St. Mary's Church Elizabeth, IL

10/11

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matthew 6:13).

It is clearly impossible to think of God trying to seduce a man into sinning.  To our modern ears, the word tempt is always a bad word; it means "to seduce into evil."  In the Bible, the word test is used, rather than the word tempt, and it means not so much to seduce someone into sin, as it is to test one's strength, one's loyalty and ability for service.  Imagine a student saying to his teacher, or an athlete to his trainer, to say:  "Go easy with me" Don't push me too hard!"  It is the instinctive appeal of the man who knows how weak he is and how dangerous life can be, and who takes his life to the protation of God.  Already in the Old Testament, we read the story of how God tested the loyalty of Abraham by seemingly demanding the highest price-the sacrafice of Isaac (Gen 22).  God submits Abraham to a test of loyalty and obedience.

When we read the story of the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness, it is testing rather, than leading Jesus into sin.  The Holy Spirit can never become a partner in an attempt to sin.  Here is one of the great and precious truths about temptation: temptation is not designed to make us fall; it is designed to make us stronger and better.  It is never designed to make us sinners, but it is designed to make us good and holy.  We may fail in the test, but we are not meant to.  We ar meant to emerge stronger and finer.  We have to be tested, before God can use us in his service.

Deliver us from evil.  We will do well to understand what Scripture writers mean by the Evil-One, whom they describe as an Adversary and the Slanderer.  The two ideas are not so very different: they both describe the aim of the Evil One, which is to cause a breach between man and God, to break the relationship between man and God.  The aim is to ruin man in this life and in the life to come.  In th petition, we pray that we may be armoured and protected against this personal force, and that we may be strenthened in our resistance to it.

And when we do all to resist, we can say with St. Cyprian:  "When we once asked for God's protection against evil and have obtained it, then against everything which the devil and the world can do against us, we stand secure and safe.  For what fear is there in the life to the man whos Guardian in this life is God?"

Fr. Joachim