In Jesus Holy Name February 17, 2013
Luke 4:1-13 Lent I
“Your Adversary the Devil, Again?”
When I was a boy, I was told, "Baptists don't do Lent." No one knew why. I suspect that it was an anti-Catholic thing which I pray we are over. It was the old argument, "whatever they do, we don't!" - a curiously convoluted, twisted and unhealthy way to decide on religious practices. And what did we do on Ash Wednesday? We put ashes on our foreheads.
Whatever the reason for "not doing Lent," I think it is a great loss for any Christian not to prepare for Good Friday and Easter. Every spring the baseball players prepare for the season with spring training; every spring ordinary people prepare for summer by doing "spring cleaning." So why shouldn't Christians prepare for the most important events in Jesus' ministry - what he did for us on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, what he did for us on Golgotha's cross and at the empty tomb?
After his baptism, Luke tells us, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
Note that Jesus along with John the Baptist had just heard God’s voice from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, Listen to Him”. These are the same words the Disciples, Peter, James and John heard in the gospel reading last Sunday on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit. And that’s when the Tempter came. That is so true to life. You go off to a church retreat. You have a spiritual mountaintop experience. You’re feeling closer to God and closer to others than you have ever felt before. Beware! That is the time when you may be the most vulnerable to temptation.
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. He was vulnerable. A physical need needed to be met. And so the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Friends, Satan knew very well who Jesus was. He had already tried to kill Jesus when he was an infant using the political power of an evil king.
The temptation was a reasonable response to Jesus’ hunger. He had power over nature. And stones were abundant there in the wilderness. He could use his extraordinary gifts to meet his physical needs. But Jesus knew that was not what he was sent to do. His gifts were to be used to do the work of his Father. He was to complete the promise of the angel to Mary and Joseph and the world. Do you remember: “you shall give him the name Jesus because he will save His people from their sins….. He will be “Emmanuel….” God with us. So Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
And that’s true. Many people today have their physical needs met but they are shriveling and dying on the inside. Physical needs have an urgency, but spiritual needs are every bit as critical. So many people are suffering from spiritual hunger… drifting here and there, trying other cleverly crafted by the human teachings that never satisfy. (Eph. 4:14)
Having failed to tempt Jesus with his stones to bread routine, the devil takes a different tact. He leads Christ up to a high place and shows him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he says to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
Few people can resist being handed the power of committee chairmanships in the US Capitol, in corporations. Will they weigh the cost to their integrity or will the desire for power shade their ethical and moral core. It is every politician’s dream. And you have to wonder how many politicians have been willing to bow down to Satan in order to achieve such dreams. Now imagine, Satan comes and offers Jesus the power to rule all the nations of the world. Imagine the status, the adulation, that would come with ruling over all the kingdoms of this world?
All he would have to do is “bow down to the devil”. But it was too high a price for him to pay. Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
The devil then leads him to Jerusalem and has him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he says, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
And Jesus answers, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
You do understand, don’t you, that this was exactly what Satan was doing? He was testing Jesus. That is what temptation is. It is a test. Fail the test of temptation and you become even weaker spiritually. Pass the test and you become infinitely stronger.
Isn’t that why we pray the Lord’s prayer….deliver us from the “evil one”. Do not let us be lead into Temptation. Keep the evil one away. Do you remember Martin Luther’s morning prayer?
“Keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please you. Into your hands I commend my body and soul and all things. Let your holy angel be with me, that the wicked foe may have no power over me. Amen.”
I recently read a story about a little boy named Bobby who desperately wanted a new bicycle. His plan was to save his nickels, dimes and quarters until he finally had enough to buy a new 10-speed. Each night he asked God to help him save his money. Kneeling beside his bed, he prayed, "Dear Lord, please help me save my money safe so that I might have my new bike, and please, Lord, don't let the ice cream man come down the street again tomorrow."
All of us know what it is to enter the wilderness of temptation. Temptation is part and parcel of the human condition.
Temptations are almost always based on our own legitimate wants and needs. Desire for food, desire for human intimacy, or desire for approval from others. These are normal, perhaps even innocent, desires, but they do at times make us more vulnerable to temptation. C. S. Lewis in his Screwtape Letters (1943) which are fictional letters, tells the story of how one devil talks to another about the process Satan uses to tempt us.
The devil does not plant foreign temptations in us. The devil has never tempted me to kill my enemies or to sleep with my neighbor, because those temptations would be so far removed from my own code of ethics. But the devil might plant a judgmental thoughts in my mind, especially if I’m having trouble with. Then his temptations will encourage me to take it to the next step. The result? Gossip springs from my lips. It is an attempt to destroy the other’s character.
