February 21, 2010 1st Sunday of Lent Deut. 26:4-10; Rom. 10:8-13; Lk. 4:1-13 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Readings:    http://www.usccb.org/nab/022110.shtml    ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________       The Gospel recounts the temptations of Jesus. These temptations probably represent some of the prominent messianic expectations of his day. The people believed that the messiah would feed the hungry, or release the nation from the domination of others, or call on the extraordinary power of God to perform miracles.   In the face of each temptation, Jesus reminds the tempter that the heart of righteousness is commitment to God, not the performance of marvellous deeds. Jesus will indeed eventually feed the hungry, deliver the people from bondage and demonstrate the marvellous power of God. But he will accomplish these feats in God’s good time and in a manner that will please God, not the crowds. Jesus never bargained for results.   Jesus faced a time of testing and we Christians inevitably face times of testing. Evil things happen to good people, and we all face times of testing. The power of evil is forever testing us to draw us away from God. The power of evil wants to destroy and kill us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Evil wants to destroy our faith in God, our faith in each other, our good values, our good marriages, good families, our good communities, our good nations and any goodness of God living inside of us. The power of evil tests us in order to see what quality of genuine faith lives inside of our hearts.   We as Christians are always faced with the power of evil testing us to see if we will crumble and curse God, forget God, not draw on God, and gradually let go of God. That is what the story of Job was about in the Old Testament. The devil was and is representative of the whispering power of temptation that lives in all human beings. God allows us to be tested. God allows us to be tempted. That is the way life is. We know from our real life experiences that we face testing and temptation every day.   The power of evil also tempts us. The power of evil knows where we are most vulnerable and “weakest” and often tempts us at those points of our personal life.  The Apostle Paul refers to these weaknesses as “the flesh”: Greed, money, success, sex, pride, gluttony, self- righteousness, complacency. The Bible also teaches that the power of God is much stronger than the power of evil in our lives.   <<   Previous: Ash Wednesday  | Next: 2nd Sunday of Lent >>   Go Back to SERMONS (Year C)