Temptations of Tails and Horns
Lk 4:1-13
Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF
Claretian Missionaries
Christ was tempted; yes, even Christ was tempted. So, shall we be tempted, for sure. A misunderstanding of the temptations of Christ is the misrepresentation of the devil. The devil is often presented as wearing vulgar attires and shapes with tails and horns, which reduces the temptations to an external struggle of Christ. We will do well if we identify that the devil does not present itself as vulgar creatures but as the most enticing and adorable dreams of the world. The temptations will make us hallucinate the best things in the world and convince us that they are real!
Moving the site of the temptations outside the self is frivolous and a clever tactic to exonerate oneself from falling into the pits of inner temptations. But that we will meditate later. For now, we look at the biblical context of placing the temptations in the desert. The initial site of Jesus’ temptation is the desert after the 40-day fast. That rings a bell reminding us of the desert of Sinai, where Israel wandered for 40 years. It is a metaphor for a period of temptations. Israel fell prey to every temptation. They started worshipping other gods for tasty food, pursuing waters of temptation. They grew nostalgic and homesick for slavery and the servile pleasures it offered instead of pursuing their destination. They were distracted and disillusioned. Jesus was going through the temptations of Israel in the desert. Where they failed, Jesus emerges victorious.
When the temptations are understood as the inner struggle of Christ, they become metaphors to our personal tendencies to sin, the struggle we undergo to overcome temptations. The devil appears in clever rationalizations. No one would have blamed Jesus if he turned some stones into bread and eat. But such rationalizations do not match the values of Christ, and he considers them as justification of sinful deeds. Interestingly, one of the clever rationalizations is quoting scripture to suit one’s desires. The devil quotes not some interesting novels but scripture itself. We find this rationale of quoting the scripture by people who do not live by them. Reasoning out the cause and effect of what we say or do is important. It is not evil but a quintessential way of living human life. But when we reason out with scriptures to justify our desires, they are likely to be defenses, not logic.
The temptations of Jesus take place in the desert, just as most temptations of everyone take place in the desert. The desert is a metaphor for the time and spaces where there are no spectators, not even one’s own reflective self. When all spectators are gone, one stops acting for others, then the real self emerges. Everything one does will be tried by the values one believes in as no one else is there to evaluate. For Jesus, too, there were no witnesses to these temptations. Unless Jesus told this to the disciples, no one would have known about it! That is one reasoning we have learned from childhood. No one can see me! It sounds like an everyday temptation in the ears, right? Jesus could have easily fallen into that temptation and not spoken about it! Or he could have won over the temptation and could have felt embarrassed about the fact that he was tempted and could have created an image of himself as someone beyond temptation. The fact that he chose to speak about it to the disciples tells how he wanted to train his disciples constantly in touch with the possibility of temptation.
When the tempter leaves, he leaves him only for the time being. It is evident that Jesus was tempted not only at this moment but at other times as well. On one occasion, Jesus identifies Satan in Peter and calls him so. In the film, “Passion of the Christ,” in the opening garden scene, there is a snake, the primordial tempter slithering over the feet of Jesus very symbolically representing that the temptation was not contained in the Garden of Eden but also at the Garden of Gethsemane. The prayer of Jesus to move the chalice of the pain away from him was as much a temptation. The cry of Jesus on the cross, “Lord, Lord, why have you abandoned me,” is as much a temptation to think that the Father who pushed him to this fate has abandoned him at his loneliest moment. Well! these are temptations that we undergo too, though in smaller doses and lower intensities.
When was the last time I overcame a temptation and felt victorious? That will be a lovely memory to cherish—my becoming more like Christ.
© Claretian Publications, Macau
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica 2025
全属于祢 
您必须登录才能发表评论。