First Sunday of Lent - in the Holy Land

As the pilgrim group left Galilee we entered into the deserts of Judea. We wondered how this could be called the "Promised Land." It was in a landscape like this that Jesus would have been tempted.

Today we join Christ in the mystery of his temptations in the desert. The deserts in Judea were the first deserts that I have ever seen, and they are stark and lonely. This is were Christ entered into the struggle with and triumph over the evil one, the Father of Lies. How could Christ be tempted? After all he was God -- but he was also man, and it is in his humanity that he was tempted. He allowed himself to be tempted, so that we could see that the one who tempts us, the Devil, can be overcome. The Church proclaims this reading at the beginning of Lent to remind us of the struggle that we enter into by living the Christian calling of our baptisms. Christ has triumphed, so that we too can triumph.

Here I am swimming in the Dead Sea

What is a temptation? Imagine walking through the desert, being lost in the desert for days. The land starts to fall away, and you approach a large lake. Imagine your thrist. Imagine how much you would want to drink the water. Imagine cupping your hands in the water, lifting it to your mouth and taking a big drink. Instead of sweet fresh living water, you taste the burn of saline water -- dead with so much salt. The "lake" you have found after wondering through the desert is the "Dead Sea." It is the only water on earth that brings death and not life. The water of this sea is what you thought you wanted, but instead it brings death. This is the image that shows what a tempation is. A temptation is that which looks like what we want -- like the water in the desert, but which actually is what brings death --.