Desert Silence

(Luke 4:1-13)

The Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent presents us with a striking scene – Jesus on his own in the wilderness, in an existential dust-up with the devil, and squaring him down like a boss. But you know what’s just as striking as the temptations and clapbacks?

The silence.

Where’s the Father’s voice in all of this? Just one chapter earlier, at his baptism, Jesus got the full golden-haired boy treatment: “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Big moment. Clear affirmation. Divine mic drop.

But now? Crickets. No booming reassurance from the heavens. No angelic pep talk. Just hunger, exhaustion, and Satan showing up uninvited like a LinkedIn recruiter: Hey, ever thought about a different career path?

Now, let’s give the devil a bit of credit for his skill, here. Notice how he doesn’t try to convince Jesus outright to abandon his mission. No, he’s sneakier than that.

Satan’s first move? Exploit the silence.

Rather than challenge Jesus head-on, he tries to make him question what he already knows.

If you are the Son of God…

Are you sure that’s what God meant?

Doesn’t look like God’s here to help. Maybe you should take matters into your own hands.

Sound familiar?

It turns out Jesus isn’t the only one who has days like this. This discipleship thing we signed up for comes with its own share of desert scenes. Anyone who’s ever discerned anything – priesthood, religious life, marriage, a career – knows this script all too well.  We have those moments where we’re sure God is calling us – maybe it was a retreat, a deep prayer moment, an undeniable nudge. But then, time passes. The clarity fades. The excitement wears off. And suddenly, we find ourselves in the vocational wilderness, looking around like, Uh… God? [cue tumbleweed]

Then come the doubts, the second-guessing, and that overwhelming temptation to just do something else because maybe, just maybe, we misheard God.

Let’s be honest. We love certainty. We want neon signs. A burning bush. We want God checking in every two weeks with a progress report. But more often than not, he speaks once, then trusts us to actually believe him.

When we pay attention to what’s really going on here in this gospel, we realize that the silence forces Jesus to rely on what he already knows:

He knows who he is.

He knows what the Father already said.

He knows that no shortcut, quick fix, or flashy miracle is worth trading in his mission.

When that desert silence hits, it’s easy to feel sorry for ourselves and think of it as punishment. Or abandonment. So, here’s the $64,000 question: what do we do when it happens? Do we freak out and assume we made a bad choice? Do we start looking for loopholes, backup plans, or exit doors? Or do we do what Jesus does – hold our ground, shut down the lies, and keep moving forward?

Vocations demand a certain amount of trust. It’s not about constant reassurance – it’s about having the confidence to stick to what God has already revealed to us. Even when he goes quiet for a bit.

Jesus walks out of the desert stronger, not because God kept giving him new signs every five minutes, but because he refused to let the silence shake him.

When radio silence hits, it’s not proof that we’ve got it wrong. Rather, we’re called to lean into it because it’s proof that we’ve got a real vocation – one that Satan figures is worth testing. And if we hold steady, we’ll walk out of the wilderness stronger than when we entered.

By Darcie Lich