NOTES for Luk 4:1-15

The Lord experienced our entire lot except for sin, walked the most difficult paths of life, and brought light to the darkest places. He experienced the depths of the greatest and most terrible struggle into which every person and society as a whole inevitably enter, the struggle against Satan. Let us consider in order what the three temptations through which Jesus passed mean.

The first is about turning stone into bread. The Lord created this world so that it contains enough of everything for a person to feed himself. But Satan proposes breaking this order, playing on human weakness, and buying a person's soul. Yet the Lord also arranged things so that a true soul cannot be bought.

The second is the temptation of power. Christ overcomes it. But has Christ's Church overcome it? Not so long ago the Church in Russia was rigidly bound to the state, and in practice this meant that a person needed a baptism certificate in order to pursue a career. This is truly terrible, because all spirituality is emptied out. Many today want these nineteenth-century realities repeated, forgetting that they ended in revolution.

And finally, the third temptation. There is a saying: “Trust in God, but do not fail to do your part.” The same thought is expressed here in a very simple form. The Lord helps us, but to tempt this help, that is, to put it to the test, means having no faith in it or, even if one has faith, abusing it. The Lord expects from us, on the one hand, maturity, self-reliance, and independence in the inner sense, and on the other, complete trust.