The Angel on My Shoulder

Does anyone else remember being taught about conscience as a kid? I have a vivid memory from childhood that has emerged as I have prayed with these readings. It is the image of me with a good angel on one shoulder whispering in my ear and telling me the right thing to do. On the other shoulder is the Devil (pitchfork and all) telling me that whatever I was tempted to do was okay. It was a tug-of-war between the right choice and the wrong choice. While the image is childish, it works.

The first reading is the creation story. God is on one side, giving Adam and Eve every good thing and asking only that they did not eat the fruit of one tree or they would die. On the other hand, the serpent is telling them they both could and should eat from the tree because it would make them like God. The heart of Satan’s temptation to Adam and Eve was to be like God, their creator. The Devil’s temptation won, and they ate from the tree. And so began the course of God’s repeated attempts to bring His people back to Him and to cast out Evil. Through Noah, Abraham, Moses, King David, and the prophets, God reached out repeatedly in love to gather His people back to himself. Each time God tried, the people would fall away and give in to the seduction of the temptations of their time.

God finally came to show us the way. He came as Jesus. Jesus was one like us, fully human and fully divine. Fully human means He understood the power of temptation. Fully human tells us Jesus struggled with temptation. Fully human assures us Jesus had to choose. Jesus’ temptation loses its importance if there is no pull toward the wrong choice.

Jesus, a young, vibrant, charismatic leader amassing a group of followers, had to choose how He would live His life. Satan offered Jesus personal satisfaction, power, and authority to become a King. Jesus could be the ruler of all the people, with His every need and desire fulfilled. While God, His father, offered Jesus an opportunity to show God’s people how much God loved them. In Jesus’ complete humanness, it could not have been a choice made without a struggle. It came down to choosing comfort for Himself or choosing the cross.  

There is so much hope for us in this Gospel. In doing so, Jesus chose the cross and demonstrated confidence in God’s relentless and unconditional love. Jesus’ choice of God over Satan allows us to know, without doubt, that we, too, have the power to choose God and cast out Evil.

We experience temptations every day. Some are small and somewhat inconsequential, and others are of great significance. However, we must be sure of one thing; Satan remains alive and well among us. Satan’s mission is to tempt us into turning from the way of God. Satan wants us to choose some kind of self-interest and selfishness instead of love. We each have soft spots, the parts of our lives that are vulnerable to the temptation of Evil. We know them, and we can be sure the Evil One knows them too.

Today the temptation reading we hear is from the Gospel of Matthew. There is a line in the story in Luke’s Gospel that doesn’t appear in Matthew’s account but is poignant. It reads, “When the Devil had finished all his tempting, he left him to await another opportunity.” (Luke 4:13). Being tempted in our lives is not a ‘one and done’ thing. Satan probably returned often in Jesus’ life to try and seduce Him. Each and every time Satan tempted him, Jesus chose God. The love of God was more powerful than Evil.  

We can expect no less in our lives. Of course, we will be tempted over and again. But, whether we think of it as listening to the angel on our shoulder or the voice of God in our hearts, we have the power to choose God and cast out Satan. Jesus gave us that power; we must not squander it. 

In God’s Unending Love, 

Gwen