Why does Our Lord
tell the Devil to get behind Him
after the third temptation?
Why not tell him to shoo
after the first?
[PAUSE]
We know a few things here.
First,
we know that the Lord
goes into the desert
for the purpose of being tempted.
We also know
that Our Lord is tempted
throughout His life.
Remember when
St Peter tries to stop
Jesus from going
to Jerusalem and to the Cross.
Jesus uses the same words,
"Get the behind me, Satan!"
So Our Lord is tempted
all His life,
not just in the wilderness.
And yet,
He goes into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil.
Why?
[PAUSE]
We face temptations
to sin daily
and it is very easy for us
to fall into sin
because the Devil
catches us off guard
at a moment of weakness.
The only hope of
protecting ourselves
is by knowing where we are weak,
where the Devil will try and get his foothold.
For Our Lord,
the Devil tries to hit him
with natural physical needs,
with a crisis of faith,
and
with an assault on His relationship
with the Father.
If the Devil
can break one of those
and cause Jesus to sin,
then he's beaten the
would-be Saviour.
And Jesus knows it.
So He finds solitude
in order to confront
the Devil and put a halt to his scheme.
But why not tell him to shoo
at the first?
[PAUSE]
Look at the temptations
and how they grow
in desperation.
If we had the power
to turn stones to bread
and we're hungry,
many of us would fall at the first hurdle.
This is the most basic temptation:
we want a choccy biccy,
we can get that choccy biccy
so we take that choccy biccy.
And we take that choccy biccy,
regardless of whether
it's someone else's,
it's not good for our health,
or we're supposed to be fasting.
The Devil wants us to suspend
our thinking
so that we might fall from God
through foolish ignorance
and, once we stumble
he can find ways of making us fall further.
But Our Lord has faith jn His Father
to provide and sees through
this first, crude attempt
to make Him fall through
unthinking.
[PAUSE]
So the Devil moves on
to attack that faith
and expose either Jesus' pride
if He decides to jump,
or His lack of faith
if He refuses.
But Jesus counters
by reminding the Devil,
and reminding us,
that faith is not a toy
to be played with and abused
but our lifeline to the Father,
worthy of respect
and cultivation through
living a life working in love.
[PAUSE]
So how can the Devil break this faith?
He knows he can't break
that sort of faith.
He has one option left:
get Jesus to transfer His faith
away from the Father
and onto him.
If the Devil can show Jesus
all the delights he has to offer
all of creation under his influence
and so get Jesus
to worship him
in his power over all things,
then the Devil has won.
But it's a desperate ploy.
It's the last thing the Devil has to offer.
Once he plays this card,
he is exposed,
win or lose.
And Jesus sees straight through it.
How could He not?
The greatest commandment
is that we love God
and that means we accept Him
as the Creator and Ruler of this universe,
All-good,
All-powerful,
All-knowing ,
and worthy of all worship.
It's a monumental howler by the Devil,
but the only hand he has left
against the Son of God.
[PAUSE]
In our Lent,
we examine the areas
in which we are tempted most.
In our pride,
we see our need to matter.
In our gluttony, envy and avarice,
we see our hunger for something good.
In our lust,
we see our need to be loved.
In our wrath,
we see our need for justice.
In our sloth,
we see our need for motivation.
All of these temptations
are met in God.
All of our weaknesses are
covered by God.
And this is why He goes into the wilderness,
so He can be tempted as we are
only without sin.
And, as the the waters of Baptism justify us
by being consecrated by Christ's Baptism,
as marriage is made a sacrament
by being consecrated
in Christ's miracle at Cana,
as the grave becomes the door to life,
by being consecrated
in the death of God,
so are our temptations consecrated by His.
They become,
not fodder for our destruction by the Devil,
but means by which
we see our need for God in our lives.
This is the Devil's big blunder
because,
in the hands of one
who seeks a closer walk with God,
temptation shows
how we need Him.
The Devil has lost temptation
for the Christian.
So tell him to shoo,
and seek God in your weakness
and the love of God will make you strong
unto the age of ages.
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