"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15). I think perhaps the inspired author of the Letter to the Hebrews had our Gospel for today in mind when he penned this line. Indeed, during His earthly sojourn, the Lord was truly tempted, as any human being is. The big difference, as noted, is that He did not succumb to any temptation, He didn't fail any test.
You might say, "Sure, it's easy to resist temptation when you're God." Without ceasing to be God, Jesus became fully human. He's not half human and half divine. He is fully human and fully divine.
Christians, maybe especially Catholics, tend to get so hung up on Jesus' divinity that His humanity sometimes falls by the wayside. We know from the Gospels that Jesus experienced hunger, fatigue, anger, joy, sadness, the full range of human emotions and moods. You know what, from time-to-time, as He walked along the dusty roads of His native Galilee and later Judea, He had to step off the path go behind a bush. Shocking, I know!
The real question is, can someone be truly tempted if they simply do not find what s/he is tempted with in any way appealing? "Can I tempt you with a sriracha-covered apple?" In other words, if there is no possibility whatsover that said person could or would give in to the temptation, does that count as being tempted?
In light of this question, we must ask if there was any possibility that Jesus might've turned stones into bread to feed Himself, to seize worldly power to more effectively and efficiently establish the reign of God by coercive means through the state, or to hurl Himself, in a display of power putting His divine Sonship on full display, headlong off the parapet of the Temple, trusting the angels to catch Him before He hit the ground?
Sticking with the inspired author of Hebrews, I am going with there not only could've been, but must've been at least some attraction for Jesus in such temptations. Otherwise, these are not temptations, that is, tests. Are we simple spectators to a divine puppet show?
Since we're reading from Saint Luke's Gospel, the same goes for the Blessed Virgin Mary: she could've declined to bear God's Son, which, for her, was a risky proposition. It was her fiat, her "Be it done to me according to your word," her free consent that makes her so wonderfully special and worthy of our hyperdulia, our super-veneration. God desires this same emphatically loving response from each of us, a response so loving that it overcomes fear. Love is always a risk.
Getting back to the second of the temptations from our Gospel, it is a perversion of the Gospel to seek to impose the Lord's teaching by coercion through the state. This is the way of Caesar, not of God. Sometimes these are difficult to disentangle.
For several centuries beginning in the fourth century, the Church drank deeply from the well of the Roman imperium. We are still disentangling ourselves from it- Vatican II was a big step in that direction- but that is to digress. It seems a perennial temptation for Christians and even the Church at times to seek "all this power and glory," to fall for that with which the devil tempted our Lord.
This is not to argue against Christian involvement in politics. Far from it. Applied to political involvement, this has to do with the means to be used in service of achieving desired ends. Those things that are harmonious with the Gospel and that appropriately belong to politics must be argued for in a persuasive way and freely accepted by those who are governed and not simply imposed.
Integralism and so-called Christian nationalism are to be rejected on Christian grounds, rooted firmly in the teaching and example of Jesus Christ during His life and ministry. Like Christians of the earliest centuries and even many in recent centuries, we must be willing to live our faith not only in hostile situations but in situations of indifference towards what we believe. Doing the latter may ultimately prove more difficult.
Between Jesus' Ascension and His glorious return God's kingdom is only present in kernel form, here and there, wherever Jesus' teachings are freely lived out, motivated by love of God and neighbor, not fear of punishment. In fact, being motivated by love, agape, caritas, in many contexts means that love outweighs the very real fear of punishment. Wasn't this the case with Jesus Himself?
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