Jesus did not cling to his divinity. He did not simply dip into our existence, wave the magic wand of divine life over us, and then hurriedly retreat to his eternal home. He did not leave us with a tattered dream, letting us brood over the mystery of our existence. Instead, Jesus subjected himself to our plight. He immersed himself in our misery and followed man's road to the end. He did not escape from the torment of our life, nobly repudiating man. With the full weight of his divinity he descended into the abyss of human existence, penetrating its darkest depths. He was not spared from the dark mystery of our poverty as human beings.
Johannes B. Metz
"Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry...." [Luke 4:1-2]
Let us overlook the external process involved in these temptations [of Jesus]; let us try to focus on their underlying intention, on the basic strategy at work. We can then say that the three temptations represent three assaults on the "poverty" of Jesus, on the self-renunciation through which he chose to redeem us. They represent an assault on the radical and uncompromising step he has taken: to come down from God and become man.
To become man means to become "poor," to have nothing which one might brag about before God. To become man means to have no support and no power, save the enthusiasm and commitment of one's own heart. Becoming man involves proclaiming the poverty of the human spirit in the face of the total claims of a transcendent God.
Satan tries to obstruct this self-renunciation, this thoroughgoing "poverty." He wants to make Jesus strong, for what he really fears is the powerlessness of God in the humanity he has assumed. He fears an open human heart that will remain true to its native poverty, suffer the misery and abandonment that is man's, and thus save mankind. Satan's temptation is an assault on God's self-renunciation, an enticement to strength, security and spiritual abundance; for these things will obstruct God's saving approach to man in the dark robes of frailty and weakness.
Satan tries to appeal to the divinity in Jesus.... As a matter of fact, Satan always tries to stress the spiritual strength of man and his divine character. He has done this from the beginning. "You will be like God": that is Satan's slogan. He wants God to remain simply God. He wants the Incarnation to be an empty show, where God dresses up in human costime but doesn't really commit himself to this role. He wants to make the Incarnation a piece of mythology, a divine puppet show.
"You're hungry," he tells Jesus. "You need be hungry no longer. You can change all that with a miracle. You stand trembling on a pinnacle, overlooking a dark abyss. You need no longer put up with this frightening experience, this dangerous plight; you can command the angels to protect you from falling." He urges Jesus not to plunge into the loneliness and futility that is a real part of human existence.... Thus the temptation in the desert would have Jesus betray humanity in the name of God (or, diabolically, God in the name of man). Jesus' "no" to Satan is his "yes" to our poverty.
Jesus did not simply dip into our existence, wave the magic wand of divine life over us, and then hurriedly retreat to his eternal home. He did not leave us with a tattered dream, letting us brood over the mystery of our existence. Instead, Jesus subjected himeself to our plight. He immersed himself in our misery and followed our road to the end....
Jesus came to us where we really are - with all our broken dreams and lost hopes, with the meaning of existence slipping through our fingers. He came and stood with us, struggling with his whole heart to have us say "yes" to our innate poverty. No one is exempted from the poverty of the cross; there is no guarantee against its intrusion....
Christ showed us how to really become human beings. In him we see the unimagined heights and depths of our human lot.
Published in 1968, Poverty of Spirit is considered by many to be a modern spiritual classic. Available from Paulist Press, this small book makes a rich companion for meditative reading during Lent.