The Sumerian word Eden means fertile plain; in Hebrew, a similar-sounding word means “delight.” It is thus in Eden, a “garden of delight,” that God places the pinnacle of his creation—mankind, “made in [his] image, after [his] likeness.” Yet the first man and woman did not remain in paradise—through the deception of the serpent, they ate of the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The result: sin, shame, distrust, and separation (Gen. 3:7-13). Through the actions of the first humans, St. Paul tells us, “sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). As children of Adam and Eve, we share both in their fall and their fate—we sin, and, eventually, we die. Though we may try to resist temptation, the first days of Lent are often sufficient to show us how weak we truly are.

In today’s gospel, Jesus is “led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” In the first test, Jesus resists the temptation to turn stones into bread, to prioritize his bodily desires over the Father’s will (Mitch & Sri, 2010, p.75). Redoubling his efforts, the devil tempts Jesus to prove his identity as the Father’s Son by casting himself down from the temple heights. But Jesus again resists—he will not succumb to doubt, will not put his Father to the test. In each temptation, Jesus thus defeats Satan, not by exercising his divine powers, but “with his human will…He never ceased to be the Son of God, and yet he won the battle as a man” (Mitch & Sri, 2010, p.77). In doing so, Jesus, the second Adam, succeeded where the first had failed. And by dying and rising again, “through the obedience of one, the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). This, then, is our Easter joy—the curse of sin and death is broken! Knowing this, let us follow our Master into the desert with confidence, trusting that we walk where he has gone before.

Citation: Mitch, C. & Sri, E. (2010). The Gospel of Matthew. Baker Academic.