22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (31.08.14)
It may help to open up and contextualize some of the text. For us, the noun Satan is a specific proper name referring exclusively to The Devil. This hasn’t always been the case. ‘A Satan’, in olden times, was commonly used to define an uncomfortable affliction or a person in a bad humour or a nasty mishap. In other words, something that was not of benefit to a person or those with whom that person was in contact. If the speaker or writer intended their use of the word Satan to refer specifically to the Devil, then they would have needed to make their intention clear.
Contemporary use of the noun is minimal but is specific to the Devil. This has come about in an era when belief in the Devil has been seriously downgraded which stands to reason. No society can throw overboard its belief in God unless, first, it ditches its belief in the Devil! Not to do so would leave a worrying imbalance.
Was Jesus using the word ‘Satan’ in a non-specific way when he addressed Peter, as recorded in our Matthew’s Gospel extract this Sunday?
It would seem not, particularly if Peter’s words – “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” – alarmed Jesus in their resemblance to Satan’s words to him at the end of his fast of forty days and nights in the wilderness of Judea (Luke 4:1-12) We know from experience how truly frightening experiences are clearly etched in our memory.
Jesus’ encounter with Satan in the Judean wilderness would have wrecked a lesser man. Satan, in that encounter, had no need for disguise or surreptitious manipulative skills. That encounter we could describe as a ‘bare knuckle’ fight, in other words Satan with the gloves off. Jesus, in that wilderness, would have been chilled to the bone in every sense. He would have experienced the presence of evil like no other person has ever done. After all, Jesus was in the kingdom of the Evil One. (1 John 5:19) “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the Evil one.”
The flashback occasioned by Peter’s words of concern would have been both instantaneous and terrifying for Jesus – hence the outburst, “Get behind me, Satan!”
There will have been occasions in all out lives when we have encountered the Evil One. Forget the film depictions with horns, tail and smell of sulphur. Satan will have presented himself to us in our most vulnerable weakness and played on that weakness to his own benefit just as Satan did with Jesus in the desert.
We may or may not have realized at the time that it was Satan who had presented himself. We would certainly have realized it subsequently and the memory of the occasion(s) will likely still be with us.
If you wonder why Satan was unable to ‘capture’ you the answer may lie in the realm of the overall disposition of your will. If, overall, your continuous disposition of will, backed up by daily prayer and the Sacraments, is to love God and to be loved by him, then momentary attacks by Satan, while seriously disturbing, cannot finally succeed unless you choose freely, deliberately and with foreknowledge to change the disposition of your will. Satan’s attacks may wound, hurt and distress us but Jesus is at hand to respond to our call. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the ‘field hospital’ for the battle-scarred believer. Jesus shares our suffering for we are his Body on earth.
This may be an appropriate moment to underline the falsehood of claiming “I was Baptised so I’m all right”. The words ‘continuous disposition of will’ imply that we are people of prayer and Sacramental life. ‘Continuous disposition’ doesn’t follow from one pouring of water and the saying of the words of Baptism in our infancy! ‘Continuous disposition’ is the daily renewal of the application of our will to love God in the ways that he has called us to love him.
Pope St John Paul ll gave us five new ‘mysteries of the Rosary’ for our meditation. Called The Luminous Mystery Rosary, the mysteries we reflect on are:
1.The Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the River Jordan
2.Jesus first miracle at the wedding at Cana,
3.Jesus proclaiming the Kingdom of God, his preaching and teaching
4.The Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor when He revealed Himself as God’s Son
5.The institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper
Note ‘The Baptism of Jesus’. We are invited to reflect on how the whole of Jesus’ life from his conception to the age of about 30 had been a preparation for this moment. Image him stood on the bank of the River Jordan, indistinguishable from any other male Jew of a similar age. What distinguishes Jesus is invisible to the eye. Within himself, Jesus was perfectly (in the true sense of the word) aware that by stepping into the water he was choosing to do battle with Satan on behalf of all who have, who are or who ever will live.
In his mind’s eye he will know, without the specifics, all the hideous encounters with Evil through which he must pass if he chooses this committal to his heavenly Father’s exemplified by his receiving John’s Baptism of Repentance. While all the others being baptised by John are symbolically washing off their own human culpability, Jesus is taking on himself not only the sin of his contemporaries and forbears but also the sin that has yet to be – our sins and the sins of humanity until the end of the world. For Jesus this was a Baptism of enduring commitment until the last breath of the last person on earth. How long did Jesus stand at the edge of the river not out of uncertainty or fear but out of a need to gather all his awareness of what he was about to embrace?
In Jesus, we see the ultimate definition of ‘continuous disposition’.
When we re-read this Sunday’s Gospel hopefully there will be more depth to our understanding of what lay behind Peter’s words and Jesus’ response.