The Temptation of Jesus
Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and marked the beginning of the season of Lent. This Sunday is dubbed as the First Sunday of Lent and while today’s reading may be very short, it is very meaningful as Lent is always a time for reflection, for Catholics to immerse in the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was sent by our Heavenly Father to teach us the gospel and show us the depth of God’s love by sacrificing his own life so we would be saved. Today’s gospel comes from Mark 1:12-15.
“12 The Spirit drove [Jesus] out into the desert, 13 and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. 14 After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God; 15 “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”
For hundreds of years, Filipinos called Lent, “Cuaresma,” which is a Spanish word that means the 40-day period from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. Our old folks often referred to “Cuaresma” as the summer months, which people often mistake for summertime heat.
If you turned back time and you were one of the disciples of John the Baptist, upon hearing the words of our Lord Jesus, you could conclude that he was following the footsteps of John. But if you have done your Bible studies, you will know that when John was asked if he were the Messiah, the one who is to come, he repeatedly said that he was not the Messiah.
But John warned the Jews in John 1: 26-27 saying, “There is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is to come after me… the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. This man who is to come who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” Since this gospel reading happened right after the arrest of John the Baptist, it was then that his disciples began following our Lord Jesus Christ, especially after John saw Jesus walking along the banks of the Jordan River and then he told his followers “Look, there is the Lamb of God.”
Thus at the start of his Galilean ministry, our Lord Jesus Christ cried out, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” Here is the Messiah, sent by God to call upon us sinners to turn back to God for he wants our souls to be saved. How then do we save our souls? Only through the sacrament of reconciliation or confession. Nothing pleases God more than a sinful man with a contrite heart.
This brings us to that philosophical question, “Why did God have to create man with a free will? Wouldn’t it have been better for God to create a man that could not fall from sin?” I have encountered these thinking and have debated with friends on this issue. If God created a perfect man, which he actually did in Paradise, it would have been boring. But even in Paradise, man already had a free will and there was only one commandment given by God… for both Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Life. But even in that, they failed miserably.
But in John 6:13 we heard our Lord Jesus say “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” So in becoming Man, our Lord instituted the sacrament of repentance, after all that is what John the Baptist also preached.
If you recall, last Sunday’s gospel was about the paralytic who was lowered by four men inside the house where our Lord was teaching because the house was so crowded. When he saw their faith, our Lord Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Child, you sins are forgiven.” Of course this incensed the scribes who quipped, “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?”
If only the scribes believed in the gospel again as preached by Jesus, they would have known that God was going to send a Messiah to save Israel. Unfortunately, the Israelites were thinking in human terms, that God would save them from their Roman bondage. They should have known that the Son of Man was sent to save sinners and not the self-righteous Jews.
Sin is an offense against God, its stench keep us away from God and the only way it can be washed away is through the sacrament of confession and reconciliation. A friend told me once, “What for should I go to confession when I commit the same sins over and over?” I told him that confession isn’t a guarantee that you will no longer be a sinner. It is akin to taking a bath, why should we take a bath when we’re still going to get dirty anyway? Taking a bath means that our stench is removed, but it’s no guarantee that we won’t ever be dirty again. So go ahead, clean up your soul… go to confession.