Genesis 2:7-9, 3:-17
Matthew 4:1-11
For the first hearers of Matthew’s Gospel the scene of Jesus in the desert would have struck a familiar chord. In the preceding chapters they heard of the miraculous birth of Jesus, an attempt to kill him, the need to flee to Egypt and his passing through the waters of the River Jordan. These events all find their parallel in the story of Moses. Matthew casts Jesus as the New Moses and this time spent in the desert parallels the 40 years that the people of Israel spent in the Sinai desert.
Despondency and grumbling almost break the will of the people of Israel. Moses continues steadfast. His heart is set on the Promised Land.
Jesus too models steadfastness for us. The devil makes three attempts at weakening his resolve. Jesus wields the sword of Scripture and remains unmoved.
We are perhaps out of the habit ourselves of turning to Scripture in the face of difficulty or temptation. Our ancestors in the faith, the Desert Fathers and the Desert Mothers, might be of some help to us with this. The memorising and repeating of Scripture was the heartbeat of their strange and counter cultural existence. These desert dwellers were all seeking ‘purity of heart’. At its simplest purity of heart is a life so attuned to God that you ‘want what God wants’. Scripture was the tool that cultivated the soil of their hearts. Repetition and meditation on short pieces of text changed and expanded the inner landscape of their hearts. The goal of the whole desert tradition was tenderness and compassion.
How is God calling you to cultivate tenderness and compassion this Lent?