First Sunday of Lent
We are all familiar with the experience of temptation or testing, times when we were tempted to compromise with what we know to be right and good. Very often what we are tempted by appears to be good. Very few of us are attracted by what is obviously evil, but we can be attracted by what seems pleasing and desirably but, in reality, will not serve us well. In the first reading, God placed Adam and Eve in a garden with every kind of fruit bearing tree. They could eat of it all, with the exception of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. Yet, Adam and Eve were tempted by this very tree because, they saw that this tree ‘was good to eat and pleasing to the eye’ and ‘desirable for the knowledge it could give’. They were attracted by the goodness and value of the tree. Because God had placed it out of bounds, eating the fruit of this tree damaged their relationship with God and with one another. In going their own way, they lost a great deal of what God was offering them.
In writing this story of Adam and Eve, the author was intending to write the story of each one of us. He recognized that we often go our own way, without reference to what God wants for us or asks of us. When this happens, our relationship with God can become complicated. As you read on beyond where our reading ends, God walks in the garden and Adam and Eve hide from God. When we sense that we have taken a wrong path, our instinct can be to hide from God. Yet, in the story, when Adam and Eve hide from God, God does not hide from them. Rather, God calls out to Adam and Eve, ‘Where are you?’ God wants to restore the relationship that they have broken. God continues to seek us out whenever we turn from him to go our own way. God continues to call after us, ‘Where are you?’ It is not an accusing question, but a question that comes from love. God’s searching love seeks us out so that he can find us and help to put us on the right path again.
Jesus revealed this searching love of God fully. He once said that he came to seek out and to save the lost. He showed that no matter how often we may turn from God, God never turns away from us. According to the gospel of Luke, at the very moment Peter turned from Jesus, denying him publicly three times, Jesus looked at Peter. As Peter was turning away from Jesus, Jesus was turning towards Peter, looking upon him with eyes of merciful love. It reduced Peter to tears. He went outside and went bitterly. The Lord continues to look upon us in love regardless of where we are on our life journey. That is why Saint Paul can say in today’s second reading, ‘the gift considerably outweighed the fall’. The gift of God’s love revealed through Jesus is far more powerful than our own failings. All that is needed from us is that we allow ourselves to be found by the Lord. In the gospel of Luke, Zacchaeus was someone who was lost, engaging in a profession that benefitted himself at the expense of others. Yet, he allowed himself to be found by the Lord. He literally went out on a limb, climbing a sycamore tree where Jesus would pass. To allow ourselves to be found by the Lord we too often need to take some step in his direction, no matter how small. If we allow ourselves to be found by the Lord, if we open ourselves to his free gift that we don’t deserve, we will ‘reign in life’, in the words of today’s second reading. We will become more fully alive as human beings.
We can always turn towards the Lord with confidence because, in the words of the letter to the Hebrews, we are not dealing with someone who ‘is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses’ but with someone ‘who in every respect has been tested as we are’. Jesus has entered fully into the human experience of temptation and that is the message of our gospel reading. At his baptism, Jesus had a powerful experience of himself as God’s beloved Son. Immediately after his baptism, he went into the wilderness for a time of prayer and fasting. At the end of that forty day period, Satan tested Jesus’ special relationship with God. He began by tempting Jesus to use this relationship for his own benefit by turning stones into bread for himself and by forcing God’s hand by jumping off the Temple pinnacle. Then, finally, Jesus faced the greatest temptation of all, transferring his loyalty from God to Satan so as to gain worldly power. Jesus stood firm before each temptation, remaining faithful to God as God’s beloved Son. When we are tempted or tested in some significant way, the risen Lord stands firm for us, calling on us to draw on his strength, the strength of the Holy Spirit. Even when we fail the test, as sometimes we will, the Lord continues to stand firm alongside us.