How Not To Put God To The Test? 如何不試探天主？

First Lent Sunday, Year A
Theme: How Not To Put God To The Test? 如何不試探天主？

Life is a journey full of temptations. Not until we breathe our last, temptations always encircle us because as creatures we have needs to meet, viz. physiological, psychological, social and spiritual needs. We thank our Lord Jesus Christ because the Word of God took flesh to redeem us (John 1:14). He is willing to embrace our fragile creature nature to undergo temptations and sufferings for us. Yes, the Son of God obeys the will of the Father to undergo temptations and suffering in order to save us.

Matthew wrote for Christians with Jewish background. Therefore, he arranges the materials to cater for the socio-cultural background of his audience. For example, he made up a genealogy of Jesus Christ in 3 groups of 14 generations in order to show that Jesus Christ is the long anticipated Messiah who is a descendant of King David. In Hebrew, the word “David” consists of 3 alphabets whose numeric sum is 14, thus the 3 groups of 14 generations (Matthew 1:1-17). The temptation narratives can be found in two of the Synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke. The order of temptations is slightly different. Scholars believe that Jesus must have experienced more than 3 temptations but He only left us the most essential ones for our sake. In turn, the Evangelists arranged the materials and wrote to cater for different audiences in mind. So, how did Matthew cater for the Jewish Christians?

The Exodus of Israelites lasted for forty years in the wilderness. Many incidents happened during these forty years but three (four) of them showed how ungrateful and rebellious the Israelites had been. Therefore, the temptations of Jesus lasted for forty days to symbolize the forty-year Exodus of the Israelites in the wilderness. The Israelites had failed God miserably in their venture into the Promised Land. As the Messiah, Jesus waded through their failures and won for us the Kingdom of Heaven.

Right from the start, some six hundred thousand Israelites came out from Egypt (Exodus 12:37). Just think about it, feeding six hundred thousand mouths in the wilderness for a few months is already a military nightmare, not to mention forty years! No wonder some Israelites started worrying about the shortage of food (Exodus 16:3) and meat (Numbers 11:4). Later they grumbled about the lack of water (Exodus 17:2). Lastly, when their leader/liberator went up a high mountain for forty days and nights to receive the so called “Covenant” and vanished (24:18), many Israelites demanded Aaron to make a golden calf to lead them back to Egypt (32:1)! The Israelites had failed miserably three rounds in the wilderness. As a Jew, Jesus Christ the long anticipated Messiah had won back for the Israelites three rounds what they had previously lost! Matthew arranged the materials chronologically to cater for his Jewish audience. On the other hand, Luke did not carry this burden of proof in his narrative. His arrangement agrees more with the development of human psychology in general.

For four hundred years in Egypt, the Israelites had multiplied in numbers from a tiny household of seventy mouths (Genesis 46:27) to six hundred thousand. They had been slaves for too long and were not mature enough to build a kingdom. So, through the leadership of Moses the liberator, Joshua his successor and various “Judges”, the Israelites went through battle drills, trainings and tests to enable them to build a kingdom in subsequent years. While the Israelites succumbed to the physical needs of hunger in the wilderness, Jesus did not. When Satan suggested a short-sighted solution to meet the physical needs of hunger, Jesus replied by quoting the Torah, “It is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord” (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3), showing that men are more than material animals. They have souls and are spiritual beings and their souls are living (Genesis 2:7)! In other words, not only had Jesus overcome one temptation, but He has also restored the dignity and spiritual dimension of humanity.

During the second temptation in which Satan told Jesus to throw himself down from the parapet of the Temple, Jesus answered, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test (as you did in Massah)’” (Matthew 4:7; Deuteronomy 6:16). What happened in Massah? “There was no water for the people to drink, and so they quarrelled with Moses, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses replied to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to a test?’” (Exodus 17:1b-2) Had Moses been exaggerating? I do not question Moses’ status as the spokesman of God. However, being God’s prophet doesn’t mean Moses can be exempted from challenges, disrespect and quarrels. If we think along this line, we’ll miss the gist of the issue. Let’s hear what the Redactor says about the issue, “The place was named Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled there and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord in our midst or not?’” (17:7) Yes, it is the etymology of the names Massah (tempted) and Meribah (quarrelled). It also indicates the core of the problem, namely that the Chosen People doubted God’s accompaniment!

Doesn’t God know the issue of giving water for six hundred thousand people to drink? Of course He knows! Isn’t God able to meet their needs? Of course He is! But in reality, we have seen too many good and innocent people suffer. We test God when we ask why God allows natural disasters such as earthquakes to kill so many innocent people. We doubt His presence among the disaster victims. We test God when seeing workers unfairly lay off without an opportunity to explain their cases, without compensations and denied appeals, we blame the morality the governing body commands. We doubt whether God’s justice would ever prevail … It is very common nowadays. But be warned against the opportunities of heart-hardening, the Psalter and the author of the Letter to the Hebrews have this to say, “Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah … There your ancestors tested me; they tried me though they had seen my works … They shall never enter my rest” (Psalms 95:8-11) and “Let us strive to enter into that rest, so that no one may fall after the same example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:11).

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the most undisputed exemplar of faith in the words of the Lord. In the Nativity of Jesus Christ, she understood nothing through and through. Yet she humbly “Kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19, 51). Thirty (eighteen) years later in Cana, the host of a wedding had run out of wine. The BVM simply stated the fact before her son, “They have no wine” (John 2:3). She knows that her son knows and is confident that her son is able to relieve the imminent embarrassment of the host. She does not complain or argue when her son seems to refuse her implicit request but simply turns to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you” (2:5). In short, the BVM demonstrated how NOT to put the Lord to the test!

Brethren! Lest we harden our hearts and put the Lord to the test, let’s be humble and follow the exemplar of the BVM to reflect on what we don’t understand in our hearts. May the BVM intercede for us during this Lent season so that we may undergo temptations and become stronger and at the same time humbler to prepare for the joys of Easter. Amen.
God bless!

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2020 Reflection
Picture Credit: mrbiblehead.blogspot.com