St. Luke's Attic

This being the beginning of Holy Week and since Lent is almost over, I thought I’d put up a drawing I have just finished. This is the temptation at the end of Jesus’ 40 days of fasting. It’s from my brand new drawing book that I just started working on in the last few weeks.

I think an important thing not to overlook here is the fact that this was a real temptation. Por ejemplo; if someone offered me a couple of tickets to… the Final Four, Wimbledon, the World Cup, the World Series, the Super Bowl, Citrus Bowl, Orange Bowl, or any combination of them, if I would just do X; it wouldn’t be a real temptation since sports hold absolutely no interest for me. (Honest. I couldn’t care less. It’s not that I have anything against sports, per se, I just can’t manufacture an interest in them. Now you know.) So for it to work on me, there would have to be a much different kind of temptation on the table. I can think of about a dozen things off the top of my head…

Anyway, back to an actual temptation, Jesus had to really be tempted if this episode was to have any real meaning. As such, I have tried to show him emaciated and weak. At least physically weak. Since I have never fasted for that long, I have no idea if 40 DAYS of fasting leaves one spiritually weakened or strengthened. I assume it would be immediately weakening or Satan would not have chosen that time to act.

The little bat-winged speech bubble is not quoting any scripture, rather it quotes something else. I’ll give a very special no-prize to anyone who can tell me where that line comes from. I suppose if you give in to the temptation of the devil… err… Google, you could just look it up.