Friday morning, when I clicked on my computer at home, I was stunned, like a lot of people, to see the images and video from Japan.<\/p>\n
Within hours after it happened, almost instantaneously, hundreds if not thousands of pictures and videos had been loaded onto the Internet, many from cell phone cameras, capturing this disaster as it was happening.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It has brought the whole world into this experience in an astonishing way \u2013 with an urgency and an intimacy, I think, that rivaled what we remember from 9\/11.\u00a0\u00a0 We have all found ourselves somehow connected to this catastrophe.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the week, ironically, the Smithsonian released some pictures that also connected us to another catastrophe: several previously unseen photographs following the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.\u00a0 And they looked like they could have been taken yesterday \u2013 because, incredibly, they were in color, using a special technique and camera.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shock to see because, \u00a0as one historian explained: \u201cWe only know the world of the past in black and white.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not the way it was lived.\u00a0\u00a0 I think that relates, as well, to this morning\u2019s gospel.\u00a0 The life of Christ was more than just words on a page, more than black and white.\u00a0 Here we see the savior of the world in living color.<\/p>\n
He was God.\u00a0 And he was a man.<\/p>\n
He was one of us.<\/p>\n
In a few weeks, we will hear again of how he suffered and struggled and bled to death on the cross.\u00a0 But here, we get another glimpse of his humanity, when we see him experience \u2013 as all of us do \u2013 temptation.<\/p>\n
As St. Paul reminded us, Christ was a man like us in all things but sin \u2013 a figure of flesh and blood, of joy and pain, of appetites and longings.\u00a0\u00a0 And this gospel makes that abundantly clear.<\/p>\n
But it also assures us of something we so easily forget.\u00a0 God\u2019s entry into history was total.\u00a0 His decision to take on human flesh was just that \u2013 a decision, a choice.\u00a0 And Matthew\u2019s account of the temptations in the desert shows us what that choice entailed \u2013 and where God chose to dwell.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t choose the self-satisfied, or the fulfilled, or the powerful, or the secure.<\/p>\n
He identified, instead, with those who have nothing.<\/p>\n
Look at the temptations he faced: for food, for protection, for power.\u00a0 He rejected them all.<\/p>\n
When Jesus was in the desert, preparing for his public ministry, he chose to stay hungry, to fast \u2013 and so expressed solidarity with all those who are starving, or thirsting.\u00a0 He would know intimately the desires of all who don\u2019t have enough to eat, or who go to bed hungry.<\/p>\n
When Jesus was in the desert, he chose to go unprotected \u2013 and so expressed kinship with all those who feel vulnerable or insecure, weak or defenseless.\u00a0 He would know what it is like to feel helpless, and homeless \u2014 to risk falling and have no one to catch you, no safety net to save you.<\/p>\n
And when Jesus was in the desert, he chose to be powerless.\u00a0 In doing that, he expressed sympathy for all who have no voice, no power, no control.\u00a0 The God who made everything would know what it was like to have nothing.\u00a0 The One who is so vast that He is everywhere would experience what it is like to be small, and fragile, and profoundly human.\u00a0 He would even take that one step further at the Last Supper: the Lord of all would humble himself to be as small as a piece of bread.<\/p>\n
The temptations that Christ faced tell us how very human he was \u2013 and in that humanity, we not only see ourselves, but we see even more deeply the profound generosity of God.\u00a0 We see how much God loves us.\u00a0 He loves us enough to experience everything that we are, everything that we struggle against \u2013 and He did it willingly, as an enduring and complete act of love.<\/p>\n
It is a foretaste of what He will do for us on Calvary.<\/p>\n
And it serves to teach us just how real and how immediate the incarnation was.\u00a0 Like history, it didn\u2019t happen in black and white.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t just words on a page.\u00a0 It was in living color.<\/p>\n
As we begin Lent, we join ourselves with Christ\u2019s sacrifice \u2013 fasting and giving up simple comforts \u2014 to express our own humility and unworthiness, and to share the struggles of a suffering world.\u00a0 This weekend, that includes, in particular, the suffering of the people of Japan \u2013 the thousands who in their own way are facing their own desert.<\/p>\n
In that bleak landscape, they know hunger.\u00a0 They know uncertainty, and worry about poison in the air.\u00a0 They know what it means to be powerless, wondering if the earth could shift at any moment, feeling as if there is no one to catch them if they fall.<\/p>\n
This day, our prayers and hearts are joined to theirs.\u00a0 May the Lord of the desert \u2014 our God who knows human suffering first hand \u2014 protect them and uplift them, console them and strengthen them.<\/p>\n
And may He open our hearts to give all that we can in their moment of need.<\/p>\n
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Friday morning, when I clicked on my computer at home, I was stunned, like a lot of people, to see the images and video from Japan. Within hours after it happened, almost instantaneously, hundreds if not thousands of pictures and videos had been loaded onto the Internet, many from cell phone cameras, capturing this disaster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,11411],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies","category-japan"],"yoast_head":"\n