Our Lord suffered the external temptation of the devil who was trying to establish whether He was the Son of God. The devil tried to tempt Jesus to turn stones into bread because He was hungry, to jump off a high place and rely on the angels to support Him, and to worship the devil so as to get all the Kingdoms of the world.

Since Christ is indeed the living God made man, these temptations are laughable, but Satan did propose the fundamental temptations of luxury, pride and power and for our sake, Our Lord answers Him to show us how we also should respond to the devil’s evil prompting.

It is not true to say that “Jesus was tempted in every way that we are but He did not sin.” This implies that He might have done so. The translation of Hebrews 4.15 would be much closer to the meaning of the Greek text if we said with Ronald Knox that Jesus “has been through every trial, fashioned as we are, only sinless.”

The word “temptation” is ambiguous in English because our daily temptations come from the fact that we are weakened by original sin and our own past habits of sin causing us to be prone to particular vices, whereas scripture often uses the word to mean “test” or “trial” without any implication of prior sin or moral weakness.

Nevertheless, what St John calls “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 Jn 2.16) remain the basic strategy of the evil one make us lose our soul and our eternal life, whether through his own direct assault or by means of encouraging our disordered desires and attachments. So let us see how Christ responds to the devil.

When offered the blandishment of material pleasure through his miraculous power, Our Lord quotes the fifth book of the law saying that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Deut 8.3) It is Christ who gives rest to our souls: we do not find true peace, comfort or satisfaction except in Him.

When asked to display a ludicrous pride in His own power, Our Lord retorted by quoting the law again “you must not put the Lord God to the test.” (Deut 6.16) We hope in God for grace and for future glory, confident in His promises, His mercy and His power, but we must not presume to test Him out as though we could sin wantonly and always expect Him to give us the grace of repentance.

Every sin is a form of self-worship. We place ourselves before God, either by ignoring Him, failing to use the means of salvation He gives us, or even by directly refusing His grace. When the devil excels Himself in folly by asking Christ our God to worship Him, our Lord dismisses Him with a final quotation from the law for our instruction: “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.” (Deut 6.13)

We come here today to do exactly that, to worship the Lord and Him alone. Turning to the Father in adoration, let us renew our total allegiance to Him in the supreme act of worship, the perfect sacrifice, and ask Him humbly for the grace to learn from Christ who is meek and humble of heart, and to find rest for our souls in Him.

Sermon preached by Fr Finigan at St Austin and St Gregory, Margate on 22 February 2015.