LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

 A SERMON FOR QUADRAGESIMA SUNDAY

After Mass today, we’ll be receiving our annual reminder of who we really are, or rather, what we really are.  We are dust.  Our first parent Adam was created out of the dust of the earth, and when we die, unto dust we will return.  Like a dog, our body will be buried in the earth.  There it will decay until nothing remains, save the earth itself, from which it came.  And for an atheist, that’s all there is to it.   We’re born, we live, and we die.  Nothing else.

God could have created us that way.  But fortunately for us, he made us in his own image and likeness so that we may partake of his own eternal happiness.  The last two articles of the Creed are that we believe “in the Resurrection of the Body, and Life of the World to Come.”  Atheists do not have a creed.  They do not believe there’s anything at all after death.  They should be so lucky.

The fact is, God has instilled within us an immortal soul.  This will never die.  It will never decay.  It was created by God out of nothing, but it will not return to nothing.  It will continue to live forever, in one of two possible locations.  One of these is heaven, and it is so that we may be accepted there, and to avoid the other place, that we continually fight the baser instincts of our bodies.

It’s a battle that we must wage on an unfortunately frequent basis.  It’s not absolutely constant, because after all, there are things that we want that we’re permitted to have because they are in accordance with God’s will.  But then there are those other things we want, things God knows we shouldn’t have.  And the desires we have for these things have a name.  They’re called “temptations.”

A temptation is that fragile moment of decision, as we consider an action and whether we may morally perform it.  The action may not amount to a physical action.  It may be just a thought, or a word, as well as an actual deed.  Or it can even be the omission of an action, such as not going to Mass on Sunday, or failing to act charitably when we should.  But we all understand, I think, that we either withstand the temptation and keep our honor, or we yield to the temptation and fall into sin.  And the operative word is “fall”.

We never rise into sin.  We fall into it.  It’s a downward motion.  There are several reasons why we use the term “falling” into sin.  Because of gravity, it’s much easier to go down than it is to go up.  I’ve noticed this when the UPS guy arrives with a heavy package—carrying it up to the bedrooms on the top floor is a lot harder than rolling it down the stairs into the basement.  And so it is with sin.  It’s easier to give in to the temptation than to fight against it.  Or take a look at the sun in the sky.  It rises in the morning and gives off heat and light, and then, when it goes down, the darkness and the cold of night return.  So too, when we fall into sin, the light of grace in our soul is extinguished, and the nightfall of shame and emptiness enters in its place.

Temptation is our battle of good versus evil.  Temptation is not a sin, it is not something we should ever feel ashamed of.  After all, our blessed Lord himself was tempted.  Three times the devil tempted him with earthly pleasures, riches and honors.  In the second of these temptations, he takes our Lord up to a high pinnacle and tries to persuade him to cast himself down.  Down into sin.  But our Lord resists the temptation to show his power to the devil by having his angels protect him from injury.  He does not fall down into sin.  In the third temptation, the devil takes him even higher, “up into an exceeding high mountain” where he shows him all the kingdoms of the world “and the glory of them”.  He promises them to the Son of God, if only Christ will do one thing.  If only “thou wilt fall down and worship me.”  This is a terrible thing for the devil to tempt someone with—anyone!  But to try and tempt the Son of God like this?  The reward he places before Christ is very great, and there must be many people who would be taken in by the promise of such glory.  But not our Lord.  He does not fall down and worship the devil, his creature.  He does not fall down into sin.

We are not God of course, and no matter how hard we try we’ll never be completely free of sins and imperfections.  But God wants us to at least seek perfection, he wants us to do our best to remain in the state of grace, and not fall into any sin that would kill the soul and prevent us from joining in his eternal glory.  He knows we will never be free from temptation, because not even his divine Son was exempt.  But when temptation comes, God wants us to follow the example of his Son.  So how do we do that?  What did our Lord do to prepare himself to fight temptation when it came?

Our Lord went into the wilderness, and there he fasted forty days and forty nights.  The whole notion of Lent is based on this, and has the same purpose.  That by fasting and acts of penance, we may accustom ourselves to the idea that we can’t always have what we want whenever we want it, that there are limits to the extent we may satisfy our whims and appetites, limits which are imposed by divine law and by the natural law God created.  By becoming conscious on a regular basis of the amount of food we consume, by the constant reminder that we’ve given up some innocent pleasure we usually enjoy, we become accustomed to focusing our lives and actions on God, and to the conformity our actions have with his will rather than our own.  Forty days and forty nights of such reminders should be enough to inculcate this habit within us, enough at least to see us through the rest of the year till Ash Wednesday rolls around again.

According to today’s Gospel, “Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”  He was led somewhere for the purpose of being tempted.  He was “led into temptation.”  In the Our Father, we pray that God will not lead us into temptation.  Because we know we’ll never be as successful as our divine Saviour in resisting those temptations when they come.  And come they will.  It is the will of God that they come, because it is by resisting them that we earn our place in heaven.  Without exercising our free will to choose good over evil, there would be no merit in us by which we could be judged fit for heaven.  But it is a struggle, and never a pleasant one.  So by all means, ask God that temptations may be lifted from you.  But at the same time, understand their salutary nature, and thank God for them when they come, that you have the opportunity to show God you choose him above yourself.  Rise up to worship God, and fight always the urge to fall down before the temptations of the Evil One.