The First Sunday in Lent

The First Sunday in Lent

9 March 2025

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16;

Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

If God is all-good and all-loving, why is there

evil in the world? In other words, why does

God allow for suffering in our world? Or, as

one scholar has phrased it: Why do bad

things happen to good people? How is it

possible that the Holocaust and murder of

millions of Jews and others deemed

undesirable could have happened right here

in cultivated Central Europe – and less than a

hundred years ago? How can one nation go

to war against another, again for no reason, right here in Europe, right in the middle of

the twenty-first century.

How can beloved members of our families and communities be taken from us in mid-

life by a virus pandemic no one remotely anticipated or expected? And which is now

fading into history and memory. Where is God in all this? Sages and saints have

struggled with these issues and questions from time immemorial. Theologians call it

the question of theodicy.

But having a fancy theological term for something is not an explanation in itself. And,

the problem of theodicy, the issue of suffering in the world, remains forever one of

the thorniest questions faced by any Christian, not just theologians and scholars.

There are of course explanations. Some make more sense than others.

Some suggest for instance that we can never fully understand the mind and will of

God. And so it makes little sense to try to do so. We ought to simply accept things as

they are. Another popular explanation involves our free will. According to this

explanation, God in his love has given humankind arguably the greatest of all gifts,

free will, knowing that in some instances humankind will choose sin and evil over the

good and loving and will thus bring suffering into the world. Other thinkers suggest

that, contrary to accepted wisdom, God is actually not all powerful after all and so

cannot prevent evil from happening.

Ultimately, in spite of explanations put forward by theologians and saints, there is

really no completely adequate understanding of the problem of evil and suffering. Butas one thoughtful theologian has rightly observed, in spite of all we know of this truth

or reality, parents continue to bring children into the world; understanding full well

that at some point their children too will suffer -- and ultimately die. Perhaps parents

know instinctively what the theologians too easily forget: That there is always more

good in this world and in human life than bad; more hope than despair.

Our Lenten reflections begin this morning in a sense with sin and temptation, namely,

the Temptation of Jesus in the Desert, an example of theodicy if ever there was one.

You know the story well. Jesus has been fasting and praying for forty days in the

wilderness. He is hungry, probably dirty too, and bone-tired, and in need of a hot

shower and a good long rest. The Evil One thus comes at arguably his moment of

greatest vulnerability, offering what all of us ultimately want: physical well-being,

security, and getting our own way. In return, he asks only to be worshipped. What

could be the harm in that?

Indeed, our Lord faces a short list of temptations, three to be exact. But they are, it

seems to me, emblematic of all temptation and sin: The desire to satisfy all one’s inner

cravings and appetites; the desire to lord it over others, which seems to be root of all

war; and ultimately the desire to dominate even God. From infancy onwards, we all

want our own way after all. Whether we admit it or not, at some level we would all

like to have others do our every bidding.

It may come as a surprise to know that, at least according to most scholars, the devil

or Satan as he is sometimes called in Scripture is a relative late-comer, at least in the

form in which we find him in today’s text. He makes his first appearances, in this

familiar form, in Hebrew literature only a couple hundred years before Christ.

Temptation of course has been around since long before that, quite literally forever.

We find it in the very first chapters of Genesis as Eve and, along with her, Adam are

tempted by the Serpent. And sin.

The word used for the devil in many places in Scripture, including our passage today

from Luke, is in the original Greek of the text, diabolos, a word from which we derive

our English word diabolical. Etymologically and most literally, it means something

thrown across our path. One supposes it could originally have meant for instance

something as simple as a ball tossed across a field. But it came to mean the devil

because, apparently to the Greek way of thinking, it is the devil who throws

temptations across our path and spiritual field-of-vision, distractions in other words

which lure us away from the true way.

Distractions, very alluring ones at that, are what our Lord is surely faced with in our

Gospel narrative. The devil offers the first-century equivalent of swanky central

London office tower penthouses, luxurious seaside golf resorts, and political power

and hegemony. Jesus of course is having none of it. He sees through the diabolicalglitter and empty promises and rejects the devil’s propositions and temptations

outright.

The theology of theodicy teaches us that evil and suffering are our constant human

companions, just as they make their appearance in the life of our Lord. It reminds us

too that we do not – cannot – always understand the will of God. Still, our Lord shows

us that we need not acquiesce in temptation and evil-doing. They can be overcome.

But like our Lord, we must be ever-vigilant. Our free will may be freely given us. But

it is not for all that easy to exercise for the right. After all, as Luke’s Gospel ominously

reminds us, the devil is ever-present, seeking always yet another “opportune time.”

Such as perhaps right now…

Lent is given to us, among other reasons, to help us once again focus our attention on

essentials, on what is truly important. And what is truly important is not any of the

things and allurements strewn across our path, from fancy electronic devices to the

empty promises of political leaders and oligarchs who should know better. Lent

rather is a time to return, with our Lord, to the desert; and from the desert and

wilderness back to Paradise itself. Just as our Lord goes from the wasteland of desert

and devil to mission and ministry among the people of ancient Israel, so must we now

spread the Good News of God’s Kingdom in our world today.

The Revd Dr Frank Hegedűs