“Get away, Satan!” by Rev. Paul Berghout (@FatherPB)

“Get away, Satan!”

First Sunday of Lent

"The Hellebores" by Philip Russell

Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’?” The woman answered the snake: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.’”  Genesis 3:1-3

“[J]ust as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all. For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous.”  Romans 5:18-19

“At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.’” Matthew 4:10

Piety

“Ode to a Rose (Lenten)” by Philip Russell

They stand as sentinels

Quietly; yet strong

Never fazed by the day’s weather

Their clock is set to wake early; it often comes in the year’s first month

They wake; they watch

They stand with grace and determination

They first came to my Garden, almost thirty years now

Two, maybe three, they came as a gift to my Garden

“Don’t try to divide them” I was told

I did, and they followed my lead

They multiplied; they spread out like a carpet

I always saw them as purposeful, lining the footpaths

Never was I more aware of them; that Season of my sorrow

I dug deep into the earth; as digging into my own grief

They watched

Or, was it I who watched them?

They taught me a lesson

Thrive, even in the most inclement of weather

Just continue to be, planted well

They wear the words of the Poet as if their motto.

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast”

Here it is another Lenten season; here they stand

The sentinels

The Hellebores.

Study

Here are some of the tactics of legal reasoning used by the Devil on Eve--

The serpent asked the first question recorded in the Bible.  In the Garden of Eden, the snake misquotes the divine prohibition by applying it to all the fruit trees, over-stating God’s norm to enlarge its scope: “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” (Genesis 3:1).

Eve should have said, “You are making an ideological overstatement by your premise.”

Instead, Eve clarifies: “it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden” that they can’t even touch, or they will die.

Pope Francis reminds us that the lesson in this for us is clear: “Don’t dialogue with the Devil because he will always win.” Only the power of God’s word can overcome him.

Scripture explains that jealousy was the motive of the snake.

Unlike angels, a man and a woman have bodies, and in their coming together, can create something immortal with God, a child.

The snake, portrayed as the most cunning of all the animals, approaches Eve and supplies emotion to tempt her. “You certainly will not die!” [with an exclamation point in the Biblical text].

The snake makes an emotional appeal and requests the action for her to eat the forbidden fruit, but nowhere is there any evidence presented to back up his claim that they won’t die if they eat of it.

We are emotional creatures; therefore, we often make decisions and form beliefs erroneously based on emotions, when reason and faith tell us otherwise.

The snake then insinuates that the divine prohibition has a different motive.  He says it’s not to protect you from dying, but instead, if you eat it, you will become gods who know what is good and evil.

What Eve should have seen was that the Devil was imputing wrong motives to God, which is tantamount to judging God.

When Adam and Eve fall, they discover that they do indeed know about good and evil, but not like the perfect state they had before.  Now they know good and evil through their personal experience. They will experience death, wear clothes for survival and modesty and must work hard for a living.

God punished the couple, but He does not abandon them by providing real tangible help with clothing. The symbolic meaning is that in covering their nakedness, God removes their shame.

Now let’s look at the escalating assertion of Jesus, which is defined by the researchers Rimm and Masters (1974), as starting with a “minimal” assertive response that can usually accomplish the speaker’s goal with a minimum of effort and a minimum of negative emotions.

If the other person fails to respond to the minimal assertion and continues to violate one’s rights, the speaker gradually escalates the assertion and becomes increasingly firm.

For example, Jesus’ first response to the temptation is “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

Obedience to God’s Word is something more fundamental than physical bread. How am I helping to address the physical and spiritual hunger of others? Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.

Appealing to Jesus’ hunger, the Devil attempts to persuade Him to doubt that His Father really counts Him as His son and will provide for His bodily needs (as Israel doubted God’s providence in the wilderness).

Thus, Satan urges Jesus to use His own divine resources to satisfy His hunger. But Son of God has absolute confidence in His Father and relies on God’s power to meet His needs in whatever way His Father chooses. Thus, Jesus chooses to be God’s Son!

After Satan’s second temptation, Jesus’ assertion became more personal: “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” (Matthew 4:7).

The Devil’s attack on personal needs and the appeal to one’s ego are all tactics that are common to Satan.

Finally, after Satan’s last temptation, Jesus made an emphatic assertion, “Get away, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10) and Satan left.

Satan is “…cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—that One is God. May you find Him now!” (Pg. 59 from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.). Satan will do anything to destroy us and make us unhappy. He makes us think we will be happier if we satisfy the urge this one time.

Action

We will feel the gravitational pull of temptations even when we don’t give in to temptations toward cheating, overindulgence, pride, corrupt sexuality.

There are three major sources of evil: the world, the flesh, and the Devil. One moral theology professor always added emphatically: “In that order!” One way the world tempts us is to keep all of one’s money for one’s own needs, forgetting others, especially the needy and the poor.

“For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”(Hebrews 4:15)

The desert symbolizes confrontation with self-seeing one’s dark side, a profound realization of one’s dependency upon God; an ordering of the priorities of life; and a simplification, getting back to basics. All of them have in common a stripped-down life, willing to face any temporary discomfort involved to stay faithful.

Amen.