As we noted in the welcome, today marks a turning of the page. We have worked our way through the Christmas cycle, and today we begin the Easter cycle. As you remember, each cycle is made of three seasons each with a unique relation to the Holy Day it surrounds. Each cycle begins with a season of anticipation and preparation. The cycle then comes to its high point with a celebration of the Holy Day. The cycle is closed with a season of integration when the unique message and grace of each Holy Day is applied and worked into our life.
The Christmas cycle begins with the season of Advent; the Easter cycle begins with the season of Lent. During Advent, we prepare for the coming of a new child. It is joyful and exciting. During Lent, we prepare for the coming of death – the death of Christ on the cross. Its mood is mournful and somber. It forces us to look at our own mortality. Not so much our physical mortality but the death that comes from sin. It is a season marked by suffering and sacrifice.
Today’s Gospel lesson is a fitting beginning to our journey through Lent, to our inward looking, and to our common lament. We find Jesus fresh out the waters of baptism, energized by the public affirmation of the Father’s love and support, and empowered by the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life. Yet, we find Jesus in one of the toughest spots he could be in. Hear the word of the Lord from Luke 4:1-13.
Forty days without food makes a person slightly more than hungry. Going without food does funny things to our minds and to our bodies. We become grouchy. We become irritable. We get short and easily angered. We become weak. Our bodies ache. We are tired all the time. We have no energy. For me, that’s after just one day without food! I image, that after forty, I would probably be going crazy. I would be delusional, I would be lethargic, I would be apathetic. I really think I wouldn’t care about anything. We can only guess about Jesus’ state of mind, but after 40 days without food, it can’t possibly be good.
It’s no surprise to us that we hear of Jesus’ temptation at his weakest moment. How many of us feel tempted so much more after a long shift at work. In the middle of the night when we just can’t sleep. After a particularly trying time when we have no emotional reserve left. When we are faced with needs, and have no money. It always seems to happen that way. When we are weakest, then we are tempted strongest. So it is for us, and so it was for Jesus.
He is tempted, not once, not twice, but three times. He is tempted with food. It would certainly taste great right now. As he thinks about bread, he can smell it. He can feel his stomach getting full. His mouth begins to water. He is tempted with all the kingdoms of the earth and authority over them. He can see himself – the King of the Jews – leading his people out of oppression and into a new era of the Kingdom of God. He is tempted to through himself off the highest steeple of the temple. He can just feel himself falling – wind in his hair – when from no where comes a loud trumpet and the hand of the Father reaches out of the clouds and snatches him gently from the clutches of death. That would all be so amazing. It would all be so enticing. It would all be so tempting.
We spend much of our time trying to understand Jesus temptations individually, it seems that we first have to understand temptation generally. When step back to look at the forest of temptation rather than the trees of Jesus’ specific temptations we find this temptation set in the context of Jesus ministry and God’s mission. It is a mission for salvation to the world. It is a ministry to the poor, the sick, the captives and the oppressed. Jesus’ ministry is God’s mission and must be accomplished God’s way. Temptation is always, most foundationally, a choice between God’s way and my way.
Understanding that temptations are always a question of God’s way or my way, Jesus’ temptations begin to make a little more sense. Each temptation is a confrontation between God’s way of bringing salvation to the World and an alternative, more appealing, perhaps maybe even an easier or quicker way.
Consider the first temptation. It is a temptation to make bread from stones. Bread is the common stuff of life. It is the stuff that gets a person from day to day. Sure, Jesus was hungry, but so where a whole lot of others. Jesus ministry is to preach good news to the poor – to those who are starving for just a bite of bread. If Jesus could turn a stone – the most plentiful things around – into bread then maybe, just maybe he could feed the world. That would be good news. Jesus could have ended world hunger once and for all! That would be awesome! That’s not a bad thing at all is it? Well, except for the small part about God’s way.
