Learning from Christ How to Defeat the Devil’s Temptations, First Sunday of Lent (A), February 26, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx
First Sunday of Lent, Year A
February 26, 2023
Gen 2:7-9.3:1-7, Ps 51, Rom 5:12-19, Mt 4:1-11

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• At the end of today’s second reading, St. Paul summarizes the principal message of all three readings on this first Sunday of Lent: “For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man the many will be made righteous.” We see the disobedience of that one man in today’s first reading in the story of Adam’s and Eve’s fall, by which the human race became sinners. We see in the Gospel the obedience and fidelity of the New Adam, by which we were justified. The entirety of our lives is a battle in our mind, our heart and particularly our choices between the old Adam and the path of disobedience and sin, and the New Adam and the way of obedience and faithfulness. Lent is the time we’re called to repent and believe in the Gospel, to turn our back on the old Adam and embrace the New. As Pope Francis continually reminds us, the devil is real and active — just as real and active as he was in the Garden and as he was in the desert — trying to tempt us to buy into his lies. And often we do. But the Good News is that Christ shows us in the Gospel today not only that the devil can be defeated but how he is to be defeated. To learn how to follow Christ in overcoming these temptations, though, we first need to understand how the devil operates, and that brings us to focus very carefully on the first reading.
• Adam and Eve had it all in the garden. God had made all of creation for them. They were perfectly in the state of grace. They had transparent relations with God, with all of creation, and with each other, as was symbolized by the fact they were “naked and unashamed” (Gen 2:25). God gave them just one limitation. “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gen 2:16-17). It was called symbolically the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but we recognize what the word “know” means in Genesis — it means to “become one with” something or someone. Adam “knew” Eve and she conceived a child (Gen 4:1). To “know” good and evil meant that they would come to know evil, while they had been created to know and do good.
• The devil came disguised symbolically as a serpent and he got Adam and Eve to become one with evil. We can examine the steps he took, because he still has the same modus operandi. The first step was to expose that Eve didn’t really pay very close attention to what God said. When the devil asked her what God had instructed, she replied by saying that they were not to eat of the tree in the middle of the garden not touch it lest they die. God had never said anything about touching it — and we’ll see why this lack of precision is relevant later. The second step was to get Eve to distrust God. The devil initially called into question the fact of the consequences: “You will not die!” Then he undermined God’s credibility, as if God were just making rules for the sake of keeping his own prerogatives, rather than because he loved them: God didn’t want them to eat it, the devil said, because it would give them the power to become like God, not just knowing but determining good and evil. God had made them in his “image and likeness,” he wanted them to be “like him,” but the devil was trying to get them to believe that they would become like God not through loving him but disobeying him. And Eve took the bait. She began to “negotiate” with evil in her imagination. She “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and was to be desired to make one wise.” She was already sliding on the slippery slope. She gave in and then Adam gave in, too.
• We saw what the immediate consequences were. Their eyes were opened to the presence of evil, which up to that point had not been a temptation or reality to them. They covered their private parts with fig leaves, because they no longer trusted that the one they loved would not take advantage of their vulnerability. They tried to hide themselves even from God, because they no longer trusted even in God’s goodness (Gen 3:8). When God asked them why they were hiding themselves, Adam responded, “I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked, and hid myself” (Gen 3:10). When God asked them who told them they were naked, the whole story came out, and Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the devil, but neither took any responsibility for the misuse of their freedom and their disobedience. So we see the consequences of sin: it wounds our relationship with God, with others, with ourselves and our sense of responsibility, and with the entire created order, symbolized by man’s work now being toilsome and his having to till the soil with the sweat of his brow and woman’s needing to bring forth children in pain (Gen 3:16,19).
• The devil continues to operate in the same way. He continues to take advantage of our ignorance of God’s word to use that lack of knowledge against us. He continues to try to get us to distrust God. He continues to try to tell us that sin — even mortal or deadly sin — won’t really kill us. He continues to try to get us to “negotiate with” evil, to start to use our imagination to deliberate “how far we can go without committing a sin.” And many people continue to bite on that fruit.
