On Wednesday, March 2, we marked the day and our foreheads with ashes, a symbolic act of both simplicity and power. As we look at the world around us, we know we still are straddling the elements of winter not yet given over to the promise of spring. We hear the rumbles of war that are reluctant to trust that there is greater power in the works of peace. And we know within us that the shadow lands of our thoughts, our hungers and fears, our defense mechanisms and our pride are tough nuts to crack. But, we are not without hope.
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, “the devil” makes as strong a case as possible for Jesus to forego the ministry of truth for which he came. The evil one sugar coats every tempting element of the created order to appeal to the created flesh he had embraced for us and with us. Jesus never responds that the things spread before him are bad, only that the disordered relationship being proposed is not consistent with the intention for which they were created by God. Jesus doesn’t say that bread is bad, only that we do not truly or fully live on bread alone. Perhaps the shadows in our lives have not sprung from pure evil but from imperfect responses to unexpected events that now are patterns we follow.
Perhaps they are sprung from an incomplete grasp of the reality of persons and things around us and a lingering satisfaction with that incomplete grasp since it requires no growth or change within us.
If we speak in ways more and more consistent with the way we pray, then it is possible that we will act in ways more consistent with the way we speak. If we live in ways more consistent with the way God sees us and desires for us, we trust we are being saved!