Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’ Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’ Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” ’ Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

The First Sunday of Lent has us initially in the garden and then in the desert. The interplay between garden and desert is at the heart of the Bible. The garden is the land of life, the desert the land of death. The garden is our true home, from which we have exiled ourselves and to which we must return. The desert is not our natural habitat, but it is where we are living, and it is the land we must leave behind if we are to return home to the garden. Satan’s temptations of Jesus are seductions intended to make sure that Jesus stays in the desert, in the land of death, forever. If Jesus were to say yes to Satan, he would be signing his own death warrant and condemning himself to the desert forever. By saying no to Satan, he ensures that he will return to Paradise, bringing with him many others who, like him, say no to the seductions of Satan.

The voice of Satan is heard on the lips of the serpent in the story of the Fall. The serpent makes two claims about God, both of which are lies. The first is that God himself is a liar. God has said that if you touch the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, you will die. But then the serpent says, “You will not die” (Genesis 3:4). So God is a liar. Yet the creation story has left no doubt that God’s word is trustworthy and creative, not deceptive and destructive: “God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3).

The second lie is that God is not only a liar but an oppressor. The serpent claims that God is keeping the human being down because he wants no rival. But in fact, the serpent claims, if you break free, “you too will be God” (Genesis 3:4). Yet the creation story has made it clear that God is no oppressor. He has created the human being not to be a slave but to be a co-creator, a partner with God in the ongoing work of creation (Genesis 2:15-19).

The human being has to choose between the lies of the serpent and the truth of God. In the story of the Fall, the human being chooses the lies, and Adam and Eve therefore expel themselves from the garden and head out into the desert, where they will face repeated temptations from Satan. Yet God doesn’t abandon the human being out in the desert.

St Paul speaks of God’s grace, the unearned gift of perfect love; and it’s that grace which accompanies Adam and Eve, as it does us, as we make our way through the desert home to the garden. The choice we make to follow Jesus back to the garden is never just the result of our own willpower. It is the fruit of God’s grace, the God who wants to work with us as we make our way out of slavery into freedom, out of the desert back to the garden, out of death into life.

📋