Introduction: The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is a pivotal event in His life. It is recorded in Mark, Luke, and Matthew. This week we read Matthew’s account. It comes right after Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan and before His formal ministry begins. Hear now the word of the Lord.
Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards He was famished. The tempter came and said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But Jesus answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took Him to the holy city and placed Him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to Him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command His angels concerning you,’
and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to Him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.’”
Then the devil left Him, and suddenly angels came and waited on Him.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, for us the thought of withdrawing from our comforts is so foreign. Help us to understand how You model the struggle and the victory over our Lenten temptations. Amen.
I want you to notice something very important in this story: the timing of the events. First, Jesus is baptized, and then the Spirit leads Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. But before He is tempted, He fasts for forty days and forty nights. Jesus is preparing Himself for the battle. He is modeling a behavior that we should imitate. Jesus is resting, pausing, taking some time off before digging into the hard work of fighting off the devil and the strenuous work of His ministry.
Perhaps the best-known modern literary treatment of the temptation of Christ is “The Grand Inquisitor’s Speech” from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. During the Spanish Inquisition, Jesus appears on earth. He is recognized and heals many, but then He is arrested. During the night, the Grand Inquisitor comes to Him. He says that Jesus failed. He accuses Jesus of missing His chance in the wilderness. He could have acted to change all of human history (feeding the hungry, forcing people to choose the good and taking control of the world as was supposedly intended); but instead, He resists Satan, does nothing and allows hunger and sin to continue. For this, says the Inquisitor, He deserved to be executed.
Did Jesus miss His chance? I don’t think so. I think that Jesus conquered evil in the wilderness, but before He could do that He meditated and fasted. He prepared Himself by emptying Himself.
If you think about it, after the baptism by John, Jesus might have been anxious to start His formal ministry. The baptism must have given Him a burst of energy, but before He can jump into His work, the Spirit leads Him off to the wilderness.
Lent is the time when we are called to pull back, to rest and examine our lives, to access our faith and renew our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. During this season, we are to repent—to turn to God and release those material things that we think we control, but actually control us.
The power of Lent is in the wilderness of letting go. Lent calls us to pause, to reflect, to disengage. I know that I need time to pause before every important task. Even when I’ve finished my research for a sermon, I can’t write it until I’ve had some ruminating time. I often find that if I sleep on it, I can get up and write the sermon easily.
Lent reminds us that disengaging is healing. Without refueling and re-energizing, our spiritual, physical, and intellectual lives suffer. As we unplug and unwind, we find that the Spirit leads us to a place of spiritual rest to prepare us for what lies ahead.
So in the season of Lent, where do we begin to disengage? Probably the best place to start is with our calendars. If you have a calendar with you, you might pull it out. Look at the dates and activities you have already scheduled for the next six weeks. Is there a day of the week where there is some open time? It might be a different day every week in the next six, but write down Lenten rest on those days. Do it right now, or immediately when you get home to your calendar.
If you are resisting this idea, remember you may be fighting with God on this one, and I’ve found that I never win when I fight with God!
Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says that he has a weekly date with his wife. This is a famous author who is in huge demand, but every year, he goes through his appointment calendar and writes those dates in before he writes anything else. He doesn’t write the word “date” or his wife’s name. He writes “VIP meeting.” When someone asks him to schedule something else on those days, he looks at his calendar and says, “I’m sorry. I have a meeting that night.” Of course, there are times when he has to break the date, but surprisingly few times once he has it on his calendar.
I’m not asking you to make a year-long commitment. I’m suggesting finding one day a week throughout Lent which lasts six weeks. Once you have made the time commitment, you can pray and think and explore what kinds of activities relax and renew you.
If you would like to spend a day retreating, I can give you the names of several places right here and others within an hour of here. If you would like to read a good book, check “Pearl’s Picks” on the Montgomery Library web page. If you want to see a movie, do it. All these activities can be restoring, but I’d also ask you to consider the three traditional Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and giving.
In the inspiring book, This I Believe: Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women, Susan Cosio writes, “I believe in a daily walk just to listen.” A chaplain at a medical center, a writer, and a mother of three, Susan Cosio says:
I believe I have to remove myself from the voices that barrage me in order to find my true compass. This includes a daily walk just to listen. The guiding light of my life is the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. In our hectic, noisy world, I have to slow down or withdraw in order to hear it. Prayer, I have discovered, is less about what I say and more about what I hear…
Discerning God’s voice is not so hard when I make time to listen closely. Sometimes I hear it as a sudden insight when I step back from a situation. Other times, it’s a deep sense of my priorities, or a conviction about something I should do or say. I often take a walk with a pencil and notepad in my pocket, and return with notes for a speech or a piece of writing. Later, someone tells me she was moved by the words I’d scribbled on that paper, and I know my prompting came from God.
My pursuit of spiritual truth is not about religion as much as it is about relationship…
I believe in a daily walk to listen because that is when I am close to God, that is when I find my way. And I am most at peace when I tune out the voices of the world long enough to hear the still, small voice of God directing me. “Be still,” Psalm 46 reminds me, “and know that I am God.” [This I Believe: Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women, “A Daily Walk Just to Listen,” Susan Cosio, (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), 43-45]
The second discipline of Lent is fasting, which has really gone out of vogue, especially since experts have been telling us that if you fast, you will just over eat at your next meal. There is new some research that challenges that assumption.
US News and World Report carried an article called “Diet Today, Don’t Tomorrow: Fasting and skipping meals might actually be good for you.” The article says, “You’ve heard the reason not to—you’ll only eat more later on. But people don’t automatically replace all the missed calories at their next meal, says David Levitsky, a professor of nutrition and psychology at Cornel University…Controlling for other behaviors that make a difference in the risk of heart disease, the researchers found that fasting seemed to be significant: If you fasted, you had a smaller chance of having heart disease. ‘The thought from a biological perspective is that fasting rests the metabolism for a day and re-sensitizes the body’s cells to glucose and insulin,’ says study author Benjamin Horner. [Katherine Hobson, “Diet Today, Don’t Tomorrow: Fasting and skipping meals might actually be good for you,” US News and World Report, January 28/February 4, 2008, 64]
Whether we fast for a meal or a day, the exercise reminds us what hunger is. It’s easy to forget what it feels like to be really hungry, not just ready for lunch. It’s worth remembering because just today, 28,000 children will die of starvation or preventable diseases around the world. Just today.
The third traditional discipline of Lent is giving. We give of ourselves that others might live and have hope. In Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the Storycorps Project, the man who began the project, Dave Isay, writes about how it all began. He writes about one particular experience that so profoundly affected him that he made the recording of personal stories his life’s work. He says:
…A few years [ago] I produced a radio documentary about the last flophouses on the Bowery in New York City, where homeless men slept in prison-cell-size rooms covered in chicken wire for as little as five dollars a night. Later, the documentary was turned into a book of photographs and oral histories. I remember bringing early proofs of the book into a flophouse and sharing them with the residents. One of the men looked at his story, took it in his hands, and literally danced through the halls of the old hotel shouting, “I exist! I exist!” I was stunned. I realized as never before how many people among us feel completely invisible, believe their lives don’t matter, and fear they’ll someday be forgotten. [Dave Isay, In Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the Storycorps Project, (New York: Penguin Press, 2007), 254]
It is amazing how much effect a small gift of time or money can make.
Lent is about withdrawing from life to be with God in the wilderness. We are so used to all our creature comforts that giving up any of them can feel like we’ve entered the a scary and foreign place, but in the wilderness, we can be renewed. In our weakness, God’s strength is perfected. Amen.
