, Jesus makes the choice of sheltering himself and being fed by the wisdom and power available to him, for living in harmony with his divine Father and Creator.
Christ wins this victory for us, and makes it possible this Lent, and every time we consider our interior deserts, where weakness, oppression, hunger, illness and fear offer us various options, but not all are equally recommended.
The option God provides leads to a life of harmony with God and our neighbor, including God’s creation.
What is your desert? What fear does it arouse? Does it lead you to trust in God’s providence or look for any way out?
The growing crisis of our time, the pandemic, climate change, wars, threaten to make us forget God’s love for the world. The earth, its peoples and creatures, all belong to God. Our choices must reflect divine love, not only for ourselves but for a world asking for justice and solidarity.
The devil will always use half-truths to divert our attention to the way of Jesus. It is true that God does not want us to go hungry, or that Jesus as the son of God the Creator could turn a stone into bread. After all, in other passages we read that Jesus walks on the water, turns water into wine or multiplies loaves and fishes.
The devil could give all those kingdoms to Jesus, if he followed him. God had given the devil power over the world. It was also true that God had commanded his angels to watch over him. But God’s truth leads us to think beyond ourselves. It leads us to align our lives with God’s plan for God’s creation.
The gifts and power of Jesus were not for himself alone, but to exercise his ministry on earth and share his gifts with the disciples, and with us. Every time Jesus used those gifts others were blessed.
The reality of temptations with their half-truths teaches us that we need to be cunning in faith. Even Bible verses, taken out of context and read with an individualistic mindset, can lead us astray from God’s path, as the devil tried to do with Jesus.
Evil, with its half-truths, makes us blind to the pain of others; while the truth of Christ gives us a community with whom to walk the path of justice, faith, and strengthens us, reconciles us and heals the earth.
The Gospel of Luke seems to indicate to us that to avoid being tempted, we need to know the Scripture, but it is equally important to know God, Emmanuel, the living Word of God, present and active in creation.
This Lent, let us overcome temptations by putting God first, studying Scripture, and standing in solidarity with others, including the earth. The blessings of God in Christ are for everyone to enjoy (Mark 16:15).
“On this day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you, that I have given you a choice between life and death, and between the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live…” (Deuteronomy 30:19) Amen.
Prayer:
Loving God, Creator of Heaven and Earth; In this season of Lent, we ask for your intervention in our lives and the world. We ask the light of your Holy Spirit to illuminate our deserts and sanctify our actions and choices, so that the good news of God in Jesus Christ may reach all corners of the earth. In Christ Jesus our Lord we pray. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo, a Venezuelan-American, is an eco-theologian, Presbyterian pastor and GreenFaith organizer in the State of Florida. Neddy earned her Doctor of Ministry in “Greening the Church” from Drew University and co-founded, with her husband, the Angelic Organics Learning Center, a farm-based nonprofit in Northern Illinois, where people connect with food, farming and caring for the earth. Neddy has taught eco-theology courses at seminaries in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia and the US, served as editor of the Presbyterians for Earth Care newsletter, been published in WorkingPreacher.org, Earth and Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet, is a co-author of God’s Earth is Sacred: Essays on Eco-Justice. In 2019 Neddy was published on Kairos for Creation, Confessing hope for the Earth, which recommends to the World Council of Churches (WCC) to declare a “Decade for the Healing of Creation.”
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