If

-------There Is No Son of God (Satan's oration to Jesus in the wilderness on the 40th night)





Emptiness....
as you peer out onto this vast plain
void and darkness (tonight)
like before this Ordeal began
chaos mitigated by tractable bodies of water
the Spirit hovers
the Spirit hovers
and blows; lodging sand in your hair
while you lay your head on
craggy stones letting your mind venture forth
...vistas of endless possibilities
this is the Life you created
"anywhere but here" you say
as the tumbleweeds roll over your leg

Circling ravens obstruct your view of stars
wearying your mind, worries
of safety and malnourishment
Youre thirsty
Youre hungry
and beginning to despair, the ravens
wont bring bread
wont bring meat (1 Kings 17)
crawling on hands and knees
for 40 days and nights forsaken
Left by God out here alone
hope
dying

an identity crisis revealed:
discovery means reaching your hands
for meaning - but just extend your finger
for immediacy. turn these rocks to soft bread
for vigor
then follow me to the temples apex
and jump into the freedom youve been longing for
lest in 10 years life finds you wandering
aimlessly
into a glorious kingdom not yours
a land foreign and a home unknown
fending off your prevailing sense of nothingness
disillusioned
since they day your were born
acting
like the Son of God






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Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."
But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'" Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:

'He shall give His angels charge over you,'

and,

'In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"

Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'" Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'" Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.


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Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica: Question 41. Christ's temptation

Reply to Objection 1. To make use of what is needful for self-support is not the sin of gluttony; but if a man do anything inordinate out of the desire for such support, it can pertain to the sin of gluttony. Now it is inordinate for a man who has human assistance at his command to seek to obtain food miraculously for mere bodily support. Hence the Lord miraculously provided the children of Israel with manna in the desert, where there was no means of obtaining food otherwise. And in like fashion Christ miraculously provided the crowds with food in the desert, when there was no other means of getting food. But in order to assuage His hunger, He could have done otherwise than work a miracle, as did John the Baptist, according to Matthew (3:4); or He could have hastened to the neighboring country. Consequently the devil esteemed that if Christ was a mere man, He would fall into sin by attempting to assuage His hunger by a miracle.

....And Christ resisted these temptations by quoting the authority of the Law, not by enforcing His power, "so as to give more honor to His human nature and a greater punishment to His adversary, since the foe of the human race was vanquished, not as by God, but as by man"; as Pope Leo says (Serm. 1, De Quadrag. 3).