First Sunday of Lent – Cycle A
Reflecting on Matthew 4:1-11
Hey, Big Shot. Yeah, you, the one cowering in the corner. You seemed like such a scary demon when you slinked out from under your desert rock and audaciously challenged the Alpha and the Omega, our Lord Jesus, before whom every knee shall bend.
You tried appealing to his hunger, fresh from his forty-day fast. How good those stones might have looked to him when you tempted him to turn them into loaves of bread. But no! He rebuked you, reminding you that the Word of God is the food our souls crave. How strong you were, O Christ. We beg you to give us that strength when hunger gnaws at us these forty days.
We’ve got to give it to you, Liar. You know how to throw the scriptures around. But we’re confused. When you invited Christ to throw himself from the pinnacle of the Temple, you dredged up the convenient passage from Psalm 91 about angels being in charge of him, and bearing him up with their hands (vss 11-12). All true, by the way.
But oh, past master of all evil, why suppress the verse that follows? You know, the one that says that he will “tread on you as on a cobra, and trample on you as on a serpent” (vs. 13)? Not your favorite verse, I suppose?
And get this. You tried to get the Author of All Life to believe that you, you penniless impostor, held the power to give him all the kingdoms of the world. You own NOTHING but your own eternal damnation. Jesus owns the heavens and the earth. Oh, and our souls, thanks be to God, forever and ever. AMEN.
My dear friends, we begin our fourteenth Lent together! You will each be in my prayers all season.
Kathy McGovern ©2026