Readings
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13
In my lifetime I have from time to time struggled mightily with temptation. It has come in many forms, the most obvious of which is temptations concerning food and my reluctance to live in moderation. But you know what? What I have most noticed about temptation is that it doesn’t come as a shout, but rather as a whisper expressing half-truths and calling me to what appears to be the “good” life. It is a small and nagging voice lingering in the back of my head, just out of reach. And the more I try to suppress it through will, the more it needles me. Needless to say, whenever I have given in to temptation however, it has never turned out the way I expected and often has led to disappointment, sadness, or pain.
In our scripture for this morning, we come upon Jesus immediately after his baptism. He has just heard God proclaim him as his beloved son and with whom God is well pleased. The scripture shares with us that Jesus is filled with the spirit. This makes perfect sense. Who wouldn’t be inspired and filled with a sense of God’s grace? And because of this Jesus retreats to the wilderness to come to grips with who he is and what that means for himself and for others. Whether metaphorical or literal he is driven into the wilderness.
When we think of the wilderness that Jesus was driven into, we often imagine a desert. But for the people of Jesus’ faith and time, the wilderness was understood to be a life-giving and creative place. It is in the wilderness that Moses experiences the burning bush, and it is in the wilderness that God reveals a portion of his glory to Moses. So it is into the wilderness that Jesus is driven in order to come to grips with what it means to be the Son of God.
It is also in the wilderness that Jesus is tempted by Satan. Now before we go any further, we must recognize that our popular image of Satan as some guy with cloven hooves, a pointy tail, and a pitchfork has little to do with the Satan that Jesus encounters. No, the image of Satan is one of being a liar, a tempter, and a being who draws all of creation towards destruction. Ancient mystics and theologians agreed that if God is the source of all substance, then Satan is the antithesis of this. Satan is the embodiment of nothingness seeking to make you, me, and everything else into nothing. Satan isn’t some scary demon, like we see in horror movies, but instead a quiet and deceptive force at work in the world and in the lives of people.
The temptation we see Jesus wrestle with is just this sort of thing. We read that after 40 days Jesus is famished. He’s so hungry he could eat a rock. And that’s when that small niggling voice comes to him and says, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” And how does Jesus respond? By reminding himself and that voice what scripture has to say in response. But pardon the expression, let’s play devil’s advocate. What might have happened if he had given in to that temptation? Likely he would have been disappointed since the point of Jesus’ miracles are never self-serving. No, it is likely he would have found himself with just a rock and he would have found his sense of self confronted with doubt and uncertainty.
But the temptations do not stop there. Jesus is then tempted with power. That small nagging voice calls him to imagine the nations of the world and offers him all their “glory and authority” if Jesus is but willing to worship him. In other words, Jesus is wrestling with the temptation to power and the sources of power within this world. And again, he quotes scripture that worship of God alone is the appropriate response to power. But what if Jesus had given into the temptation to power? Then again, he would have found himself disappointed and disillusioned as he would have been just one more zealot trying to raise and command an army that likely would have been destroyed by Rome.
And finally, Jesus is tempted by the devil in one last way. And this one is a zinger. Jesus at his baptism heard the voice say, “this is my son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is in light of this that the devil calls him to imagine jumping off the top of the temple and tells him that scripture says that, if he is who he thinks he is, then nothing bad will happen. And Jesus, for the third time, responds with quoting the scripture that says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” This is the acknowledgment that such a behavior communicates not trust, but a fundamental doubt in what has already been revealed to him. And we can surmise that if he had been foolish enough to do it, as a mortal human being, he would have died a pointless death and with him would have died the Gospel.
The scripture then ends with the most disturbing of all sentences. It says the devil departed him until “a more opportune time.” Which we can take to mean that Jesus would once again be faced with temptation.
So what do we do with this scripture? Other than seeing it as an inspiring story about Jesus, is there any relevance to us and our lives today?
I think there is. The very human Jesus had to deal with temptation. He had to deal with the destructive forces inside of him and in the world just like we do. He had to come to grips with the truth that his willpower alone was insufficient to overcome those temptations. Ultimately, even though he is the Son of God, he had to rely on the truth of God revealed to him and within him in order to be who he understood himself to be.
I am powerfully reminded of the various twelve step programs that started with Alcoholics Anonymous. What you may not know is that those twelve steps were, in part, created not only by Bill W. but by an Episcopal priest named Sam Shoemaker. You see the twelve steps are not simply an addiction recovery program, but an inherently spiritual program. In the twelve steps the first three include a recognition that we are not in control of our lives, that there is a higher power that can “restore us to sanity,” and that we need to turn our lives over to that higher power. This my friends is a credo that speaks directly to temptation and sin. It is an invitation to participate in the very thing that Jesus did in today’s Gospel passage.
What a wonderful reminder we have in this scripture as we begin this season of Lent. A reminder that our struggles with temptation and sin are not something we can overcome alone. A reminder that our willpower, by itself, is insufficient to stave off those destructive voices that linger in the back of our mind working mischief in our lives.
Perhaps this is what a season of fasting and penitence is all about. It’s an opportunity to wrestle with the truth of our existence and put our trust in something larger than ourselves. Perhaps this is an opportunity to claim the ethics and morality of Jesus, not as some prooftext for righteousness, but as a pathway towards wholeness of living. Perhaps, just perhaps, this is a path that moves us beyond the niggling voices in the back of our mind and brings us towards sanity. Perhaps this is an invitation into the ground of our being and the grace of our lives in Christ.
My prayer for us, dear ones, is that as we engage with the temptations and struggles of this life that we may find hope, find meaning, and find grace in time of need.