Forty Days
in the Wilderness
The season
of Lent is modeled after Jesus' forty days in the wilderness during which he
fasted, prayed and resisted temptation.
(See Luke 4:1-13) Needless to
say, temptation is a major theme of Lent.
It would be too easy to blame our temptations on God or the Devil. How many of us remember Flip Wilson and the
show Laugh-In. Flip played this
character named Geraldine Page who was always saying, "The Devil made me
do it!"
The truth
is WE are the source of our temptations.
Our temptations lie in the internal processes, desires and choices of
each of us. The writer of the New
Testament book of James states, "No one, when tempted, should say, 'I am
being tempted by God;' for God cannot be tempted by evil and God tempts no one. But one is tempted by one's own desire,
being lured and enticed by it."
(James 1:13-14)
Roberta
Bondi, in her book on the Lord’s Prayer, looks to the Desert Fathers and
Mothers for wisdom concerning temptation.
The Desert Fathers and Mothers (Abbas and Ammas) were people of the 4th
century who lived in solitude devoted to God in the desert wilderness. The Abbas and Ammas taught that temptations
were part of the Christian life that we should never expect to go away. They taught that temptations were essential
to our salvation. Abba Anthony said,
“Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter into the kingdom of
heaven. Without temptation, no one can
be saved.”
The Abbas
and Ammas did not go to the desert to escape temptation. Quite the opposite: they went to the desert
to wrestle with their demons. The same
can be said for monks and nuns today.
Their cells become their deserts.
I
experienced this in a very real way a few years ago when I spent a week at a
monastery. I was excited to get away
from my busy and stressful life in the city.
There were no phones or televisions in the room—just a bed, a desk, a
clock, and a crucifix. I expected to
spend a restful week, in the quaint surroundings of the monastery. I had escaped all the temptations of my
life….
After the
first twenty four hours at the monastery I realized I had become
irritable. I found myself being grumpy
and outright mad about the food that was served there. I noticed how critical I had become of some
of the monks. I had not had any
conversation or exchange with any of these men, but I judged them based on the
way they walked, or sang, or prayed.
The Abbas
and Ammas taught that wrestling with one’s own temptations produces humility,
or self-knowledge, and it is from humility that true compassion for others is
born.
In that
week at the monastery I came face to face with my own humanness and the mystery
of God’s mercy and grace. The last day
I was there I was in a prayer group that considered God’s abundance. I want to share the last entry I made in my
journal for that week: “As I reflected
on God’s abundance, I kept getting images of the cross. I had a very strong sense of a
crucifix—Jesus on the cross with outstretched arms, arms wide with the
abundance of God’s love. Out of my
struggles with my own sinfulness and judgmentalism with regard to the food here
and some of the people here, I have learned to pray the Lord’s Prayer
differently. Give us this day our daily
bread. What would starving people do
with the food I had today? Forgive us
our trespasses. God is the only one who
can judge, for it is God who knows all our hearts. Lead us not into temptation.
Grant me the strength to resist temptation and help me to embrace my own
humanness with one hand and your mercy with the other.”