The Desert – A Blessing or a Curse?
Photo Credit_KUL Heschel Center
In the Old Testament, the desert was a land never covered by God’s blessing. God, however, when preparing his chosen ones, such as Moses, Elijah and John the Baptist, for some weighty tasks, leads them out into the desert. Jesus too, at the beginning of his public ministry, spends forty days in the desert. We, too, have to prepare ourselves for important tasks and decisions by going to the desert through prayer and fasting,” stresses Fr. Dr. Tomasz Adamczyk, assistant professor at the Institute of Sociological Sciences of the Catholic University of Lublin, secretary of the Committee for Dialogue with Judaism of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, director of the Archdiocesan Catholic-Jewish Center in Lublin, in a commentary for the Heschel Centre at the Catholic University of Lublin.
Fr. Dr. Tomasz Adamczyk points out that while sometimes we need to tread the sandy desert, as many biblical men and women have done, God is forever watchful over us. Lent is the time of the desert, a time of listening to the Divine Word, a time when we reflect on what is the most important.
A full commentary to the verses of the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 4:1-11) for the First Sunday of Lent, Year A
Biblical deserts and the number forty, recurrent in Scripture, are rife with profound significance.
In the Old Testament, the desert was a land which was excluded from God’s blessing. Life among the sands, with an almost complete lack of vegetation, is difficult and often even impossible in the long run. To turn a country into a desert means to lead it into chaos.
God leads Moses and the chosen people through a forty-year desert trek to the promised land. Frightened and tired of persecution and intrigue, Elijah also flees into the desert. He even goes so far as to ask God for death in the wilderness. However, once he has eaten the food offered to him by the angel sent by God, he walks for forty days and nights, heading to Mount Horeb. John the Baptist, too, prepares for his public activity by fasting rigorously in a desert.
At the very threshold of his own public ministry, after his Baptism, Jesus, too, spends forty days in the desert. This is an invaluable indication to us that important tasks often need to be prepared by prayer and fasting.
After the hardship of the forty-day fasting and stay in seclusion, Jesus is put to the test three times. Of special interest here is that the tempter’s suggestions have a semblance of goodness. First, the temptation of prosperity: how much good can be done by turning hard stones into bread, which can be distributed to the needy. Leaping into the abyss from a high mountain only to be protected by the angels could be turned by Jesus into a spectacular show that would help market his ministry. No one would have had the slightest doubt that He is the promised Messiah.
Furthermore, is not dominion over the entire world in return for a small gesture an interesting start of repairing the world? Let us note that all the instigations of Satan were reduced to the temporal dimension. Jesus, however, came first and foremost to grant us eternal life.
That is why it is essential that we live by the Divine Word so that we do not get lost on life’s journey. We must trust God that He needs us in the midst of the desert sands, even though it is not easy to be there when we experience so many trials and tribulations of life. And above all, on the threshold of Lent, we must remind ourselves that the things of God, the eternal ones, should be our first priority. If we serve and worship Him, all our wanderings and desert trials are stamped with God’s presence, as salvation history teaches us. Scripture assures us that one day the hardships will end, and we will find refuge, peace, meaning, and happiness in God.
About the author:
Fr. Dr. Tomasz Adamczyk is assistant professor at the Institute of Sociological Sciences of the Catholic University of Lublin, secretary of the Committee for Dialogue with Judaism of the Polish Bishops’ Conference and director of the Archdiocesan Catholic-Jewish Centre in Lublin.
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