First Sunday of Lent – Year C
March 9, 2025 – 10:30 AM
Saint Cecilia Catholic Community, Palm Springs, CA
Rev. David Justin Lynch
Deuteronomy 26:4-10 | Psalm 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15
Romans 10:8-13 | Luke 4:1-13
+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” But they ate of it, Adam and Eve, they both did. But it is curious that they did not die then and there. Their bodies persisted. They looked down upon themselves and saw their nakedness. God condemned Adam to a life of exertion, of hard work, of endless toil, no longer would the fruits of Eden fill his stomach to satiety. He would have to awaken and suffer to live. But it is clear he did not die a physical death upon eating the forbidden fruit. To the contrary, his body lived– but only as the clearest sign that he needed to survive. And the same goes for Eve, God cursed her body to feel the pains of labor, and condemned her to suffer in simply living. In order for life to even come to be, humans would have to suffer. No longer would God painlessly bring humanity about from the Earth or from Man’s side. No, the child would exit the womb with a cry, the woman would face pain and potential death in bringing him to the world, the father would have to spend his days in the Sun to keep them alive. And yes, as we saw on Ash Wednesday, we are dust and to dust we shall return, and Adam and Eve saw their destiny before them in that fashion upon committing their grave sin, but they did not become dust upon eating that fruit. So in what way did they die?
The Council of Trent defined this original sin of humanity as the “death of the soul.” In a sense, humanity did die upon this eating of the fruit, and our physical death is only collateral to this more salient death: the death of the soul. Just as physical death separates the soul from the body, spiritual death–original sin–separates the soul from God’s life-giving grace. Original sin marked our separation from God, we were severed from that divine communion, from holiness, from God’s inner world. Original sin causes humanity to face a constant and lingering pull toward sin. It is our nature. And we now inherit that original sin, that loss of grace, from generation to generation. But that is not the end of the story, we all know that this changed with Jesus.
Taking a look at our Gospel reading, we see the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the desert wilderness, but flipping the page backwards, we see what happened prior–Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan. Jesus had no original sin. He was perfect and sinless. God “For our sake … made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And so washed with the waters of the Jordan and filled with the Holy Spirit, he did not free himself of the same yolk but instead inaugurated for us a sacrament that would break the bonds of that enslavement to original sin. He made it possible for us to be washed of that guilt that condemned us to an eternal separation from God and the forever death of our souls. And now we, as the body of Christ, feel the same holy spirit and the same water reconcile us to God and free us of that sin, but just as the forbidden fruit did not immediately kill, baptism does not immediately make us perfect. We still linger towards sin; our sinful nature is all the same, but the guilt is no more. Instead, what was once damnation becomes a struggle, an opportunity to wrestle with our sinful nature to come back to the God humanity had for so long been separated from.
And I think it quite fitting, that Jesus, who, fully God but also fully man, and having just been baptized, faced temptation almost right away. Does that not perfectly encapsulate the human experience? It could probably be reduced to an aphorism. We come here every Sunday and receive Holy Communion. We engage in the Spiritual life of the Church. Throughout different stages in our life, we receive baptism, and first communion, and confirmation, marriage, some are ordained, and each and every single time, no matter how enriched we are by His grace, no matter how clearly we see our faults, no matter how sharply we identify our duties to love God and Neighbour as Christians, we receive communion, we are anointed, we do all these things with the help of the Mother Church, and yet we leave here and we sin, and we wrong people, and we fall short of the stature of Christ. Each and every single time. And we will come back every single week and we will again betray our Lord in some sense, or at the very least, face a nearly irresistible longing to do just that.
And Jesus as our role model faces precisely this human predicament. He is faced by temptation despite the profundity of the grace that has filled him. But perfect and sinless, he does not budge. And how he responds to these three temptations becomes an example for how we should likewise fight against the demons that seduce us into sin.
The First Temptation: “Turn stones to bread.”
Picture it: Jesus is starving. Forty days in the desert, ribs showing, throat parched. Satan whispers, “You’re human. Eat. Use your power. What’s the harm?” It’s the temptation to prioritize the immediate—the growling stomach, the “I deserve this” mentality. How many of us have bargained with God like that? “Lord, I’ll pray later, but first let me…” Fill in the blank: gossip, cheat, indulge, ignore the needy.
But Jesus doesn’t bite. He says we don’t live on bread alone but God’s word. Jesus is that Word. He’s saying, “I am the Bread you’re starving for.” Satan wants to reduce life to physical cravings, but Jesus refuses to shrink holiness to mere survival. Lent asks us: What temporary fixes are we worshiping instead of clinging to the Bread of Life?
The Second Temptation: “Worship me, and I’ll give you the world.”
Satan’s pivots slickly. “He says, You want to save the world? I’ll hand it to you—no cross required. Just kneel.” How often do we compromise just a little to gain a lot? Silence truth to keep peace. Flatter the bully. Chase our averice or ambition rather than our integrity.
But Jesus doesn’t bend the knee. He says: “Worship the Lord your God—Him alone.” Satan’s “kingdoms” are illusions. The devil can’t give what isn’t his. True power isn’t control; it’s surrender. Jesus chooses the throne of the cross over the devil’s illusions. Lent asks us: What kingdoms are we chasing? In what ways do we betray the Lord so as to make ourselves feel “in control”?
The Third Temptation: “Jump off the temple! Let God rescue you.”
Now Satan gets cunning. He says “Prove you’re loved. Make God perform. Test Him.” How many of us try to bargain with heaven? “If you heal my friend, I’ll go to church every Sunday.” Or worse, we blame God when suffering comes: “If You loved me, You’d fix this.”
Jesus shuts it down: “Don’t test God.” Trust isn’t a circus stunt. Faith isn’t forcing God to jump when we snap our fingers. Jesus’ trust is quiet, it’s stubborn—like a tree rooted deep, unshaken by storms. Lent asks us: Where are we demanding signs instead of walking with Jesus in trust?
Jesus’ victory over these temptations is a roadmap for humanity. He faced every trap we do, but chose the Father’s will over quick fixes, flashy power, and cheap miracles. And the Good News we bring to all is that His victory is ours. Through baptism, we’re grafted into His resistance. And yes, we’ll leave Mass today and gossip by noon. We’ll choose pride over apology, screens over prayer, fear over love. But that’s why Lent isn’t there to make us feel guilty—it’s a rehab for the soul. Every “no” to temptation, every awkward act of love, every Hail Mary muttered through gritted teeth? That’s us, stumbling after Jesus in the desert. That is us fasting from sin.
The devil may go away, but he’ll be back—in our anger, in our loneliness. But we’re armed now. We know his playbook. And we know the end of the story: God’s love always wins. The cross empties the grave of soul and body. Amen.