Not by bread alone

The story about Jesus' triple temptation in the desert shortly after his baptism by John is narrated in all three Synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. This alone is an indication of its importance not only in the life of Jesus and his mission, but also for ourselves as Christians. All three temptations recall in inverse order Moses' reflections on God's testing of Israel in the wilderness "as a Father disciplines his son", as we read in the book of Deuteronomy.

In this text we discover the source of all three responses of Jesus to the devil's suggestion in reverse order: "not by bread alone", "test not God", "the Lord your God you shall worship". Jesus, we might say, is here clearly being presented as passing the tests that his ancestors had failed.

As to the nature of this narrative, commentators take one of three options. Some see in it a literal record of Jesus' experience in the desert just before inaugurating his public life. Others consider it as a summary of his struggles during the three years of public life, in the form of a dramatic debate. Others still see in it a reflection by the post-Easter Church, in the same dialogue format, on the significance of Jesus' public life as the reversal of the disobedience of Adam and Israel.

Whatever the background of the entire text, one thing is certain according to most commentators: Jesus was here referring to the three most common and basic temptations to which each one of us is liable. We find these temptations grouped by John in his first Letter as: "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life", corresponding to what is often labelled as 'The three Ps: pleasure, pride, power'.

Man is often urged to satisfy his natural inclinations in many ways. One of them is the eating of food to satisfy one's hunger. Eating, when reasonably controlled, is quite a legitimate pleasure, and it was meant by the Creator to fill this need.

Besides food, however, there are many other satisfactions, some of them natural and legitimate while others are bad and forbidden. The sexual urge is one of them, and it is a good one when satisfied in the right way and within the boundaries of a legitimate marriage as ordained by God.

Pride is one of the most deleterious consequences of original sin. It can lead us to place ourselves before all the others so that everyone else will look up to us and admire us. We often pretend to be better than anyone else, and we therefore expect others to bow before us and reserve for us the best possible positions in society.

Greed for possessions is perhaps the strongest temptation and the one that is most deeply ingrained in all of us. "I will give you all you see with your eyes if you fall at my feet and worship me!"

How often, perhaps, have I given in to this temptation and have tried, by hook or by crook, to possess more and more money and other worldly things, sometimes even at the cost of every other value, little realising that this kind of wealth is the best way of making me spiritually poorer.

In allowing even this satanic approach in his own person as far as his human nature is concerned, Our Lord warns us that even the holiest person can be tempted, while at the same time he leaves us in his own person the best possible model of firmness in the way we deal with temptation.