First Sunday of Lent
“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus…was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days.” Did you hear that first line of the Gospel, or did it go by unnoticed? Listen to it again: “Filled withe the Holy Spirit, Jesus…was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days.” If we’re listening to it, it should jostle us a little. It should lead us to ask, ‘Why would the Holy Spirit lead Jesus into the desert?’
The desert, after all, is a place of trial and death. It’s the opposite of the place God first intended for humanity, which was a garden, the Garden of Eden. God also led the Chosen People through the desert, but the desert wasn’t a happy place for them. The goal was the Promised Land, the “land flowing with milk and honey.” The desert was where they had to wander due to their lack of faith in God, and it is the place where they grumbled against God, even though He was providing for all their needs. So why would God the Holy Spirit lead Jesus (God the Son) there?
Lent for us is that time of purification, of growing in our relationship with God, of trusting in God to provide for all our needs. It is the desert. It is not the destination, not the goal, but the way by which we reach our destination and goal. It is the place where God puts to death temptation and sin, and prepares us for the life of paradise. It is what makes us ready for the life of paradise, the life of the Promised Land. And the Holy Spirit leads us there, not to stay there, but to get to the Promised Land.
Right now we are in the desert as a Church. We are in a time of purification, where temptation and sin are being put to death. We could talk about the different issues that are plaguing the Church right now. But those are simply symptoms of the problem. The heart of the problem is that we, as a society, have given in to the second temptation of Satan from today’s Gospel.
The enemy tempted Jesus, “‘I shall give to you all this power and glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours if you worship me.’” We, as a society, and therefore as individuals, have decided to worship false gods, mostly the self and pleasure, for the sake of power and glory. We abandoned the worship of the true God who leads us to paradise, and we have reveled in the worship of false gods who lead us to death and destruction.
We see it in politics, where money and power have become ultimate goods, and people are told what they want to hear, not what is right. The personal pleasure of each individual has become the supreme good to which everything–the child in the womb, the elderly who are sick or dying, the natural law written into our very human nature–has to be subjected. So many politicians, across party lines, do whatever will get them money from donors and reelected, not what is best for the country and its citizens.
We see it also in our sacred liturgy. My formative years were where most of the songs and most of the focus at Mass was on me: what makes me feel good; how can I be affirmed as a person; and how much God loved me as I am. Now, feeling good can be good; personal affirmation can be good; and God does love me unconditionally. But feeling good is only good when it comes from doing good and avoiding evil. Affirmation of what is noble is good, but we should feel shame for doing what is base. God loves me as I am, but He loves me too much to leave me there; He calls me each day to conversion. We are tempted to narcissism, exercises on focusing on the self, rather than God. But, as Jesus reminds us, “‘You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.’”
How often do we hear: I don’t like the music, so I’m leaving the church. I don’t like the preaching, so I’m leaving the church. I don’t like the priest, so I’m leaving the church. The common denominator is that the person is not going to church for God, but for what he likes. But we don’t come to Mass because of what we like. We come to give thanks to God for what He did by giving us Jesus so that we could go to heaven.
The Holy Spirit has led the Church into the desert because we have given in to temptation to worship false gods, often the self. We need to be purified from societal narcissism and be drawn back to the transcendent God, who draws us from ourselves to Him who satisfies all our needs. Following God doesn’t always feel good; the desert is dry and hot. Following God doesn’t always affirm our actions; the desert requires us to put away what is ancillary. Following God means that we say no to the temptations that arise in our daily life which look enticing, but which really keep us out of the garden and paradise. But, if we follow God through the desert, if we say no to the temptations, especially the false gods we make in our life, then it leads to the Promised Land, to the garden, to place that God has prepared for those who follow His Son. So during this Lent, follow the Holy Spirit into the desert and fight temptation, empowered by that same Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is one God, for ever and ever.
