(via Ben Hines)I am not asking you to take this wilderness from me,
to remove this place of starkness where I come to know the wilderness within me,
where I learn to call the names of the ravenous beasts that pace inside me,
to finger the brambles that snake through my veins,
to taste the thirst that tugs at my tongue. But send me tough angels, sweet wine,
strong bread, just enough.- Jan L. Richardson
Yes. This gets it.
ReplyDeleteThe big 3 temptations happen AFTER Jesus had been in the wilderness for 40 days, fasting, at least according to Luke's gospel.
Those big 3 don't happen IN the wilderness, either. The temptation to turn stone to bread is at the edge of the wilderness. The temptation to all power was on a high place. And of course the temptation to "jump" was in the center of the city of Jerusalem.
It took being tried in the wilderness with fasting for 40 days-- the content of which temptation we do not know-- before these temptations happen OUTSIDE the wilderness-- i.e., back in the "real world."
So while we remember the Big 3 during Lent, too-- Lent itself is about the 40 days whose temptations are unnamed-- but no less real. And conquering those gets us to be able to conquer the Big 3 with our Lord.