• Before we discuss how Jesus in the Gospel shows us how to defeat these temptations of the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44), I want to mention two things that will help us better to appreciate what Jesus shows us in his confrontation with the evil one.
  • The first comes from one the most consoling lines in all of Sacred Scripture, which the Holy Spirit inspired the author of the Letter to the Hebrews to memorialize for all of us: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). He has suffered the same temptations we do, but he never consented to them. That’s why he’s such a reason for hope to us in our temptations, because he can truthfully tell us, “I know what you’re going through. I’ve been there. Trust in me. I can help you overcome those temptations without sin.” The temptations Jesus suffered were not just the three named in today’s Gospel. St. Luke tells us that the devil subjected Jesus to “every temptation” (Lk 4:13), all those that human beings are able to suffer. And hence the path to overcome them works not just for the temptations in the Gospel, but for all of them.
  • The second thing I want to highlight is how Jesus in general defeated the temptations of the devil in the Gospel. Each time he cited Sacred Scripture. He referenced God’s word. The problem with the devil’s temptations is that so often they sound so good. The evil one often mixes his seductions with half-truths, since few of us would succumb to his temptations if were trying to tell us something that our minds would readily reject — e.g., that God doesn’t exist or that there’s no such thing as evil — or that our consciences would immediately recognize as morally wrong, like infanticide or torturing the innocent. We see with Eve in the garden that the first step to her fall was that she didn’t know precisely what God had said; the devil was able to use that to manipulate her. In the Gospel, Jesus was able to withstand the devil’s false use of God’s word because, even as his humanly weakest after 40 days of fasting, he was able to rely on the rock of God’s word! In response to the first temptation, Jesus said, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus knew, lived and enfleshed that word. Similarly for us, if we wish to discern the devil’s half-lies and defeat his temptations, we need both to know Sacred Scripture well and to put it into practice. The better we know Sacred Scripture, and the more we live it, the better we will be able to withstand the wiles of the devil. The less we know it the more we’re at risk.
• When we look at the temptations Jesus suffered in the Gospel, we see that they summarize every form of temptation to which a person can be subjected. The first temptation was to disorder one’s relationship with himself and the rest of the created world. The second was to warp one’s relationship with God. The third was to distort one’s relationship with others. It makes sense that the devil would seek to tempt Jesus in all of these ways, because, as we talked about above, the consequences of sin are always to disorder our relationships with God, others, the created order — and, in each and all of them, within ourselves.
• The first temptation came after Jesus was literally starving, having fasted for 40 days. The devil tempted him to become a baker rather than a savior, to use his talents and powers to turn stone into bread. We know what Jesus’ response was, to proclaim that man lives not just on bread, but more importantly on God’s word. Jesus’ food was “to do the will of the one who sent him and complete his work” (Jn 4:34). Similarly the devil tries to tempt us to use the talents God has given us in a selfish way, for our own advantage, rather than for the good of others. The evil one can get rich people to use their material blessings to live a consumerist, materialistic existence, rather than for the building up of God’s kingdom, for the care and support of those who are less fortunate. He can get those who are intelligent to use those gifts to seek money and fame, rather than use them for understanding and passing on the faith. God gave us the gifts that he has so that we might use them for him and for others, but the devil tries to make those blessings become curses by having us use them only for ourselves. Jesus gives us the answer: to live by the word of God, and to use these blessings for the proclamation of that word. If we haven’t been using our talents, our time and all that God has given us for God and others, but rather mainly for ourselves, it’s a sign that the devil has subtly gotten us.
