3rd February Trinity, 5th Sunday before Easter 2021, Steering Through Deaths

February Trinity I

6^th Sunday before Easter (Sunday after Ash Wednesday)

Matthew 4:1-11
 
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the loneliness of the desert to experience the tempting power of the adversary.
 
After fasting forty days and nights,

Vasili Surikov

He felt for the first time hunger for earthly nourishment. Then the tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, let these stones become bread through the power of your word."
 
Jesus answered, "It is written, 'The human being shall not live on bread alone; he lives by the creative power of every word that comes from the mouth of God."
 
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the parapet of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "
 
Jesus answered him, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."
 
Again a third time, the devil took him to a very elevated place and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give to you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me as your Lord."
 
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship [pray to] God your Lord who guides you and serve him only.' "
 
Then the adversary left him, and he beheld the angels again as they came to bring him nourishment.

3^rd February Trinity
February 21, 2021
Matthew 4:1-11
 
Storms can cause floods. Rivers jump their banks; trees and boulders are loosened. Sometimes the river's course is changed forever as a new channel is cut.

We are all on a course toward developing our own divine angelic nature. For long stretches, things flow along as usual. But sudden events and changes can divert our course, for good or for ill. Sometimes things open up, and we are propelled forward. Or sometimes we discover that we long ago strayed into some side-channel and are no longer on the main route.

Christ began His life on earth with

Dore

what is our goal: a fully developed divine nature. His path was to become fully human. And just after he arrived, after His Baptism, he experienced the flooding. The adversary tries to overwhelm Him with the world's novelty and power seen from inside a human body. The adversary intends to alter His course, to steer him into a backwater existence, or strand him onshore. Christ's temptations are the temptations that beset every human being.

Christ avoids these dangers by steering His course firmly by the star of his own divine origin and purpose. He remains living within God's creative power; He quietly but firmly refuses to follow a false path of worship or the seduction of arrogance. And all the while, He steers intently toward His own death. For He set as his task to cut a new channel forward for all of humanity, out of the backwater, the mire, into which humanity had strayed.

Christ has made himself into a vessel, a ship by which we can keep to our own course through the depths and shallows of life. He helps us steer through the floods, avoiding the sandbars and backwaters. He is our guide as we make our way toward our divine goal through all of our lives. He helps us steer with confidence into and through our deaths.


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