At the start of Lent, the Church presents us with the mysterious and disturbing figure of the Devil. Those who deny that the Devil exists have been deceived by him. It is true that, in our baptismal promises, Christians reject Satan and all his works and empty promises. But to reject him here means first that you accept he is there. Jesus Himself speaks often of him, and not “in a manner of speaking” or as a mythical figure, but as the personification of evil. It is true that we often sin as a result of giving in to our own weakness, but the whole Bible and Tradition of the Church testifies to Satan, the fallen angel whose pride and envy of God was his downfall and who makes it his business to try and destroy us through sin. His murderous hatred of God passes into his murderous hatred of all God has created in love, especially the human race. Our weakness may betray us, but Satan is hell bent on destroying us.

Had the Son of God not taken on our human nature, Satan could never have tempted Him. He had tempted Adam and Eve with the lie that they could be like God if they disobeyed God. The result was sin and death. The Son of God takes on the likeness of that sinful and mortal flesh precisely to do battle with Satan and to rid humanity of sin and death, and to take away Satan’s power over death. Satan’s strategy is to deceive human freedom to bring about division and cause opposition. He divides humanity from God. Through the humanity of Jesus, he sought to divide the Son of God from God the Father: he sought the destruction of the Blessed Trinity.

In the temptations of Jesus, the Devil’s first tactic is to sow doubt. He begins each temptation with the words, “If you are the Son of God, then do this.” He is goading Jesus into proving Himself. The implication is that Jesus is uncertain about who He is. The Devil is trying to undermine Jesus’ own confidence and trust in Himself and in His Father.

In the first temptation, about turning stone into bread, the Devil wants Jesus to use His power for Himself, to satisfy His own material hunger. “Don’t trust in God: trust in yourself!” – that’s the message. This is the crass temptation of materialism. Trust only in what your eyes can see, your tongue can taste, your hands can hold, not in God or in His provident care. The Devil wants Jesus to forget about His Father and to use His power for Himself. Materialism leads to atheism or at least to an indifference which, in the end, amounts to the same thing. Immediate satisfaction of your needs, especially the needs of your body, and the use of your power to secure those needs for yourself without trust in God or care for anyone else: this is the crassest of temptations, the lowest class of temptation. If you give in, you have fallen at the first hurdle. The irony for Christ is that, one day, He will give His own Risen Body as the bread of life. Not bread coming from a cold, hard stone, but consisting in a warm and tender heart. He rebuts Satan with the Word of God: “one does not live by bread alone”, a phrase which continues, “but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God.” As Jesus says elsewhere, “my food is to do the will of the One who sent me.”

The second temptation moves from the material to the spiritual. Not bread, but worldly power and glory is the enticement Satan puts before Jesus. In this temptation we see Satan the Liar, the Deceiver and the Self-Deceiver. He claims that all that power and glory are his and he can give them to whom he wants. That’s fanciful nonsense. He does interfere and insert himself into these things, yes, and men and women, sadly, often follow his insinuations. But the world is in the hands of God and public authorities of all kinds will answer to God for their actions, not to the Devil. But the lie he speaks to Christ here has another purpose: He wants Jesus to engage in Devil worship. He wants Jesus to become a Satanist. Satanism is not primarily about dressing up in weird costumes and performing weirder rituals. Satanism is about glorifying self-harm and self-destruction because, apparently, at least initially, it feels good and makes the adrenaline pump faster. It is about denying truth, true love and true beauty, and above all the true God. Satan wants Jesus to self-destruct just as Lucifer had self-destructed before the world began. With another quotation from the Word of God, Jesus unmasks and crushes the temptation: “The Lord alone is God and Him you shall worship.”

The third temptation moves from the material and spiritual sides of the human being to our relationship with God. Here, we see Satan’s most cynical side. Failing in the first two attempts, he now tries to make Jesus doubt that His Father really cares for Him. By throwing Himself off the temple, Satan wants Jesus to demand that the Father jump into action, dance to his tune, almost as if to show that it is Jesus, and not the Father, who is the greater. It’s a temptation to insubordination within the Trinity. It’s akin to the temptation of Adam: Adam was tempted to be like God. Jesus is already God, but the temptation is to push Jesus to take the Father’s place. It’s a temptation to destroy the Trinity. It would be laughable if it were not so cynical. It’s an irrational and desperate attempt by Satan to conquer Jesus. It’s very clever but cleverness does not exclude stupidity. And Satan is supremely stupid. Note, too, that in the process, Satan is inviting Jesus to commit suicide by jumping off the temple: he wants the suicide of Christ’s humanity and the deicide of his Father. Had Jesus listened to Satan, the whole of reality would have imploded. Without the Trinity, there is no reality.

The Devil will always tempt us to crass materialism, to pride of life and rivalry and envy of one another and to doubt the power and love of God. He thrives on deceit to lead us to outright atheism, to apathy towards God and to self-concern and self-obsession. He is very real, very active and very clever. But he is no match for Jesus Christ and for the person who truly believes in Christ. We must stand up to him, strong in faith and in the Spirit and Word of God. In the hour of temptation, with Christ we must firmly and sternly say to him: Get behind me, Satan, for I reject you, I reject all your works and I reject your empty promises. Instead, I believe in God the Father, in God the Son and in God the Holy Spirit. Amen.