CAN CHRIST BE TEMPTED ?

That is the very first question we have to answer. I can invite John over for tea and prepare for him a delicious fruit cake covered in marzipan and snow-white icing sugar. But, I forgot to tell you something very important; John has high cholesterol level, and I know that having a slice of that sweet might mean ‘big trouble’. THAT is a temptation, I am tempting him, enticing him to do something wrong to his health.

In the original version ‘peirazein’ means ‘to test’ rather than to seduce someone to sin. Things now should look differently. We have the same case of Abraham where we read ‘that God tested Abraham’. The time was ripe for a supreme test of the loyalty of Abra(ha)m. Just as metal has to be tested far beyond any stress and strain that it will ever be called upon to bear, before it can be put to any useful purpose.

So a man has to be tested before God can use him for His purpose. For as the Jews used to say: ‘The Holy One, Blessed be His name does not elevate a man to dignity till He has first tried and searched him; and if he stands the temptation (trial), then He raises him to dignity.’

So this ‘testing’ was not meant to weaken Christ, as a human, but to make Him emerge stronger, and finer, and more resolved from the ordeal. For temptation is not the penalty of being a ‘man’, rather temptation is the glory of being a ‘man’. It is the test which comes to a ‘man’ whom God wishes to use.

What an eye-opener, what a great lesson this Gospel text should be to one and all. We have all experienced some sort, kind of ‘testing’, wherever it comes from. Let us accept the challenge and be positive whenever the occasion arises, and ‘trust’ in Him who, in the words of the Psalmist, is ever-caring and protective, even with the smallest bird of the air … much more with those who have been created ‘in His image and likeness’.