Temptation of Christ, Juan de Flandes

Christ was not tempted in the towns or among the multitudes. During His forty days in the inhospitable void, He allowed himself to be approached. This was no accident. When individuals separate themselves from others, physically or intellectually, they encounter temptation. Satan despises those in the desert. He loathes the emptiness of contemplation. He hates it when we set off on our own.

The group man and the team player are allowed to drift along. It’s the person who embarks on a new path toward goodness with no teammates who prompts the famous general to pull out his maps. The commander studies his battle plan, considers shortcuts and highlights inadequate defenses. Every campaign is unique.

“The devil envies those who are tending toward a better life,” said Thomas Aquinas.  A woman returns from the hospital with her newborn. She is excited and happy. After a few weeks or months, the darkness descends. She is in the desert. She must have more activity and more people. He tells her she is lonely. Her home is shabby and she is poor.

“Temptation is very personalized,” said Livio Fanzaga, in The Great Deceiver. The evil one “behaves like every expert hunter who, for every species of animal, prepares specific bait.” As Fanzaga notes, the devil always appears as an objective counselor. His reasons are compelling. But there are a whole host of other reasons he never mentions. Notice his exclusive focus on material needs. Command these stones to become loaves of bread. He convinces people who live amid opulence and a level of plenty that was unknown to most of history that they are almost destitute. He prefers to get us to worry about money or our health or the environment or world poverty so he can relax for awhile. He is an abject liar, but a vociferous one, deliberately drawing attention from the beauty and dignity that are as important as all but life-sustaining things. He is a consummate and expert nag, achieving through repetition what cannot be achieved through force of argument alone.

The stars burn overhead. No one is asking you to pay for them. There are disquieting truths about ourselves that we encounter when we head off on our own. If we think that in trying to do good we will not do battle with ourselves, we are unprepared to advance. We will find ourselves leaving the desert just when we should have stayed.

                                                             —- Comments —-

Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:

I recommend Jim Kalb’s recent blog entry “Inclusiveness and Technology” where he also talks of isolation, or people’s removal from society, with the aid of modern technology and systems. But in this case, it is not to “[tend] toward a better life,” but a rejection of the good, traditional society, in order to tend to their materialistic, individualistic needs.

Their isolation then becomes an even bigger hotbed of temptation as they try to endlessly fulfill those ever-demanding needs. In fact, in this entitlement-filled life, such people are commanding that stones be turned to loaves.

And they are obsessed with the false gods of “money, health, the environment or world poverty” that keeps them exactly where the devil wants them, so that he can indeed relax. It seems that this devil has found just the right ingredients with which to control modern society: a type of isolation where the goal is not to discover and contemplate the good, but rather to fulfill of one’s selfish, narcissistic demands.

Sheila C. writes: 

“The stars burn overhead. No one is asking you to pay for them.” I think I must adopt this pure, spare truth as one of my personal mottoes. I have long argued that people are deeply afraid of silence and being alone, because it compels them to face themselves and their failings and limitations. While I like to listen (an action verb grammatically speaking) to good music as much as anyone, I don’t care for background noise of any type (I carry a pair of earplugs in my purse for bank lobbies, auto service waiting rooms, and the like). I treasure my time at home when my youngest is in school, when I can do my housework or indulge in internet time in peace and silence. This does not mean that I don’t also love having a houseful of happy, playful children, but I’m not frightened by quiet. I fully understand the hopeful, noble motivations of those who bring very young children to church services, but I always found myself pulled between accustoming my children to sitting still and listening (and not disturbing others) and trying to focus and pray myself. While I love singing praise and worship songs or hymns among a group of fellow believers, I miss that quiet, reverential atmosphere, even among corporate worship, which churches inspired in the past. How can I listen for that “still, small voice” or the great “I AM” with the television or radio or anything else filling up all available space? The devil wants you to lose yourself in the crowd, and because most are terrified of facing their own shortcomings, which the deceiver will undoubtedly magnify and make central in one’s mind, they simply cede the battle and while trying to block out Satan’s voice, they also willingly block out God’s. I personally came to Christ while sitting quietly in my apartment, reading Josh McDowell’s “More Than a Carpenter,” and finally permitting myself to wonder “What if it’s all true?” I heard no thunder and saw no visions on that sunny afternoon, but for an infinitesimal and fearful moment, I was in the presence of the great “I AM” and that particular doubt was excised from my soul. Perhaps that is what so perplexes my Jewish and agnostic/atheistic relatives. They know I fully retain my faculties and neither proclaim visions nor wonders; they seem more threatened by my simple acknowledgment of Him against whom they still rebel.

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