You know, I think it's fine if you want to use Lent as a way to cut back on sweets, or to try and stop drinking so much caffeine or eliminate nicotine or tobacco from your life. Just remember: God doesn't want your chocolate or your Marlboros. God wants you, all of you, without reservation.
And ain't that good news?
Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was
tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they
were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of
God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Jesus answered him,
"It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all
the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give
their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I
give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be
yours." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your
God, and serve only him.'"
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the
pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw
yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels
concerning you, to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so
that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him,
"It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the
devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Jesus has just been baptized by John in the Jordan. After
decades of preparation – which looked strikingly similar to quietly living his
life in Nazareth, working as a carpenter – Jesus is plunged into his calling, brought
fully into his true purpose and mission on earth. And he begins it not by
turning back down the road toward civilization, but by crossing the Jordan and
walking off into the wilderness.
You may have heard of John Milton’s epic poem, “Paradise
Lost,” which is a retelling of the fall of Adam and Eve. Less well-known is his
sequel, “Paradise Regained.” Not surprisingly, the subject of this poem is
Jesus Christ; however, the work doesn’t focus on his birth, his death, or his
resurrection… but on the subject of our Gospel reading today. John Milton sees,
in the temptation in the wilderness, the rebirth of hope. By giving in to
temptation, Adam and Eve lost, for all of humankind, the possibility of life
lived in God’s presence. By resisting temptation, Jesus Christ restored that
possibility.
The first of the three temptations is interesting, not in
the least because there is nothing at all wrong with what Jesus appears to be
tempted with. Food is vital to life, and after forty days with none, Jesus is
at a point where he must eat if he wants to keep on living. However, it isn’t
the “what” that is the temptation here. It’s the “why.”
Look at the phrase from our reading: “If you are the Son of
God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” One noted Bible translator,
Paul Achtemeier, points out that the word for “if” here, “ei,” means “to be, to exist, to happen, to be present,”
and should this be translated “Since
you are the Son of God…”
This is significant
because it means that Jesus doesn’t have to prove to himself that he is God’s
son, He knows he is. In fact, even the devil is willing to concede the point!
The question, the temptation, is “how should God’s son act?”
Jesus’ response to the devil is an echo of Deuteronomy 8,
verse three: “[God] humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with
manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to
make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word
that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
Jesus is asserting that, from the outset, he exists not to
do his own will, but the will of his Father in Heaven. This is true in this
most basic of ways, getting some food, as it is on the night he is betrayed,
when he prays, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass
from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” It is true this day in the
lonely wilderness, and on the day he hangs on the cross in front of passersby
who both mock him and plead with him to assert his authority and save himself
from death.
The next temptation deals with the basic human desire for
power, or, perhaps more specifically, the question, “if Christ is King, what
does the Kingdom look like?” Does it look and act and feel like a political and
military empire, overpowering and eliminating all lesser kingdoms,
consolidating the planet and all within it under the banner of the one true and
living God? No problem, the devil says, I can make that happen in an instant,
just say the word.
On its surface, this temptation, to worship the devil,
seems ridiculous! How could he even begin to imagine that the son of God would
bow to the devil? How could this be a
temptation?
I don’t know, but here’s what I think: Certainly, any
kingdom Christ establishes will be eternal. And yes, eliminating the cruelty of
the Romans, the hedonism of the Herods, and the rampaging lunacy of the tinier
outlying kingdoms dotting the globe in those days would be a very good thing
for the people suffering under the oppression of despots and emperors and
kings. And sure, the sooner the better.
After all, Jesus had seen the suffering, had felt the
terror of a Roman legion marching in to town, had seen people struggle between
feeding their family or paying taxes. Given who he was, why wouldn’t he want
that to end forever, why wouldn’t he want to bring peace and security and
comfort to as many people as he could, as quickly as he could?
