First Sunday of Lent, Year C Luke 4,1-13

At a time when a person thinks more often about the quality of his life. When does he dive inside and learn the truth about himself? He throws away the mask with which he is taught to live and sees himself truthfully: good and bad sides, his greatness and smallness, virtue and sin. These are days and moments of special favor from God; therefore, one should make good use of them. Among them are the days of Great Lent, which we began to experience. Every Sunday of Lent, we can look at our life from a different point of view. From what angle will it be today? The angle of our thinking about ourselves helps us create Jesus. His encounter with the devil directs us to reflect on a problem as old as humanity. It is the problem of the struggle between good and evil, the problem of temptation.

Let’s think deeply about why Jesus was tempted; when we think about it purely as humans and when we want to do a perfect psychoanalysis of this event, we will eventually come to the realization that no man could write this Gospel story. Man would never have come up with the idea that the Son of God would allow the devil to approach him. This is written by the inspiration of the Spirit of St. and Jesus allowed it so that we would be instructed. If by chance, we do not want to believe the words of the apostle Peter: “Be sober and watch! Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion looking for someone to eat” (1 Pt 5, 8). Or we wouldn’t want to believe Paul’s words:“ Whoever thinks he stands, let him be careful not to fall” (1 Cor 10, 12), so that we don’t accidentally talk, that we do not know about these things, Jesus himself presents us with his experience with the devil. He warns us that the devil is not a being from fairy tales but a spiritual reality with great power, courage, and refinement. The purpose of its existence is destructive activity. It consists of a permanent desire to destroy the harmony between God, people, and the world. It is clear from Jesus’ experience that the devil attacks three sensitive places of a person.

The first sensitive place is the question of physical needs. The devil wants to make Jesus the “baker of the world,” the servant of the stomach, matter, and enjoyment:“ If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Jesus’ counter to the devil is clear:“ Man lives not only from bread”. He did not come into the world to prepare feasts for people or to open miraculous bakeries. He is not a baker but a savior.

Furthermore, he came to feed souls hungry for God, truth, and love. Writer Pappini said that if he turned the stones on the road into bread, the dogs would also come to his feast,” but our souls would remain hungry and empty. A person needs to feed his bodily needs, but if the soul is starving, our life resembles a withered flower in a nice pot.

The prominent sensitive place of a person is the problem of property, ownership, wealth, and social status. The devil showed Jesus all the world’s riches and said:“ I will give you all their power and glory… if you bow down to me”. When the devil failed to make Jesus a baker, he wanted to make him a millionaire. He has only one condition: to take his side, the side of evil. Goethe once said that“ are people who have been striving for nothing all their lives but to get a chair higher.” Such people can be dragged down to all intrigues to reach that chair. They can humiliate, blackmail, and even kill others just to fulfill the devil’s command: become powerful and famous. They sell their honor, family, and faith to rise higher and higher. We also see it in the behavior of well-known and unknown people in our society, of whom there are more and more. It is an old human experience that whoever stops worshiping God begins to worship himself. He must make himself a god at any cost to have a reason for this.

A person’s sensitive place is the desire for excellence. The devil is attacking this place, too. He wants Jesus to jump off the temple. He failed to make him a baker or a millionaire, so he wants to make him a gambling stuntman. Jesus also rejects this offer:“ You shall not tempt the Lord your God!” It’s undoubtedly remarkable when someone can do a stunt. But often, stuntmen pay with their lives for their courage. But even someone who does “stuntman`’, for example, in the moral area of his life, can pay with his life. Who dares not keep God’s commandments, who dares to reject the sacraments even on his deathbed, who teaches others to commit grave sins? Such exceptionality causes a person’s soul to perish and sometimes premature death. Let’s remember, for example, last year’s murder of the world-famous fashion designer Versace. Perhaps he was a good designer, but his moral life was a big gamble (homosexual), and that’s why he died prematurely.

Since the devil allowed himself to tempt the Son of God, he will undoubtedly allow himself to tempt us, too. It is just a temptation, but it is not a sin. It is even a sign that we belong to God. If the devil stops tempting us, it is a dangerous signal that he no longer needs to do it. We’ve already listened to him…. And we also don’t think that when it comes to temptation, you must immediately think about the 6th and 9th—God’s commandments. The devil did not think of these commandments when he tempted Jesus. He thought of such temptations, which, when a person succumbs, means that he will almost legitimately sin against these two as well. May our daily prayer help us always to be strong enough internally against all the subtle ways the devil will use to win us over to his sinful kingdom. Someone said whoever goes to the inn with the devil must pay the bill. I believe that none of us will let him invite you.