Or the devil might whisper a thought of doubt about your spouse’s devotion….. even though you just received an unusually large 4 foot high Vermont Teddy Bear….. See where that thought leads you. The devil can give us innocent suggestions, opening the door to further suggestions, which will lead us down a path we should have never chosen to walk.
I used to believe that children were born pure and innocent. Then I became a parent. Now I believe in original sin.
If you have ever been a parent or grandparent you & I have all seen this event. We have a son, daughter or grandchild at about three years old. You are outside doing some yard work one afternoon. Your child is outside to play while you trimm the hedges. Holding their hand, you might kneel down beside him so that you could look at each other face to face. Slowly and carefully you say, "Now, Kevin, you can play here in our front yard. You can go next door and play in your friend’s front yard. You can ride your Big Wheel up and down the driveway. You can go in the back yard and play with the dog or play on your swing. You can go back inside and watch television. You can stay here and watch me trim the hedges.
These are all the things you have my permission to do. But you can NOT go out into the street. It is very dangerous there. You cannot play in the street. Do you understand what I’m saying?" And Kevin solemnly nods his head. "Yes”, He answers. You let go of his hand and he runs straight to the curb, put one foot in the street, and then turns his head toward you and smiles, as if to say, "You Foolish mortal”!
I know that is the way God must have felt in the Garden of Eden. To paraphrase the country singer, what part of NO do we not understand? What is there in our genetic makeup that seems to be drawn to the forbidden, that’s preoccupied with whatever is denied to us, that ignores the tremendous amount of freedom we enjoy and instead focuses on the limitations of our lives and inevitably, almost instinctively, rebels against them? We certainly don’t get that from studying the life of Jesus, do we? Does the devil make us do it, as we so often claim?
John Piper, theologian and author, states that sin (lust for example) "gets its power by persuading me to believe that I will be more happy if I follow it.” Gossip for example gets its power by persuading me that I really “am better” than that other person just down the pew. The power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me happier.
Notice that in each of these temptations was an offer to make Jesus fulfilled or happier. He is tempted but passed the test with flying colors. AAAH! But that is not the end of the story. Look at the words of Luke, “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him UNTIL AN OPPORTUNE TIME.” Satan wasn’t finished with Jesus. None of us ever gets to the point where we are beyond being tested.
In John 6 Satan returned with the same temptation to “Kingship”… (after feeding the 5000 Jewish people who were waiting for a Jewish King, like David….) We hear the crowd say… ”This must be the expected prophet…. and they wanted to make him King by force.” Even when Jesus was struggling in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing that his arrest was imminent…. Jesus prayed for strength to face the cross.
You might remember that a few years ago during Lent we watched Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of The Christ. In that film we saw the nature of the Tempter quite vividly. It was not a scene from the Bible. It is a fictional account, but it is quite powerful. Jesus is shown at Gethsemane, agonizing over his betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. A shadowy figure appears and says to him, “No one was meant to save so many. No one can. It is too much. You cannot.”
The “presence” whispers these words over and over, (repeat the words) trying to split Jesus from his relationship with God. Finally, Jesus gets up, steps on the head of a snake, the tempter has dropped near him, and goes off. The Tempter is unable to turn Jesus from his destiny and calling. There would be other temptations later. But for now, for the moment, the Tempter had been defeated.
You know that the next temptation was for Jesus to “come down off the cross…. And we will believe you.” Really? This was the “hour” for which Jesus was born….to carry your sins and mine to the cross so that his holy and righteous blood would cover, erase, from God’s Holy presence our acts of disobedience.
What can Luke tell us? There are some common things we can learn about temptation. The first is that temptation is universal. We joke about temptation, because it is part of the human condition. Everyone has to deal with temptation.
Here’s the second thing we need to see. With God’s help temptation is resistable. The biggest lie that the Tempter tells us is that we are helpless when faced with temptation. We do not have the strength that Christ had to resist temptation, but it can be done, which is why want each of you to be reading God’s word or be in a bible class….so that His word will be near you, on your lips and in your heart.
Of course, There will always be “an opportune time” even in the moments of our last earthly breath. The ultimate key to reducing temptation’s hold on your life is to love God with all your heart, all you mind, and with all your strength; & then Love your neighbor as yourself.” That will always push selfishness to the side. Imitate Jesus.
