Reflection on the Temptation of Christ

I got motivated to put this down in writing. Hopefully, it reflects a bit of Ignatian Spirituality. In either case, this is my take on the Temptation. It may or may not be theologically sound. Just my way of looking at it.


It has been forty days.

You are hungry. So hungry. You cannot remember the last time food touched your lips. You are desperate, trying to convince yourself not to drink the sand, and finding it harder and harder to resist the temptation, just to have something in your stomach.

It has been forty days in the desert. The sun scorches your skin. High above your head the rays beat down upon you, oppressing you. There is no escape from the sun, no shade to hide. The wind whips the sand at you; your face stings with each gust of wind and sand and dirt.

You are not sure what to believe.

Your life has taken a different turn than you expected. You were following a man named John. He had called a following along the bank of the river Jordan, baptizing people in its waters, and teems of people were following him. You, too, were following him. After a few days, you were baptized by him.

But there was something different about your baptism. You weren’t sure if it was only in your head, but you heard a voice call out to you, “You are my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” You weren’t sure what to make of it, but those around you looked up to the sky. John, too, looked up to the sky. You looked up to the sky. And it was as if heaven and earth had touched in that very moment. For a second, you could swear you had seen God.

You had to get out of there. They were looking at you, staring at you. “What was that?” they whispered, unsure of what was happening. You weren’t exactly sure yourself. But there was something in you, something stirring unlike anything you had ever felt before. It was drawing you away from this place, away from the Jordan, out into the desert, into the wilderness.

You had to get away.

And now it has been forty days. You have been wandering ever since you heard that voice. You haven’t slept. You haven’t eaten. All the while, you have been trying to understand what happened. And in time, you started to piece it together.

And that is what has truly scared you the most.

You are not just the carpenter that you thought, not just the child of Mary. No, what you experienced was a calling. You are the messiah, the promised one. It is on you that the hopes of Israel lie, the hopes of all the world lie.

You remember hearing them preach in the synagogues. You remember it in the prophets. A promise for a king, to save your people. It is in you that the promise will be fulfilled.

But how? How can this be? Who am I? What am I that I could save these people? How am I to do this? You wrestle with these questions, with these thoughts, with your whole heart and mind, trying, praying to discern what they mean.

But it has been a long forty days. And you are so hungry. You stumble and fall to the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand. It gets into your eyes and ears and hair and mouth. You want to just lie there and never get up, just succumb to the rays of the sun. A carrion bird cries overhead, seeming to want the same for you. You find the strength to raise your eyes from the ground and look ahead.

And you see a stone. Nothing is particularly special about this stone, but it is a rather large piece of stone. And as you gaze at it, you can’t help but notice how it looks like a loaf of bread that your mother used to bake for you. You can picture it now, imagining the look, the smell of it baking, the taste of it in your mouth. It is torturing you, it is almost too much. And that’s when you get a thought.

You are the messiah. The Child of God. You have the power. You don’t have to be hungry. Why should the Child of God go hungry? Even the sinners have food to eat, and here you are, without anything at all. You cannot be the Child of God.

You struggle to your feet, reflecting upon the thoughts in your head.

If you are really the Child of God, then surely you should be able to do something. Fill your belly. Make this stone bread. God provided your ancestors with bread from heaven. Surely you can provide bread from the rock. Eat.

You look at the stone, and you can already see it in your head. You can practically taste the bread already.

Eat.

You bend down and pick up the stone.

EAT!

You jump back. You drop the stone. Clear as day, you recall the words of the Law. Almost reasserting yourself, you whisper them aloud, as you look down on the stone.

“One does not live by bread alone.”

Frustrated, weakened, hungry, but still satisfied, you continue on. You do not know where you are going, only that you are still wrestling with the thoughts you had before. The wind picks up harsher than before. Soon, you cannot see much farther in front of you than your own hand. You struggle to move forward, as the whipping of the sand and wind against your skin causes you pain to match that in your depraved stomach. You shortly find yourself about to fall down again when, all of a sudden, the wind and the sand dissipate, and you can see clearly again.

You find that you are now standing on top of a great cliff, and you can swear that you see all of Judea stretched out before you. Your people, are all scattered out before you in all of their cities. You remember, then, what you are here for.

You are the messiah. You are supposed to bring back the kingdom of God, the kingdom that once belonged to David. All of these people are going to look to you to bring them back to glory. But is that really what God wants? You’re not sure. A thought came again.

You could be a king like David. You could be greater than David. You could unite the people and bring back God’s kingdom. It is all on you. You could do anything you desire. David was still only human. You are more than human! If you want this, you can do it yourself!

You imagine yourself out of the desert. Bathed in the finest oils, dressed in the finest robes. You alone have the love of the Israelites. All the power of the ancient kingdom is yours.

All of this can be yours.

All you have to do is make yourself their king, make yourself their god, and you could have it all.

All of this can be yours!

NO! You shout and fall to your knees, turning away from the sight. The scripture rings clearly in your head once more, though you lack the power to even say it. Your words are ragged and quiet.

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only God.”

You resolve to not think such thoughts again. But you now feel even more exhausted than before. Your hunger is like a growing pain that will not subside. The sun burns down even more upon you, if such a thing were possible. Every joint, every bone aches. You are not sure if you can take much more.

You begin to see just what your path is beginning to be. You remember in the scripture that the savior is called to die. You remember that the prophets, those who brought about the word of God, were not celebrated, but were killed. Do you really think your fate will be any different?

You look down from the cliff, and you see that the fall is deep. You laugh, seeing as how you, the child of God, called to be the savior of Israel, seemingly have been led here to die in the sand. Can you really be the child of God? Why is this happening to you? Why would your death now be any different than your death later? You wonder if it would just be better to fall.

Come on! If you are really the Child of God, then God will not let you fall! You hear a thought again. It is even written that “He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you.” For “on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

You stand and look out over the cliff.

Prove that you are the Child of God! Prove it! If you are God’s Child, then God will not let you fall!

You look one last time, and lift your right foot up.

PROVE IT!

You stop. You quickly stumble back, catching yourself. You glimpse in an instant the things that only God should know. You see your past. You see your present. Most hauntingly, you see your future.

You know where this leads, you hear. It is written. Do you really want this? You know what is coming. You know how this will end. You know! YOU KNOW!!!

“STOP IT!” you scream aloud, with a power you didn’t know you had. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test! Do not put the Lord your God to the test!” You yell out again and again, stumbling back from the cliff before you fall down to the ground again. All of your energy is spent. You have nothing left. But you will not give in. You cannot. As you hear faint sounds in the distance, everything around you fades to black.

You open your eyes. You don’t remember how long you were out, and things are hazy. You are looking right into the sun, and it blinds you. You hear voices near you.

“I wonder how long this one’s been wandering out here for? Hasn’t had anything to eat in weeks!”

“Come on, we have to get some water!”

You are not really sure what is going on. You hear the voices, but are not very sure of what is happening. But deep inside you, you sense a change. Something is different in you. There is a stirring that you did not have before. And so, for now, you welcome the sweet surrender of sleep yet again. Tomorrow, there will be more to be done.

But for now, the trial is over.


Happy Lent everybody.