ver the last several weeks, winter has reasserted itself. I know that my Canadian friends have had it even worse, but here in Minnesota we experienced a massive cold wave. We had 11 days straight where the air temperature got below zero. During that stretch, we went for nearly 5 days with the temperature never reaching as high as zero. And now that the temperature has moderated, we have snow. In the last 24 hours we have received anywhere from 10 to 18 inches of snow so far, with another 3-5 inches coming today. My Fox Terrier, Annie, is thrilled. She’s always loved romping through snow, and was excited to have the opportunity to do so again last night and this morning. Her attitude was, “Oh boy! Oh boy!” My wife’s dachshund, Little John, not so much. He walked off the front step this morning and sank. The snow is literally twice as deep as he is tall. When I went to help him, he looked at me as if to say, “We are not pleased”. Personally I’m with the dachshund.

I quit being excited about the snow yesterday afternoon when two cars spun out on the highway right in front of our car. To avoid an accident we had to navigate between two cars spinning on either side of us. I felt a bit like we were participants in a pinball game, with the spinning cars taking the place of flippers. I even flashed back to my youth and heard the strains of the rock band, “The Who” begin to play in my mind.

Still we really have no reason to complain. It was even worse in Wisconsin, where as of yesterday afternoon already, seven people had lost their lives in car accidents because of the storm. In Arkansas, nearly an entire town was destroyed by tornadoes. Tornadoes hit, causing severe damage, across a number of states, besides Arkansas, including Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas. Mother Nature proved once more that as intelligent as we are, as powerful as we are, we are no match for her.

We are able to build shelter. We have heat and fire. We can store food from the summer months to get us through even the worst of winters pretty easily. But the truth, really, is that we fail completely at controlling the world around us. We can, for the most part, survive the vagaries of our climate. But the weather is just one of a myriad of things over which we have power. In fact, once we move outside of ourselves, we have no mastery over much of anything.

On this, the First Sunday in Lent, we are shown a picture of Jesus, which forces us to question even how much mastery we even have over ourselves. St Luke tells us that immediately after Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River, that Jesus was led, driven, out into the wilderness. There He fasts and prays in preparation for all that is to come. But there too, He finds Satan along with his legion of temptations, so to test His character and resolve.

Luke tells us that the first temptation was to turn stones into bread. He’d been fasting for weeks and was hungry. Bread would relieve that deep, gnawing hunger. Physical wants, needs, and desires could be sated with only a word. Jesus turned it down, saying, “man does not live on bread alone.”

The second temptation is for all the kingdoms of the world. Power, authority, glory, riches; all were being offered to Jesus on the proverbial silver platter. All were within His reach, the easy way. All He had to do was cut a deal with the devil. There would be no hard work, no pain, no cross. Jesus again turned it down saying, “Only God is worthy of worship, and only Him shall you serve.”

The final temptation that Luke tells us about is to Jesus’ pride. Satan says, IF you are God’s son throw yourself down from the temple and God will send angels to protect you from harm. Ah! Now here’s a temptation that Satan knows intimately. Vanity, pride are what caused his own fall from his own exalted position in the Archangelic brotherhood. It was the cause of the very first of all of mankind’s sins. Surely here was an offer that could not be refused. Yet Jesus stands firm refusing, because He will not, ”put the Lord to the test”.

Jesus refused all of the temptations that Satan could throw at Him. He refused to take His eyes off of God and the Mission that the Father had entrusted to Him. He knew and understood the sacred Scriptures well enough to be able to counter the seductive and self-serving private interpretations that Satan constructed as a means of entrapping Him. He triumphed over everything that the world, the flesh and the devil could throw at Him.

How many of us would have been anywhere near as strong as Jesus? How readily do we give ourselves over to whatever “brother ass”, as St Francis called the physical body, demands? What would we give to win the Lottery? How easily do we throw ourselves at whatever strokes our egos or massages and builds up our pride? What would we be willing to sacrifice to stand on that stage in the Kodak Theatre tonight and be acclaimed with an Academy Award?

Still, it doesn’t need to be that way. We, like Jesus, can overcome temptation. We do have the ability to say no to sin. We have the very same Spirit indwelling us that was in Christ. If we keep our minds set on following Jesus, if we set our wills to embrace the way of the cross, if we say “no” to self and if we set our feet on the path that leads to Calvary, and if we do not hesitate or turn back, we can overcome. We cannot control Mother Nature, but we can attain mastery ourselves.

But those are a lot of “ifs”. Far more often than we would like to believe or admit, we fail. Thanks be to God that we have so great a Redeemer as Jesus to be an Advocate with the Father, and the “propitiation for all our sins.” So too should we be grateful for the annual season of Lent, when the Church calls us to honestly look at our lives and to deal honestly with the temptation and sin which fill our lives and beguile us into living lives that are far less than victorious.

 

All Meditations ©2004-2007 Randolph A. Brown (IP not subject to Fair Use Clause). Permission will not be given for reprint†. Previous Meditations 2nd Sunday After Easter (April 22, 2007) Thomas / Low Sunday (April 15, 2007) Easter, The Feast of Feasts (April 8, 2007) Good Friday (April 6, 2007) Palm Sunday (April 1, 2007) 5th Sunday in Lent (March 25, 2007) 4th Sunday in Lent (March 18, 2007) 3rd Sunday in Lent (March 11, 2007) 2nd Sunday in Lent (March 4, 2007) 1st sunday in lent (February 25, 2007) Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent (February 21, 2007) Last Sunday After the Epiphany / Quinquagesima (February 18, 2007) 6th Sunday After the Epiphany / Septugesima (February 11, 2007) 5th Sunday After the Epiphany / Septugesima (February 4, 2007) 4th Sunday After the Epiphany (January 28, 2007)   †Regarding the copyright, Bp. Brown would like us to mention that it is not his intention to be stingy. It's only that he has future plans for the writings which do not facilitate their being shared at this time.   Personal Blog of Abp. Brown: