Father Tim Lemlin
Jesus has just had a God-experience. While being baptized by John in the Jordan he experienced being specially chosen by God. This is a necessary experience for each of us and one of the most dangerous experiences that we can ever have. It is necessary because we need to know that we are each chosen - selected. It is dangerous because whenever we are praised we tend to become puffed-up - full of ourselves. We hear in today's gospel reading from Luke that Jesus returns from this experience "filled with the Holy Spirit."
He is ready for anything, to take on anything, and to do anything. We are then told that he is "led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days...." This isn't something that Jesus necessarily expects. He is charged with the energy of knowing that he is chosen, that he is beloved of God. This is something we would want everyone to know. That isn't going to happen in the desert. Jesus can't boast about his experience to anyone. There is no one present to tell. He is alone long enough for the feeling and excitement to disappear, and for doubts to arise. Hence we hear that in the desert he is "to be tempted by the devil."
The temptations that we hear in the gospel concentrate on the natural outcome of a God experience. Each in their own way not only calls into question Jesus being chosen, they also push him in very instinctual directions to prove that his experience of being specially chosen is a true experience. The devil tells Jesus that if he identifies with one or all of these instinctual needs (to satisfy hunger, the need for acceptance and the desire for prestige) he will have the proof of his experience of being chosen.
This is a lie that unfortunately we seem to accept too readily. We tend to submit and over-identify with these instinctual needs without even knowing that we are trying to prove that we are a chosen son or daughter of God. The truth is our being chosen can't be proved - doesn't have to be proved. When we try to prove that we are chosen by God, we slip into earning and meriting. That we are chosen however is a gift freely given to us by God and cannot be earned.
The need to prove ourselves (becoming puffed-up) will never completely go away in this lifetime. Prayer can help us begin to see the ways in which we are trying to prove that we are God's chosen one, but only God can transform us. The more we trust God, the more we will allow the Spirit to lead us into life situations that are unexpected and often painfully revealing.
I would like to end with a story about Leonardo da Vinci, an outstanding draftsman, engineer, and painter. Just before he commenced work on his portrait of the Last Supper he had a violent argument with a fellow painter. Leonardo came away from the argument so enraged and bitter that he determined to use the face of this individual as the face of Judas, and thus take his revenge by revealing this man in infamy and scorn to succeeding generations. The face of Judas was, therefore, one of the first he finished, and everyone could easily recognize it as the face of the painter with whom he had violently argued.
When he came to paint the face of Jesus however, he could make no progress. Something seemed to be confounding him, holding him back, and frustrating his best efforts. Finally he came to the conclusion that the thing that was preventing him from painting the face of Jesus was that he had acted revengefully by painting the face of the man with whom he had argued as the face of Judas. When he removed the face of Judas he was able to resume his work on the face of Jesus and this time did it successfully.
The Spirit will lead us where we would rather not go but need to go.