But the price is, of course, too high. In any case, Jesus’
Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, is a different kind of kingdom. If God is God,
then power, especially earthly political and military power, is irrelevant. God
has all power, and as such, doesn’t need to prove that power, doesn’t even need
to have that power acknowledged, it just is,
and it is absolute. Because of this – the complete assurance of power and
authority without qualification, the Kingdom of God turns our expectations of
empire on its head. The Kingdom of God is thus not predicated upon power, but
upon service. Jesus will tell his disciples, and all who follow him, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of
all.”
This third temptation seems another call for Jesus to prove
himself. And again, if we make the devil’s challenge begin. “Since you are the
Son of God…” as I mentioned in the first temptation, then Jesus isn’t proving
anything to himself or to the devil.
They both know full well who he is.
And no, I don’t know how he got to the top of the Temple,
whether he was physically there or there in a vision or in his mind’s eye –
though I suspect that any presence less than immediate and physical would
change this event from a temptation into an academic discussion. I think he is
somehow right there, standing at the highest point of the Temple, the hot
Judean winds whipping at his robes, the noise of the priests and people and
animals and merchant’s stalls faint and far below.
You and I both know who you are, the devil says. Prove it
to all of them, now, and get on with it. Skip all this slow, plodding, teaching
and preaching and healing stuff, jump right past the resurrection and in to
people knowing who you are and worshipping you. Show ‘em the sizzle, get their
attention.
By this time, someone, perhaps a youngster, has happened to
look up and spot Jesus, way up at the very top of the Temple, and soon Jesus
sees everyone below looking up at him, their faces like a field of flowers
turned toward the sun. Imagine just leaning forward a bit, his feet slipping
from the stone of the Temple, the wind rushing past as he falls, and at the
last moment, a band of heavenly angels appearing out of nowhere, boom!, and
catching him!
Ha! Let them try and doubt him then!
If Jesus does something this spectacular, this obvious,
there will be no question in anyone’s mind who he is, and the path to making
him king will be short and sweet. Faith will be a moot point, because the
proof, right before their eyes, will be inarguable.
Not believing in Christ will be as impossible as not believing
in gravity. Jesus would make an end run around the cross and establish his
Kingdom based on the fame and fortune of a very entertaining stunt.
But Jesus understands not only who he is, but what that
means for himself and for the world he came to save. The signs he does are done
not simply as an indication of who he is, but in order bring good news to the
poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Jesus knows that his purpose is not to serve himself. Those
people, those faces staring up at him from far below, it is about them. These
lost sheep need a shepherd, not a stuntman. So he steps back from the edge and
begins the longer, more painful, more terrifying and lonely journey – the one
that leads, inexorably, to Golgatha.
Throughout these forty days of Lent we are called to
contemplate the life of Jesus, his path of service and obedience to God, his
living out his identity as the Son of God. Since as Christians we are called to
continue the Spirit-led proclamation and enactment of God’s kingdom, we must
ask ourselves some identity questions, personally and congregationally.
Who am I? Who am I, really, and what is God calling me to
do? Who are we? Who are we, the church in all its expressions, really, and
what is God calling us to do? As Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, we are
also tempted to make shortcuts, to abandon the task God has given us in favor
of the easy ways, the ways of self-fulfillment, power, and spectacle.
But if all we are is a gathering of like-minded people, who
share a preference for a certain form of theology and worship, then the things
we do should be designed to provide
for our survival, to take care of ourselves. Shortcuts, power grabs and
self-aggrandizement not only make sense, they are vital.
But if we a people whom God has called together to be the Body
of Christ: Called to be Christians, gathered around Word and Sacrament,
Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Sent into the world to spread the Love of God,
then the things we do must be designed to care for the world, for others.
No shortcuts.
Now, unlike Jesus, we will fail at times. We will give in
to the temptation to take the easy way, to grab power, to take care of Number
One at the expense of someone else. Lent is the time for confessing our
failures and redirecting our steps to the way of Jesus. And through the power
of the Spirit, we, too, can resist the temptations of the devil.
Since we are the children of God, let us step away from the
edge, and walk the narrow path that leads to the Kingdom of God.
