Comment to Sunday readings
First Reading: Dt 26, 4-10
Psalm: 91, 1-2. 10-15
Second reading: Rom 10, 8-13
Gospel: Lk 4, 1-13
In today Gospel we are called to look, once again, to what Jesus had to face in the desert where he was led by the Spirit. The temptations are just the beginning of a story which will successfully end on the Cross.
In fact, these temptations do not end in the desert, they accompany Jesus throughout his whole life, up to when he offers himself on the Cross. Only on the Cross they are definitively destroyed. It means the Word of God is leading us towards Jerusalem and the Calvary; deciding not to follow the way of the Cross means to abandon the Word of God.
Reading the temptations without reference to Jesus' baptism might be misleading. It is in the baptism that Jesus chose to share his condition with the whole humanity and in obedience to the Father. The temptations are the consequences of that choice; they are the sign accompanying who is in the world, yet does not belong to the world. It is in the Baptism that the Father announces the mission of the Son which is not a “doing”, but to be the “beloved Son”; a condition Jesus will defend against the tempter who wants to disrupt this fundamental and primal relationship.
The dialogue with the tempter is preceded by a time of forty days; a time of discernment where “we” prepare for the fight so that to accomplish what is truly and just; so that we shall not forget who we really are; “children of God”. The core of the temptations is in fact to remove God from our horizon and they appear to us under a moral habit; they do not invite us to do evil things, but what it might appear as good. Yet, there is no good without God. As Jospeh Ratzinger wrote “there is no possibility to put some order into this world by trusting only our human forces or by recognising as necessary and just our political and material realities and leaving aside God as an illusion which which threats us in different ways”; the temptations appear as the only reality we need: power and bread; while God is forced to appear as unnecessary reality.
The question about God and his relationship with us is the core of each and every temptation. It is the big question in our own lives. What shall the Saviour of the world do or be like? This is the question underlining Jesus' temptations.
When tempted we risk to focus our attention on the aim we want to reach and we analize all pros and cons. Very often in our activities we don't need to choose between good or evil, but what is good and what appears to be good as well; the answer is not in the best outcome of our actions, but in understaing who we really are. In front of any choice we shall ask ourselves “who am I?” and the answer will be given to us by the Word of God that strengthens and confirms our sonship of the Father [cfr. Phil 2, 5s].
“If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” - Lk 4, 3 – or we can read “if you are missionaries, if you are the Church of God, give bread to the poor...”; our people in South Sudan are asking this; what is our answer? Are we commanding money to become bread for the poor? Our answer has to be found in who we really are. NGOs or missionaries sent by the Church of God? [cfr. Mt 4,4].
Jesus, in his identity as the Son of God, will give himself up as the bread for the whole humanity. The request of bread is answered by the offer of his life.
The identity of Jesus is revealed to us by the third temptations in which God is put to the test. If God is God must respect conditions which we believe necessary in order to gain certainty. And God becomes an object at our disposal. It is not the way we find God and trust in him. God is not in the outcome of our choices or actions, but rather in the motivations and reasons of our doings as an expression of who we are.
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