My Invisible Ink by Chuma Okonkwo

My Invisible Ink by Chuma Okonkwo

Reflection on today’s Gospel 13

Today’s gospel, Luke 4:1-13, reveals that stack difference between Christ’s nature and human’s nature. Not every aspect of human is Christ-like and vice-versa. Christ’s divine-nature was overtly revealed in his thrice temptation by the ever persistent Satan. If Christ’s nature was the same as man’s he would have yielded in at the first temptation given how ravenous he was. But he didn't; rather he taught us by his response, “it is written, one does not live on bread alone,” not to allow our hunger for limited and insatiable earthly food becloud our chances of eating that eternal delicious and divine food that God has prepared for us.

Devil always looks out for those weak points in us and feed on them. Devil never fails to try; he is an unrepentant recalcitrant. He is full of ideas no matter how many times he fails, but luck ran out of him and his reservoir of temptation was emptied when he crossed path with Christ. This is great lesson to us that it is our dedication to God’s message and perseverance to our faith in God that keeps off the devil and puts him in shame.

However, on another thought, Christ’s temptation could be an opportunity for Christ to experience his total dependency upon his Father (not Joseph, but heavenly Father). Christ could not have overcome the devil without the help of his Father. He trusted and believed in him. This is a lesson for us to trust and believe in God at all times in our situations. It is a call for us to experience our total dependency upon God the Father and witness the victory that comes out of our experience. We should cast our eyes upon Christ, who in human flesh defeated Satan, and feel inspired to move deeper in our thoughtful devotion to Christ and his lessons in life. This is the big picture in today’s gospel message.

We live today in a world everything is commodified; we live in a consumer world. Therefore, with the lessons revealed today in the gospel about God’s wisdom in shaming the devil, we are obliged to market the product that we have been modeled on a divine production scale and we can only satisfy our want- hunger for a happy life- and maximize our utility- preference for God over all things- when we make spacious in our hearts the doors of our lives to God.