Coming out of his hidden life, Jesus walks to the Jordan to be baptised by John. The act symbolises Jesus' will to be converted to a new life of ministering to God's poor. God the Father affirms Jesus' identity as Son: "You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22).

Immediately the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness. There Jesus is face to face with his aloneness and vulnerability - his naked self - in an environment full of physical scarcity and dangers. Jesus lives in spiritual and abject physical poverty in the desert for forty days, in preparation for a new beginning.

There Jesus is right beside the Father. Prayers and fasting nourish the father and son relationship. Trust in his freshly revealed identity and the power of God Almighty enables Jesus to defeat the Tempter.

The Lord has set us an example of how not to give in to temptation. By not forgetting who we are and by acting according to what we are, and with the help of our Creator God and Father and through the Holy Spirit, we can attain absolute submission to God's will and thus participate in Jesus' mission.