1st Sunday of Lent 25.2.07 Jesus, God and Man
I read a recent commentary on Our Lord’s time in the desert, which said that Jesus went into the desert to find out who He was!
This is typical of a lot of modern scriptural commentary which tends to downplay the divinity of Christ, portraying Him to be not only human but a rather dithering human at that.
In this school of thought, Jesus was not quite sure of anything much, just groping along, and eventually being crucified.
The Church has always been far more confident in the identity of our Saviour. He was God and He knew it, from the moment of His conception.
In fact, Jesus had the beatific vision throughout His earthly life – so much for not knowing who He was!
But yes, He was human. One person, two natures – divine and human.
And we should not play down His humanity. He did experience temptation, but did not yield.
Even in the matter of temptation, however, there is a difference. We must remember that Our Lord was without original sin. Therefore He was operating without the disturbance of passion which we experience.
He could be tempted, but it was more like the tempation faced by the angels – or by Adam and Eve. Was He for or against God?
He was not going to be tempted at the level we experience it – like whether to steal or lie or commit impurities. Jesus was far beyond that. As if He could have impure thoughts about a woman – being God Himself!
The devil would have more sense than to try.
But to tempt Him at this higher level – that the devil did attempt. In the desert, as recorded today, and even more acutely in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Still without success, but it was the best the devil could do.
Jesus went into the desert, not to find out who He was, but to begin the process of restoring humanity to the state it should never have lost.
When Adam and Eve sinned we were plunged into darkness.
Now the time had come when God would begin to bring us back into the light.
Jesus started His public life in the desert as a symbol of where the human race stood. Very barren, very empty, desolate, wild. No fruit.
He would change all this, and this was the first step.
As the new Adam He leads humanity out of the desert and into the fertile garden of union with God.
He shows us the way, and He paves the way by doing what we must do: listen to the word of God and obey it; do not put the Lord to the test; and have only one God.
This is the formula for life. Jesus lived it as well as taught it.
He became like us so we could become like Him.
To say that Jesus is human does not mean we have to bring Him down to our level, and make Him as weak and confused as we are.
Rather, He is human as human should be, and He will raise us up to His level. This is what salvation means,
and this is what is happening to us.
He not only knew who He was, He remembered, and when put to the test was easily able to dismiss temptation.
We are sorely tried in this life, but if we remember we are children of God, destined for heaven, we will act with appropriate dignity and choose life over death.
