First Sunday of Lent
It is hardly a coincidence that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness while he fasted for 40 days. This ordeal speaks of Jesus’ willingness to subject himself to the experience of being tempted, yet this episode in the Gospels also reveals something about the method of the tempter: the Devil seeks to exploit weakness. Fasting in the wilderness for 40 days would necessarily bring a human to the extremes of physical weakness and exhaustion - this is the weakness that the Devil attempted to exploit, with no success.
While the Devil failed in his mission to turn Jesus into a sinner, we find ourselves falling into temptation all too often. We seek our needs with such vigor that we forget that we are in God’s hands; we strive after power, pleasure, or popularity and make idols of these; we abuse God’s goodness, love, and mercy as an excuse to disobey God (“Surely God will forgive me if I do this sin”). We, in our own weakness, succumb to the very temptations that Jesus resisted while he fasted in the desert.
Yet Jesus not only fasted in the desert; it was also a time dedicated to prayer. In those moments of prayer, it is all too likely that Jesus was speaking to the Father about us. It is all too likely that Jesus was telling the Father of his great compassion for us. It is all too likely that Jesus was praying for us, knowing perfectly well how hard it is to resist temptation. He may very well have prayed, “Father, forgive them in their weakness.”
Jesus understands the difficulty of being tempted. We therefore have nothing to fear by imploring his compassion and mercy toward us.