(Editor’s note: This commentary is one in an occasional series of reflections on Lenten themes Associated Baptist Press is publishing during this season of preparation and introspection. Previous reflections we have published are linked to below the article.)
By Brent Beasley
Anne Rice, she of Interview with the Vampire fame, recommitted to her Catholic faith a few years ago and has since dedicated herself to writing novels that explore the life of Jesus. First came Christ the Lord: Out of Egpyt, and in 2008 Rice published Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. This novel, which I am reading now, depicts Jesus’ life as a young adult leading up to his first miracle at the wedding in Cana. It is fiction, of course, but Rice has tried hard to be as faithful to historical knowledge about Jesus’ life and world as possible. She imagines in this novel Jesus facing the temptation as a man in his late 20s to marry like all of his friends and brothers.
As I read last night one particularly powerful scene of Jesus imagining — and ultimately rejecting — that life, I couldn’t help but think of The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis. This novel, written in the 1950s, was made into the controversial movie of the same title a few years ago. I never saw the movie and don’t know anything about it, but read the book a couple of years ago. Until reading the book, I never knew what “the last temptation of Christ” was referring to. What was this last temptation? According to Kazantzakis’s story, the last temptation Christ faced was to live a normal life — a wife, 2.3 kids, a dog and a house in a nice neighborhood. It is a fascinating insight to ponder.
Kazantzakis writes that “every moment of Christ’s life is conflict and victory.” He conquered temptations repeatedly until he finally reached the cross. Kazantzakis goes on to write: “But even there his struggle did not end. Temptation — the Last Temptation — was waiting for him on the Cross.” Hanging on the Cross, before his eyes “unfolded the deceptive vision of a calm and happy life.” In this vision he had taken the smooth and easy road. “He had married and fathered children. People loved and respected him. Now, an old man, he sat on the threshold of his house and smiled with satisfaction as he recalled the longings of his youth. How splendidly, how sensibly he had acted in choosing the road of men! What insanity to have wanted to save the world! What joy to have escaped the privations, the tortures, and the Cross!”
“But,” as Katzantzakis writes, “all at once Christ shook his head violently, opened his eyes, and saw…. He had accomplished the mission which the Lord had entrusted to him.” He had not lived a normal life. “He had reached the summit of sacrifice: he was nailed upon the Cross.”
We serve a God who calls on us to pray the hardest and most important prayer of all — the prayer of relinquishment. Jesus said, “Those who cling to their life will lose it, and those who are willing to let go of their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” And this God not only calls on us to do so, but Jesus prayed it himself when he resisted temptation and said, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say — ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” And also when he prayed, “Father, let this cup pass from me. But not what I want but what you want.” And also, most finally, when he said, “It is finished.”
Thanks be to God.