• The second temptation was when the devil brought Jesus to the parapet of the temple and told him to jump off, trusting that God would send his angels to catch him and prevent any harm. This is the temptation to disorder our relationship with God by presumption. So often the devil continues to work in this way. He can do it in terms of sin, telling us: “Go ahead. Commit that sin. You can always go to confession and God will forgive you.” He can tempt us to live in a reckless way such that one day we end up sick and in the hospital, and when we’re there suffering, he’ll continue his temptation by enticing us to pray, “God, if you really love me, please cure me”; if God chooses not to cure us, the devil can use that fact to drive an even deeper wedge between us and God. A similar thing can occur with kids who blow off studying all semester and on their way to their exam pray that God will help them get a good grade. If they fail, the devil can often get them to doubt God’s existence or goodness. This is the way he uses presumption. The solution is what Jesus shows us: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” And the way not to tempt the Lord is by doing what we should be doing when we should be doing it.
• The third temptation happened when the devil took Jesus up to a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and promised them all to Jesus if only he would fall down and worship him. This is the temptation to disorder our relationship with others, to seek dominion over others, regardless of the means. In the course of history, many people have made these Faustian bargains, selling out on their worship of God for the sake of getting ahead. We can think readily in our own time of politicians who have sold their souls to the diabolical pro-abortion plank of their political party so that they might get elected. Others have betrayed friends or traded their chastity for the sake of a promotion. This is the temptation to forsake God’s will for the sake of an advantage over others, to seek to build up our own earthly kingdom rather than enter God’s. Jesus shows us the remedy. “Worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.” If we are truly worshipping and loving God, we will be loving others, who are made in his image. If we are serving God, we will not use others for the sake of getting ahead. We will not seek to have dominion over others but will strive to serve them in love.
• How do we imitate and live Jesus’ responses to the devil and grow in strength against temptation? Jesus tells us in St. Mark’s Gospel, that some devils are expunged “only by prayer and fasting” (Mk 9:29). That is why, on Ash Wednesday, the Church, presents before us the need for us to pray, to fast and to give of ourselves and what we have toward others. The devil seeks to trick us to disorder our relationship ourselves, to others, and to God, and fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are the respective antidotes. The more we fast and place spiritual nourishment over material food, the less vulnerable we will be to be tempted by bread and other earthly pleasures. The more we pray to God and seek to know and do his will in our lives the less assailable we will be to the devil’s traps presumptuously to force God’s hand. The more we sacrifice ourselves and our belongings for the good of others, the less prone we will be to giving in to the devil’s seductions to give us power or control over others. These three traditional practices of Lent are a great remedy, a merciful medicine, to the Evil One’s poison. And that’s why we need to make bold resolutions in Lent with regard to all three.
• Jesus suffered every type of temptation we face but never sinned, and today, on this first Sunday of Lent, he tells each of us, “Follow me!” He calls us to trust in him, to believe in his word, and to put it into practice even and especially when we find it hard and challenging. He has been helping us share in his victory over the devil and his lies since from our earliest days as a Christian. On the day of our baptism, we received his own power to defeat the temptations of the evil one. Our parents and godparents said for us then words we have repeated many times, that we reject Satan, all his evil works and all his empty promises and profess our faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and all the means he gives us through the prayer and the Sacraments. In our name, they prayed on the day of our baptism words we have reiterated tens of thousands of times, “Let us not to fall into temptation but deliver us from the Evil One!” Today we renew those promises and that prayer!
• In one of the many great Lenten hymns we pray throughout this season, “Lord, who throughout these 40 days,” we sing words that summarize the chief message of this first Sunday of Lent and this whole Lenten season: We say, Lord, “as you with Satan did contend and did the victory win; so give us strength in you to fight, in you to conquer sin!” That’s what Christ wants to do. He wants us to strengthen us from the inside to fight, to win, and to conquer sin. To help us do just that, he is about to give us this world’s supreme gift. He was unwilling to change a stone into bread for the devil, but for us, today, he changes bread into his Body. He is “the word that comes from the mouth of God” and now God the Father wants to put that word into our mouths! Together with him, everything is possible. Together with him, we can withstand any and every temptation. Together with him, we can indeed live by the word of God and worship and serve God alone.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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