Day 5 - The great temptation

Our reflection today comes from Luke 4: 1-13, Jesus is tested in the wilderness.

It was Christmas not that long ago, in fact, less than three months since. Remember? The carols, the candles, the nativity scenes, the great feast of the Incarnation. Simply put, God becoming human.

In Luke’s gospel we might think we are reading about three temptations in the wilderness, but we really heard a story of one temptation. Let us remind ourselves of what Luke wrote:

Why Jesus, you are out here in the desert; Jesus you are hungry. You don’t have to be, you can turn the stones at your feet into a feast.

Now Jesus, look at all the power you can have. You can oversee it all, you are the general manager of the universe, nothing can stop you. Just bow down and worship me.

Jesus, here we are way up on the high point of the temple. Why not make a splash? Be a wizard, a Jewish Dumbledore! Do something spectacular, be a wonder worker.

In other words, Jesus don’t be hungry, don’t be insecure, don’t be weak and powerless. There is no need for you to be marginal, insignificant. Don’t be like all the others who have to slog it out day by day, dealing with life’s issues.

No, don’t be like the rest of us. Don’t be human.

That is the great temptation, for Jesus to turn the Incarnation into a sham. The Devil is saying to Jesus, sure look like a human, take on the appearance of a human. But don’t really be one. Don’t hurt, don’t hunger, don’t get tired, don’t deal with the ordinary. Don’t really take on the human condition, just play at being human.

That is the great temptation of the narrative we read in Luke. Jesus, be something other than human. Don’t enter into human life, don’t share our world and know our experience. Dip your toe into human life, but don’t dive in and have to paddle along with the rest of us. This was the great temptation that Jesus overcame so that today we can claim that God not only loves us, but actually became one of us.

The great message of today’s reading is simply that Christmas is true. In Jesus Christ, God drew close to us, the creator became a creature. Such is the love of our God that he became one of us, he knows our pain, he understands our hungers, he has felt our needs and has seen our dreams. God loves us human beings so much that he entered the world as one of us. Through Jesus, God became human, so that he can share our human nature and our ordinary life experiences.

This Lent as we think about what to do to grow in our Christian life, let us try to be more human like Jesus. To be human and to recognise, as Paul did in Romans 10 v 11-13, that whether we are Jews or Gentiles, young or old, rich or poor, male or female, we are all God’s children. Let us learn to be more tolerant of each other and love each other as God loves us.

Julie Burnett