Gospel Reflection on Matthew 4:1-11

February 22, 2026

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,

‘Man shall not live by bread alone,but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,

‘He will give his angels charge of you,’

and

‘On their hands they will bear you up,lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan! for it is written,

‘You shall worship the Lord your Godand him only shall you serve.’”

Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

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Every year Christians take some time to see where we have drifted into more juvenile, more immature ways.

Notice we're not looking for where we may have become more childlike, because children in their own way are drawn to being noble. Children are capable of greatness. Children and young adults often have noble desires, not just desires for entertainment. They are attracted to the heroic, the meaningful, to give themselves and service and sacrifice.

Think of the stories that once captivated our young imaginations, "Lord of the rings" or "The chronicles of Narnia". These were stories of young people hearing it and answering the call to greatness to be noble.

But the adult reality is that we often become lazy. Motivation is hard to come by and so without realizing it we can drift into juvenile behaviors.

What does that mean? Well one of the signs of this juvenile drift is our temptation to transform everything into bread, into compensation, gratification. We flip from one moment of satisfaction to the next.

Or we find ourselves fixated with material things living for our possessions for more. We enslave ourselves bound down to the things of this world.

And a third juvenile drift is how often we fall in love with an idea or a hypothesis, a way of seeing or interpreting the world, and we expect everyone, including God, to adopt our singular way of thinking. How often we think that one of our projects will resolve everything? But in the end it turns out only to be our small-minded little idea constructed from our very small perspective.

The great stories, once captivated our imagination, are built around virtues like courage, unselfishness, the pursuit of a great dream. When we drift into juvenile behavior, these great stories no longer have traction in our life. We live for smallness, not greatness. Recognizing this drift and learning how to check our behavior can reawaken in us a desire to be noble, to dare to be great again.

This is what happens to Jesus at the beginning of his serious years. As he wrestled with these same juvenile temptations, to turn stones into bread, to have nations and wealth at his disposal, to create his own plan for how to fix the world: he takes 40 days to work this through.

We're invited to spend the next few weeks sifting through our dreams, our imaginations, and our appetites, to see where we have lost the thread and to begin to answer the call to greatness again.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH7oYX_ibdU