On the first Sunday in Lent this year, many churches will read St. Luke’s account of our Lord’s forty days’ temptations in the wilderness, which is preceded by a genealogy of Jesus (Lk. 3:23-38). St. Matthew’s Gospel has a genealogy too (Mt. 1:1-17), proceeding from Abraham to Joseph, the adoptive father of our Lord. St. Luke’s proceeds the other way, starting with Joseph and going back through Abraham to Adam, the first man, whom Luke calls “the son of God.” Just before the genealogy, Luke gives us an account of our Lord’s baptism, which ends with the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus in the form of a dove, and a voice from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Lk. 3:21-22)

Jesus is the “beloved Son” of God, as well as son of Adam, the first man, who is also called the “son of God.” Jesus and Adam are “sons of God” in different senses, though: Adam is God’s son as the first of God’s creatures to be made in the divine “image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26); but Jesus is God’s uncreated Son, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the image in whom Adam was created—or, as St. John writes in his Gospel, Jesus is the eternal Word of God, through whom all things came to be, who “became flesh” and dwelt among us as a man, a son of Adam. (John 1:1-5)

Luke is introducing Jesus to us as the Son of God and son of man—most intimately related to God, as his Son, and to us human beings, children of the first man Adam, as our brother. This strong affirmation of dual sonship leads directly into Luke’s description of our Lord’s temptations in the wilderness, when the devil tries to lure him into abusing both his relationship to God and his relationship to us by turning them to his own advantage; by exploiting these relationships to the service of the self.

The devil first approaches Jesus as Son of God: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus surely had the divine power to perform such a feat; but he answers, quoting scripture, “Man shall not live on bread alone.” Jesus replies here as son of man; he refuses to abuse his relationship to God as Son by doing something for himself that is beyond the power of man. Rather, he embraces his relationship to human beings by recalling what is true for all of us: “Man shall not live on bread alone,” but (to continue the quotation) “by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)

Next, the devil approaches Jesus as son of man, showing him the glories of man’s world—“all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.” The devil claims ownership of these spectacular achievements (plausibly, since so much evil went into the making of them), and he offers them to Jesus on the condition that he bow down and worship him. What the devil is proposing to our Lord is a reversal of their roles; and now Jesus replies as Son of God, refusing to abuse his relationship to us by seeking worldly power. Rather, he embraces his relationship to God his Father by rebuking the devil’s proposal: “You (even you the devil) shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” (Deuteronomy 6:13)

Finally, the devil approaches Jesus again as Son of God. Taking him to the pinnacle of the house of God, the temple in Jerusalem, the devil suggests to Jesus: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.” This time, the devil quotes scripture, to the effect that God would protect his beloved Son. (Psalm 91:11-12) While not denying that, Jesus refuses to abuse his relationship to God as Son by doing something that would be presumptuous for man to do; rather, he embraces his relationship to us as man by quoting a scripture that applies to all of us: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Deuteronomy 6:16)

In each of these temptations, the devil is encouraging our Lord to abuse his intimate relationship to God as Son of God, and to us as son of man, by turning them to his own advantage. The devil is confronting Jesus, saying, in effect, “This is who you are, divine and human, so let me see you do what only God can do; or, let me offer you as man the prize of worldly power.” It is true that Jesus is divine and human; in either case, the devil is trying to lure Jesus into acting for himself, as God and as man, forgetting that his unique self comes from his relationships—to God as his Son, and to us as our brother. Our Lord acts only out of these relationships. The devil tries, and fails, to deceive him into acting on his own, apart from these relationships, to exploit them in the service of self.

Observe the devil’s method: He takes a truth and then distorts it in order to deceive. But Jesus cannot be deceived; he knows that he was sent into the world as man to do his Father’s will; and it is his Father’s will that he should give his life for the salvation of his human family. All that he did, and all that he taught, came out of from his relationship to God and to us. He is both Son of God and son of man in order to be our mediator, to restore us, Adam’s children, to our proper relationship to God as Father.

Jesus is of course unique. What the devil tries to get him to do is not the same as what the devil tries to get us to do. But the devil’s method is the same with us as with our Lord: He takes a truth and then distorts it in order to deceive us. He suggests that we should act as though our selves were separable from our relationships.

For example, I am John Smith—a privileged and talented young guy with a lot of opportunities, and I want to be rich. I’m tempted to do whatever I need to do to make money, without regard to the personal relationships that make me who I am—somebody’s son or brother, friend or spouse. All of these relationships I sacrifice to my ambition, and though I may end up rich, I will end up cut off, essentially alone.

That is only one example; there could be many more to illustrate how all of our temptations try to lure us into using and abusing personal relationships for personal advantage; subordinating the relationships that make me who I am—to just “me.” Everybody has an ego; everybody has a self whose value comes from being in relationship to others; a “me” in, and with, a greater “we.” In many subtle ways, the devil tries to lure us into forgetfulness; into making everyone and everything a function of our ego; into making “me” supreme.

And you can see what kind of world results from that: Look around you; read the papers—let us consult our own experience to see what happens when we fail to respect and to attend to our relationships, which make us who we are. Jesus came into the world, shared his wisdom, and gave his life to reconcile the human family with God and one another. That is why the Son of God became the son of man: to remake the world that human egos have unmade by restoring us in our relationships as children to one Father, and as brothers and sisters to each other.