Thursday, March 05, 2009

Lent Bible Challenge | Day 8
March 5
Luke 4:1-13

The story of the temptation of Jesus is well-known yet seems so distant. Spirit-filled charismatic prophet guy heads into the wilderness after his baptism and encounters the devil. I think that Anne Rice did a great job of interpreting this in the first person in her novelized take of the gospel : Christ the Lord The Road to Cana. This is a power encounter - all about power. That's the temptation. To use power to take a short cut, to get what we want quickly, to be the center, to accomplish our goals. Power in itself isn't bad. It's how we use it and how it uses us. Will Jesus worship himself, put himself in the position of God to play God, will he be hypocritical in order to succeed in his goals. Don't we all face the same temptations: at work, at home, in the communities we call ours?

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