So I'm reading Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana by Anne Rice. I must admit that in my former life of lots of time on airplanes, I really enjoyed her Vampire books--especially the characters' existential or spiritual musings. Of course it's such a metaphor for the author's own faith journey that she's now back to the rich Catholicism of her roots. I had to read her Christ the Lord books to see what they were all about. It's fun to imagine Jesus' boyhood and early adulthood along with her, and to get some detailed insight into Jewish culture and daily life at the turn of the age. Also, I don't think I've ever read anything, except the Gospels of course, written with the first-person voice of Jesus. (I certainly don't think I'd want to try writing that, myself!)
But I'm just now up to the part where the Lord is baptized in the river Jordan by, of course, His cousin John the Baptist. (Now, the theology surrounding John is another fascinating and mysterious topic, but that's for another post.) Jesus then goes into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights (maybe only a solitude-craving Mom would think this, but wouldn't it be interesting to actually try that?), where he is, of course, tempted by the Evil One. I just love her dialogue between Satan and the Son of God. I suppose after thinking it through so carefully in order to write so many books about the perspective of the dark side, Anne has this Satan thing completely figured out.
Check out her take on the Lord's response to Satan's claim that the world is his, and his offer to "let" Jesus rule over it all, as they stand looking over the world:
"Those aren't your nations," I said. "The kingdoms of this world aren't yours. They never were...
"The Lord on High is the One whom I worship, and no one else. You know this, you know it with every lie you speak. And you, you rule nothing and you never have." I pointed. "Look down, yourself, on this perspective that is so dear to you. Think of the thousands upon thousands who rise each day and go to sleep without ever thinking evil or doing evil, whose hearts are set upon their wives, their husbands, their fathers and mothers, their children, upon the harvest and the spring rain and the new wine and the new moon. Think of them in every land and every language, think of them as they hunger for the Word of God even where there is no one to give it to them, how they reach out for it, and how they turn from pain and misery and injustice, no matter what you would have them do! ...
"Look at them, use your powerful eyes to see them everywhere around you," I said. "Use your powerful ears to hear their cheerful laughter, their natural songs. Look far and wide to find them coming together to celebrate the simple feasts of life from the deepest jungle to the great snowbound heights. What makes you think you rule these people! What, that one may falter, and another stumble, and someone in confusion fail to love as he has striven to do, or that some evil minion of yours can convulse the masses for a month of riot and ruin? Prince of this World!
"I'd laugh at you if you weren't unspeakable. You're the Prince of the Lie. And this is the lie: that you and the Lord God are equal, locked in combat with one another. That has never been so! ...
"It is the Lord God who rules," I said. "and He always has. You are nothing, and you have nothing and rule nothing...
"And always, always you seek to drive men to despair, to convince them in your envy and greed that He is beyond their reach, beyond their pain, beyond their need...
"It's I who've come to stop you...It's I who've come to reveal that your despair is a fraud! I'm here to tell one and all that you are no Ruler, and never were, that in the great scheme of things you are no more than a filthy brigand, a thief on the margins, a scavenger circling in impotent envy the camps of men and women! And I will destroy your Fabled Rule, as I destroy you--as I drive you out, stamp you out, blot you out--and not with hulking armies in baths of blood, not with the raging smoke and terror you so crave, not with swords and spears dripping with broken flesh. I will do it as you cannot imagine it--I will do it by family, by camp, by hamlet and village and town...I will do it heart by heart. I will do it soul by soul. Yes, the world is ready. Yes, the map is drawn. Yes, the Scripture goes forth in the common language of the world. Yes. And so I go on my way to do it, and you have struggled here once more--and forever--in vain."
I'm totally fascinated by man's literary interpretation of the devil, by the way. If I could do my undergraduate thesis over, it would be about the devil in literature, from Dante to Goethe to Michael O' Brien and now even Anne Rice. (Realizing, of course, that we're talking about a wide range of--well, levels of literature, here! Wonder what my thesis professor would say about that?) There are so, so many. I love the movie The Devil's Advocate with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves--same thing, fascinating take on the devil.
This whole struggle of Good vs. evil is intellectually fascinating, I think, although actually terrifying when it comes to the real-life fight. The evil one is certainly real, and although I enjoy how the above fictional voice of Our Lord rightly makes him seem small and inconsequential by comparison, he's not so inconsequential when compared to an individual soul. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!!
(P.S. I know, I know...not exactly deep reading for Advent! I promise that next I'll tackle a real spiritual book--I'm thinking St. Teresa of Avila...)
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2 comments:
I loved it that the devil in this book appears looking exactly like Jesus himself but dressed as a rich man. It says a lot about the ways in which we are tempted, doesn't it?
I liked that part too and yes, it's pretty humbling. He's clearly pretty serious about that business of "it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," don't you think?
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