“CHRIST DELIVERS YOU”
Saint Matthew 4: 1-11
Invocavit: 14 February Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
You just want to go home. The second greatest story in all creation is probably the Odyssey by Homer because of its archetypal theme of returning home. Odysseus just wants to go home to be with his wife and son and homeland. He suffers greatly on the way—all due to his own hubris, pride, and arrogance. The greatest story upon which all stories are based, the true origin story, is the expulsion from the garden—also because of pride and sinful worship of the creature by the creature.
Adam did not want to return to dust from whence he was made, he wanted to go back home to Eden to be with The Lord, to be with Eve and his son Abel…and with peace of just being home again.
When Jacob was about to die in Egypt he made his sons swear to return him home to the Promised Land where he could be reunited/buried with his father Isaac and Abraham. So too when Joseph himself died in Egypt, he was kept in a tomb until his body could be carried back by Moses during the Exodus. David’s real lament during the revolution of Absalom and the fall (temporarily) of his Kingship was, not in the loss of power and dominion, but in having to leave home: his beloved Jerusalem, the Tabernacle of the Lord, his earthly home which pointed and typified his heavenly home.
The desert is the opposite of the garden as lifeless and waterless sand is the opposite of fertile oasis. Brown versus green presages the difference between the black void of hell and the white fullness of heaven.
From Adam to Moses the commandments of God were broken by rebelling and ignoring Israel.
Adam died in the “dessert” of the world and many, most, of the Hebrews died in the desert wandering of 40 years. The Exodus brought God’s children physical freedom from Pharaoh but they abused their royal priesthood status by continually putting back on the spiritual chains of self-love and pagan-coveting.
Christ was incarnated of the Virgin Mary for you since your enfleshed nature is sinful and unclean and sins daily. Christ was born for you since your birth only inherits original sin. Christ shed His Blood for you on the 8th day as a portent of The Blood He would shed on the Friday of Passion Week. But before we arrive at Jerusalem and Calvary—the pit of Lent, we first are carried with Him by the Paraclete through a wilderness trek of His obedience and active work of Law-Keeping. Jesus “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (i.e. tested and tried) of the devil.”
When your sinful nature gets hungry you usually satisfy it…not so much with eating meat and drinking wine on Fridays to “spite” fasting, but in gorging itself in sinful thoughts and words usually directed against your neighbor. The Lord, hungry and weak, resisted the tempter and spoke only the Words of God back to the snake of “self”: “man…live(s) by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Eat your Scriptures, yes, and digest the living Words reduced to print. But eat the Word made flesh and endure through Lent to the final eschatological (end-time) and eternal banquet.
You like others, even the demons, know what the Holy Ghost recorded in the Psalter: “He shall give His angels charge concerning thee…” You may resist Satan’s allure to tempt Christ; you may resist the urges to make God “prove” that He is God by doing your laundry list of requests, true enough. But do you also spurn the angels that The Lord has given to you because they’re not quite as “flashy” as Saint Gabriel…or even Saint Paul? The God/Man Himself was never ashamed of the earthly Ministers that His Father provided Him, from The Blessed Virgin to Mary of Bethany; from John the Baptist to the Magdalene. Maybe even from Saint Christopher to Saint Veronica.
When Satan shows you the “kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them” which he does with mammon, prestige, power, authority, sex, drugs, money, control, ‘your will being done,’ you accept his cloven hoof like the Israelites of Moses…because your adherence to the Law of Moses is no better than those who fell victim to the stinging desert serpents. Jesus was stung in your place…repeatedly…but first he felt the sting of Satan’s temptations. He resisted using His Divine Nature, His omnipotence, in the sand, the hardscrabble rock, and on the mountain top. He patiently endured knowing that another smaller mountain top would be where His true Kingship would manifest your victory and the devil’s defeat.
Jesus won his battle in the wilderness yes; Jesus defeated the snake at the Crucifix yes—crushing the old enemies’ skull. But even better, Jesus is here today. ‘He’s on your side upon the plain with His good gifts and spirit.’ [TLH 262.4]
Even as the host of Sabaoth was sent by The Father to minister to Jesus at the end of His 40 day ordeal, His Lenten Fast, and to feed Him and give Him wine to drink. So too, Jesus sends His New Testament angels, with His Holy Ghost leading you to His table, that you also might be ministered to. And more than feeding you His Body and giving you to drink His Blood, He also places you in Him as He is placed into you. There is a mystical union of The Body and The Head, of the pure Bride of Eden restored, with her Adamic Risen Groom.
There’s something way beyond “spiritual” that takes place for the Baptized when The Word Himself ministers to them—to you. He proceeds from His own mouth to your mouth and in a mysterious way; a sacramental way…and begins to bring you home. Your Lenten burdens are almost over. Your physical pains and emotional sorrows are near an end. You are ministered in His love and forgiveness. ‘And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife; let these all be gone, they yet have nothing won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.’ [TLH 262.4] You are almost home…for you are home.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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