Reject Empire
The Temptation, by Simon J. Fletche r Lections: The First Sunday in Lent , AD 2026 A Homily: Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Immediately following His Baptism in the River Jordan—when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove, and the voice of the Father proclaimed the Christ as His own beloved Son—Jesus is driven by the Spirit, into the wilderness, in order to be tested by the devil. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m a middle-aged man with children ranging from junior high to college, and I still have the occasional nightmare about not being ready for a test—mostly math tests, which is weird, because I was good at math back in the day. I think it fair to say that this is what we tend to think of today when we hear the word “test.” We think of school examinations, of passing or of failing. But 2,000 years ago, testing had more to do with metal. You ...
