Jesus Is Tempted Three of the four canonical gospels describe how Jesus was tempted by Satan. The first one written, that of Mark, offered few details. After Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness. “He was in the wilderness forty days,” Mark wrote, “tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” (Mark 1:11-13). Afterwards, he went off to start his ministry. Matthew and Luke offer a richer version. In their gospels, Jesus fasted for forty days, becoming “famished.” At that point, the devil appeared and offered three temptations. The first was that Jesus should prove himself to be…
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Lent, Temptation, and Our White Supremacy Culture
Lent, Temptation, and Life Events Our topic this week is temptation. Originally I thought I would connect this to Lent, writing about Jesus’s forty days in the desert when he was tempted by Satan. During this time, Jesus, rather than giving in, gave up and let go. What might we learn from this? How can into the spirit of Lent enhance our recovery journey? These questions still matter to me, and I will touch on them later. However, two events that occurred this week in Unitarian Universalist circles changed my plans. One is that the president of our denomination resigned; the other is that a ministerial colleague, charged with possessing…
