Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

Many of you are probably familiar with the term Theme and Variations.  This term describes a very common form of musical composition.  When used, this compositional technique first presents a simple theme or idea and, after it is initially stated, repeats that theme but alters it and embellishes it.  There can be multiple variations presented, based on this simple theme, but each variation can always be traced back to the original presentation. Today’s Old Testament reading from Genesis as well as the Gospel reading from Matthew present a form of theme and variations.  You see, there are not really three temptations in our Gospel story.   There are three variations of the same basic theme.  As from the beginning, the devil always tempts his victims to reach for, access, and attain power. As we look at our reading from Genesis, I want to first make clear that this ancient story was written to help explain why, in God’s creation, there came to be sin and death.  It is not a story to be interpreted as literal.