We have entered the season of Lent and are once again preparing for Easter. To celebrate Jesus’ sacrifice for our salvation and to celebrate His resurrection, which is an invitation for us to eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. This year, on the first Sunday of Lent, we read the fundamental and, I would say, the most classic texts of Scripture that relate to the Lent season. We have heard them many times. However, let’s be more aware of their relevance and direct relationship to our own lives and the situations we find ourselves in.
In the first reading from the book of Genesis and in the passage from the Gospel of Matthew, we observe how cleverly evil can work and the tactics the Evil One uses to seduce and destroy. The dialogue between the serpent and Eve illustrates the innocent beginning of everything. The serpent said: “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?'” This attracted attention, aroused interest, and, at the same time, sowed doubt… Did God say that? And Eve answers him as if she wanted to put the serpent’s statement in perspective. This is the first stepin conversation/dialogue. It allows evil to set a trap. “No, you will not die… You will be like God, knowing/determining what is good and what is evil.
In this way, the Evil One says to man, “God deceived you; set your own rules. You yourself. Set them for yourself; set them for others too.” He says this to us, and it depends on how we reveal it, in what situations, and how we deal with it. Here, we see that the Evil One is the prototype of a disinformation agent. He takes part of reality, distorts it, decorates it with a tempting lie, and presents this “delicacy” to us for consumption. And we, humans, often take it and taste it. We then feel the consequences as individuals, families, nations, and all of humanity.
He used the same tactic against Jesus during the temptation in the desert. Again, we witness a dialogue that always begins with the tempter. This Gospel text is very well known, but we often do not think it applies to us. “Tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”known dialogwell-knowndialog For people, it does not have to be physical food to satisfy a starving body. Let us translate the situation into the plane of ideas – it can be food for people who are in a spiritual desert. It can be thoughts, intentions, and ideas that a person or a group declares to be good and presents to others to satisfy their spiritual hunger. Sometimes these are stones that they claim to be bread—nationalism, racism, communism, Nazism, and today’s almost unnameable ideology prevailing in Russia, which is a mixture of all of these. And there are other heaps of delusions that a person is “fed”.
The devil’s dialogue with Jesus is taken to an even “higher level” of deceit when the tempter says “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,” and uses the words of Scripture—Psalm 91:11-12 as motivation – “He will give his angels charge over you, and they will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” That’s as far as he can go. He is a model for false prophets, about whom we read in Matthew: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15). And in situations where we, humans, are close to something bad – close to sin, he tempts us with the same “go for it, try it, throw yourself into it, it’s not that bad, nothing can happen to you, you can – you yourself determine what is good and what is bad.”
And at the end, the “best” one: the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall and worship me.” He also says to a person, “I will give you all this… fall and worship me.” “All this” can be very different in our case, but it aFalllways causes the temptation of power, influence, importance, indispensability, and chosenness, in small and large ways. As history and today show, some people or groups want to devour the world or part of it.
During Lent, we ask for the strengthening of the Holy Spirit so that we can recognize these tricks and attacks in time and, truly, so that we can, with God’s help, effectively defend ourselves. We have the means of defense in Christ’s attitude and in his words: “Get thee hence, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'”
I wish you all a blessed Lent.
Hello. And Bye.