We are called to begin Lent with a stern reminder as to what we all are and whose we are. Events of the last fortnight, with the illegal and totally unwarranted seizure of power by the Russians in the Ukraine, have shown us precisely how demonic and inhuman we humans can be; and in the case of Putin willing to sacrifice the lives of millions in his grab for power. But this is not the Christian way or its message, as made so clear in the human life of God the Son; and our Readings today explore that and its implications as we begin our Lenten journey to redemption in Christ.
Deuteronomy, (26:4-10) our First Reading explores all this through this great work of King Josiah’s propaganda, written in the late 7th C BCE. This document was meant to restore the faith of Jews in a period of national neglect of the faith, revitalising its expansionist hopes, and for a while it worked. However, we should not forget that Josiah and his armies went down the pan to invading Egyptians in 604 at Carchemish. Our passage, which instructed the people on the offering of First Fruits to God in thanks for his redemptive Exodus from Egyptian domination, also recited their history of aggressive invasion of the land we call Israel. It is all about the malign notion that God doles out chunks of our planet to favourites, just like some ancient potentate rewarding cronies. As we know to our cost, such a vision always leads to endless war and strife, as we see today in the endless clashes between Israelis and Palestinians. As our Readings make clear, we must rid ourselves of the blasphemous idea of divinely given rights over others and their property. God is not like us ‘only bigger’, an Alexander with megalomaniac intentions, but totally other; and whose way of giving himself to his creation is completely different. The evils we do are our own responsibility.
Our Gospel (Luke 4:1-13) is a magnificent counterbalance to the Deuteronomic view. Here we see Jesus immediately after the advice to followers by John the Baptist on right and God-centred living, followed by Jesus’ own baptism and Luke’s genealogy which goes right back to Adam the first man; only then do we find the Temptations. Luke, writing for Theophilus and all Gentiles, stresses the commonality of all humanity. The Temptations are all focussed on earthly power – if only Jesus will, like the rest of fallen humanity, go on the path of evil, miraculously conjuring up food (and more than a hint at that Exodus experience). He is offered ‘All the kingdoms of the world’ (or in Greek ‘Kingship of the inhabited earth’) in return for worship of the devil, and finally is enticed to test God by flinging himself off the roof of the Temple in the expectation of divine rescue. Each time Jesus rejects these beguiling prospects which subvert the Incarnation, and we should note his method, by reference to Deuteronomy 8:3; 6:13;6:16; and in each of these instances Jesus’ quotes are about respecting God’s way and not our own. Jesus was and remains entirely in solidarity with the will of the Father whose plan is for his Beloved Son to live out a perfectly human life, as we were intended to do. As we have proved incapable, the whole being of God the Son is focussed on our restoration which lies in his own human weakness which is the way God chooses to redeem us and defeat evil. It is essential then that there are no moments when Jesus ‘tests’ the Father, and as we shall see on Good Friday, there will be no last minute cavalry rescue, no whisking off to safety for this Beloved Son, not even a ram in a thicket. He will die in agony, alone for the sin of the world, and by this the Father will redeem fallen humanity – doing what the father’s understood as unthinkable to the devil and letting his mortal son die.
In reading Romans, (10:8-13) we need to go back to Paul’s argument as to why the Jewish law with its many rules is incapable of bringing salvation. Remember he has developed this teaching over a number of years, and his expression of it in Romans is his final understanding of it. For Paul the tragedy was that his own people, who were so close to God, failed to follow through God’s message and instead believed they were the only ones in tune with the divine so that the law became a stumbling block to their worship and faith. Following Isaiah, Paul also looked for pagan admission into full reception of God’s grace. Faith in Jesus risen from the dead is what is required for redemption. All believers in Christ will share eternal life in, with and through this act of perfect generosity, the Father’s gift to the creation he loved into being in the Son. In the end then, it’s not about what we possess, be it endlessly adding to Russia or Israel, but about our ultimately being able to love as the Father has loved us in the Son he gave to the world, and whose own completely selfless existence has restored us to that life of love which is the Trinity. ‘If you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, then you will be saved.’
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