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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

First Sunday of Lent (C)
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Gospel text (Lk 4:1-13): Filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. (...) Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. The devil said to him, “I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.’” (...).

The temptation of worldly messianism

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, the devil leads Jesus in a vision to a high place. He shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glories, and offers Him the power to rule over the world. But isn’t this precisely the mission of the Messiah?

Later on the Risen Lord will bring his disciples together on the mountain and say to them: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt 28:18). Only the One, who has all this power possesses the true power, the saving power. Without heaven the worldly power is always ambiguous and weak. Only the power which arises under the discretion and the judgment of heaven, i.e. of God, can be a power for the good.

- There is still another aspect: Jesus has this power as the Risen, which means that this power implies the cross, his death. It implies another mountain, the Golgotha, where He died nailed to the cross. The kingdom of Christ is different from the kingdoms of the world and their glories ...