“Daily Temptation”
1 Lent C –
Luke 4:1-13, Romans 10:8b-13
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In the many paintings and images of the temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness, I was struck by one that took some artistic license with the story. In this picture, the setting is not the desert wilderness to which scripture refers, but a mountain wilderness, the crags and peaks and glaciers of the
But below them in the right foreground of the painting is a narrow path down which is rolling a rickety cart full of trading goods pulled a couple of mules or donkeys, a tired tradesman plodding along side, a tall walking stick in his right hand. His head is down watching the road for anything cause his beasts to trip or injure themselves, maybe he’s just tired, his big floppy hat pulled down over his forehead. He does not see the temptation of Christ so absorbed is he in his own travel and thoughts.
But some one does see what’s happening on the crag: the traveler’s dog! Man’s best friend. Alert, almost ready to go on point, tail up, his whole body leaning toward the scene between played out just across the mountain stream from him. The traveler’s dog sees the temptation of Christ taking place in the midst of the daily-ness of life, right there in the middle of a very ordinary business trip.
And so it is for us. Temptation does not announce itself in a flourish of trumpets and a roll of drums with a burst of smoke and flame revealing a figure in red tights, horns and a pitchfork. In fact, the devil in the painting I described is, from a distance, hardly distinguishable from Jesus. But the dog knows something is up. We however, so often walk through the day, eyes to the ground, hat shading our eyes, failing to see the temptations that surround us.
And why that obliviousness is so dangerous lies in the fact that temptations are not obviously and purely evil. Look at the way the devil tempted Jesus. You would think he would have to trot out the fiendishly clever, mega-evil temptation. But look at how he actually tempts him: with things that in any other context would be perfectly OK.
There is nothing wrong with eating when you are famished, there is nothing wrong with receiving glory and authority, there is nothing evil about desiring life-saving protection. So why, in our gospel, do these perfectly natural things what the devil chooses to tempt Jesus with? What’s the problem with being able to make bread when you are hungry – I mean a chapter or two later, Jesus is going to feed the 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes. What’s the catch here? Why is this a temptation?
Because the offers the devil makes to Jesus do not come from the mouth of the Lord. That is why Jesus responds to the devil’s tempting words with the words of scripture, words that DO come from the mouth of the Lord. The real temptation is not eating or ruling or trusting, but the temptation is to obey a command to eat or rule or trust that is not grounded in God’s word or command.
What one of us hasn’t been when in the situation, say as a kid, where a friend has tried to get you to do something you knew was wrong, something that Mom and Dad had told you many times never to do. Let’s say swipe a candy bar from the store. (We get tempted very early, don’t we?)
Now, the temptation at one level is to steal when we know it’s against the commandments. But the deeper temptation has nothing to do with the candy bar. It has to do with obeying your friend rather than your parents. And the most powerful part of the temptation is that you can be just like your parents, you can make decisions on your own, without listening to them.
The result of giving into the temptation of your so-called friend is certainly theft, but even worse is that a wedge is being driven into the most important relationship of your life. You are choosing to break trust and to rupture faith.
The problem in the garden of Eden was not the apple. It wasn’t even the snake. It was a creature who wanted to be creator. A person who believed she no longer needed to listen to the words of the God who made her. It’s a first commandment issue! You shall have no other God but me! Not even, and especially not, yourself!
Even parents are not God, though when you’re little it can be hard to tell the difference. And if you’re a parent, it can be tempting to try act like God with your kids. For older adults, it’s a funny thing -- we (and I mean those of us who are still this side of whatever age your parents are) have some idea that like once you reach a certain age, or retire or start getting social security you sort of get some kind of immunity from temptation. Or at the very least, there’s a lot less to be tempted by.
Don’t believe it! Our basic brokenness, that legacy from the garden, does not diminish with age -- would that it did! The powers and sources of temptation simply change clothes as we age. I once spoke about this with a number of seniors in a long-term care facility. I could see from their faces and their responses the temptation to despair and lose hope was a frequent visitor. Pastor Rolf and I can often sense it during our home and hospital visits. Not everyone is so tempted. And tempted, rarely all the time. But
Temptation, you see, is not only the acquisition of power, wealth, sex, fame -- the list goes on and on. But temptation may also come as a soft, soothing voice whispering, “It’s hopeless, give up, you’re all alone. Why bother? Why struggle?” Such words can be very tempting, at any age. Your business has just gone belly up. A marriage is struggling to survive. Your health is steadily declining and you have had to move from your home of 56 years into a strange place called “assisted living,” whatever that is. Temptation is woven into the daily fabric of life and indeed into the fabric of one’s entire life -- why do think Jesus prayed “lead us not into temptation” in the Lord’s prayer, our daily prayer, if we didn’t face temptation every day?
But Jesus did more than give us this powerful prayer. He resisted the temptations of the devil in the wilderness. And in the story of that resistance gives us hope and direction for our own daily struggles. Turn to the word of God. And Paul bears witness to the saving power of the word today: “because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved . . . No one believes in him will be put to shame.”
The power of God’s word to triumph over death is the same power that is our greatest and surest defense against temptation. Not our works, not our goodness, not our morality, but God’s word alone from which flows the faith that saves and protects.
This is not complicated. But the brokenness that makes us susceptible to temptation would like to make it complicated. You know, when I use the phrase “God’s word” you may be thinking, oh man, I’ve got to find the right scripture passage and then understand it and do something if I’m going to deal with this temptation I’m facing, you don’t even have to go to the Bible.
One word of God is enough. The Word of God. Just say it: Jesus. Say it out loud. Jesus. Call him by name. Call him in faith that he did in the wilderness what you heard today in the good news. Believe that it’s good news. Believe that “when the devil had finished every test, he departed from Jesus.” but remember that “He departed until an opportune time.” Temptation will return. But Jesus never leaves. And when Jesus comes again, temptation will be no more.
Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.
Amen.
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