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Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written:
‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and Him alone shall you serve.” (Matthew 4:10)
“The Temptation of Christ” (1854) by Ary Scheffer. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
The Great Fast (Lent)
The 40 days of the Great Fast (Lent) commemorate the period that Jesus spent in the desert after He was baptized by John the Baptist but before His public ministry. Our Lord prayed and fasted during this time and was tempted by the devil. Mark does not give any detail of the temptations in his Gospel, but Matthew and Luke describe three consecutive scenes. Matthew’s account culminates with that depicted in the 19th century painting above.
Then the devil took Him up to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to Him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and Him alone shall you serve.’” (Matthew 4:8-10)
It is no accident that the devil’s final effort to derail the Son of God focuses on worship. The very first of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not have other gods beside me.” This directive to worship God alone is first because it is most important. If we get this right, then the other nine Commandments will much more easily fall into place. If, however, we let other gods into our lives, or let other things encroach upon our worship of the one, true God, then we will never be able to live as God calls us.
A principal purpose of the Great Fast is to identify things in our lives that threaten our worship of God alone. These might include money, comfort, and success. To counter these worldly temptations, we ought to embrace prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, because they will help us to see clearly and act decisively according to the Gospel.