Lent is verification of our baptism.  With God or against Him?  It is not an abstract verification but is based on concrete choices.  Lent is the time the church puts at our disposal in order to verify if baptism for us is a burden, a religious cloak, a corruption or the joy of a choice and the reception of a gift.  Lent is in fact preparation for Easter and in the “big” Easter Vigil we shall be asked to renew before the risen Christ our baptismal promises.

TEMPTATION: THE RESPONSE OF ADAM

The liturgy of the first Sunday of lent is dominated by temptation.  There are two ways of confronting it: the way of Adam and the way of Christ.

In the dialogue between the serpent and the woman is the psychological process of temptation described: to demolish the word command of God.  The tempter says: “God threatens death because He is jealous of man.  He does not want rivals, He wants to be the only ruler.  Man, if he wishes can become like God, to be the arbiter of good and evil.  There is no need, therefore, to be afraid of transgressing the command of God”.  The man and the woman listen to the tempter and soon realize the situation of shame into which they fall.

When we go beyond the symbols and figures we learn from this account of the first sin a theological indication of universal value: temptation is always the same.  Man sees a rival in God, he nurtures distrust in His Word, rebels against His project.  He wants to be autosufficise and to realize himself by himself.

The vicissitude of Adam and Eve is the vicissitude of every man who confronts temptation and gives in to it.  Nobody wants to be a creature dependent on God.  Everyone wants to be God for himself.

TEMPTATION: THE RESPONSE OF CHRIST

Here the letter of St. Paul comes in with the antithesis between Adam and Christ.  On the one hand the transgression and disobedience which bring death as consequence.  On the hand the life of fidelity and obedience of Christ who brings life back to us.  In accepting to obey God the Father Christ received in His existence the condition of weak and mortal man.  He is the Son who consciously accepts the will of the Father.  He receives it with love and makes it His own will.

TEMPTATION: RESPONSE OF THE PEOPLE AND RESPONSE OF CHRIST

In the account of the temptation according to Matthew, there is a confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish people in the desert.  The people, like Adam, rebel against God.  They have no trust in Him.  They provoke continuously, reproaching Him for not providing food and water, for not defending them.  After all, reproaching Him for not being that God which the people wanted.

Different from the people Jesus accepts to follow the path which the Father indicates, rejecting the diabolic temptation of facile messianism.  He follows the project and will of the Father.  For this He was not disappointed, for this God makes Him Lord of life, delivering Him from death.

THE BAPTISMAL CHOICE

“Do you renounce sin in order to live in the freedom of God’s children?  Do you renounce satan, origin and cause of every sin?  “So shall we be questioned on Easter Vigil.  Our response shall be authentic if we try to live like men who trust God as Christ did, and not like men who want to be God for themselves as Adam did.

“Man does not live by bread alone (Adam’s mentality) but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (the trust of Christ).  We truly are committed to God’s Word when we choose it over our own good sense, over the common mentality of the world, over worldly things, reputation, traditions etc.  Every temptation is an attempt to distance us from the Word and the will of God.  Every temptation is a distrust in the salvation-project proposed by God.  Every temptation is an attempt to bend God to our will, an attempt to constrain Him to be as we wish.

“If you are the Son of God come down from the cross and we will believe you”.  We want Him to come down from the cross because for us the cross is foolishness, madness, nonsense.  Because sacrifice has no reason to be in our society of well-being.

To Jesus who in His infinite love ties a towel around His waist and goes on to wash His disciples’ feet, we cry out with Peter “You will never wash my feet”.  This is because we do not want to serve but to dominate.  Intelligence, strength, endowments do not serve us to live out love and fraternity, rather to have power.  The titles, positions of importance, money are not at the service of others but for dominion over them.

If we would find the time, wish and enthusiasm to meditate on the Word of God this lent, we would notice how distant our mentality is from that of Christ, how our attitude is unlike His own.  And we shall see how much there is to change in us in order to live out our baptism authentically.  And, with help of the Lord, we shall work in such direction.

God bless you!

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