Daily Gospel Reflection – First Sunday of Lent
Three Levels of Temptation
Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon
Friends, we come now to the great and holy season of Lent, a time to get back to spiritual basics. This First Sunday of Lent, we hear Luke’s account of the temptation of Jesus. What Jesus faces in the desert are three classical substitutes for God—three levels of temptation, three types of diversion from the ultimate good. Can we look honestly and directly at those things that will cause us to deviate from the path the Lord has for us?
March 06, 2022
First Sunday of Lent
Gospel: Lk 4:1-13
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.
The devil said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered him,
“It is written, One does not live on bread alone.”
Then he took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.
The devil said to him,
“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.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“It is written
You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve.”
Then he led him to Jerusalem,
made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and:
With their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“It also says,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”
When the devil had finished every temptation,
he departed from him for a time.
*United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in our Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent, Luke gives us the story of the temptation in the desert. At every point in the Gospels, we are meant to identify with Jesus. God became man that man might become God. We participate in him and thereby learn what a godly life is like.
Jesus has just been baptized; he has just learned his deepest identity and mission. And now he confronts—as we all must—the great temptations. What precisely is entailed in being the beloved Son of God?
First, the tempter urges him to use his divine power to satisfy his bodily desires, which Jesus dismisses with a word. Having failed at his first attempt, the devil shifts to perhaps the greatest of the temptations: power. Power is extremely seductive. Many would gladly eschew material things or attention or fame in order to get it. Jesus’ great answer in Matthew’s account of this story is "Get away, Satan!" To seek power is to serve Satan—it is stated that bluntly.
Finally, the devil plays a subtler game—he tempts Jesus to manipulate his Father, encouraging him to jump from the temple and let angels save him. It is the temptation faced by Adam and Eve in the garden: deciding how and when God will act.
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