“People do not live by bread alone.” It is not physical bread for which people truly crave. God’s plan was for Jesus to be the bread. People were hungry and this temptation could have filled their stomachs. But God’s grace is about so much more than just full stomachs. Jesus was the bread. Jesus was the one to be broken for the many. By the stones, their stomachs could be filled, but only by the cross could their souls be filled. God’s way? Or an easier way?
Jesus’ ministry wasn’t just about meeting needs though. It was certainly to preach good news to the poor and healing to the blind, but Jesus’ ministry was also to the captives and the oppressed. What better way is there to release the captives and free the oppressed than to have power over all the kingdoms? As the one with all the political power, Jesus really could release captives and put an end to oppression. No longer would we have to deal with racism. No longer would we have to deal with classism. No longer would there be the problems of addiction and abuse. No longer would there be child workers in sweatshops and no longer would the practice of genocide be a problem. If Jesus could rule over all the kingdoms of the world, he could implement his agendas. He could invoke his rules. He could define life by his ethics. It would be great wouldn’t it?!?!
The problem is God is not interested in a kingdom of the world approach to ministry. He’s not one bit concerned with gaining enough power or votes to impose his rules. He really couldn’t care less about political power or lording his ways over others. Those are things common in the kingdom of the world, but God is not about kingdom of the world things. God is about kingdom of God ways. Sure, Jesus could have legalized or legislated or lorded over his kingdom, but that was not God’s way. God’s way is not politics or force, God’s way is not gaining power. The kingdom of God is about giving power away in sacrificial love. The kingdom of God is made real only by the cross. God’s way? Or a less costly, less painful, more beneficial way?
Lastly, Jesus ministry was to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He came so that the world might see God. He came that God would be seen by all the world. And so, while standing at the top of the highest point in the temple, Jesus is tempted to get on with it. It’s been thirty years already. Isn’t it about time the world sees the Father? He has just been affirmed as God’s son. God has just declared his tremendous love for his son. Surely, no Father would let his son fall to the ground. If Jesus threw himself off the temple, surely the Father would reach down from heaven and catch Jesus. It was the temple. There were many people there. Everyone would see what happened. No one could deny having seen God. Finally, God would be revealed.
But God’s hand cannot be forced. God’s word cannot be twisted to make it prove what we want it to prove. God’s word will be proved true and God’s loving face will be seen. Jesus must remain faithful to God’s way. Sure he could jump, and maybe God would catch him, and maybe all the people would see and be amazed, but God is not just interested in people knowing his love, but also his power…even power over death - not just power to prevent death, but power to restore life. Only by confronting the vilest evil the world has to offer – death on a cross – and transforming it into resurrection and life, is the boundless love of God revealed. God’s way? Or a safer, more humane way?
Temptation is always this struggle between God’s way and our way. Jesus was confronted by a variety of “better” alternatives. We are really no different than Jesus. We are tempted too. We always have to choose between God’s way and our “better” ways. The difference is that sometimes we fall short of God’s perfect way. The message of Lent is that we have to remember that sometimes we fall short. None of us is perfect; none of us live up to the high standard of God’s perfect plan. We must repent of our own sinfulness. To repent is simply to turn. It could be said to repent is to re-turn. In the Christian walk, we will inevitably fall, but when we fall, we must always get up facing the cross. We must refocus our life on God’s way – God’s good and perfect and holy way. We must refocus our life on the way of the cross.
In every one of Jesus’ temptations, God revealed His way to Jesus by His word in scripture. “The Scriptures say, ‘People don’t live by bread alone.’” “Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the LORD your God and serve only him.’” “The scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’” We have been given the scripture too, but we also have something else. God has revealed His way to us by His Word in human form. In Christ, we have the perfect revelation God. In the cross, we have the perfect revelation of God’s way. God’s way is always the cross. God’s way is always sacrificial. God’s way is always love. God’s way is always the giving away of power. We are always called to lift up, not lord over, those around us. The way of God is the way of the cross.
Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit that filled him. Jesus had the grace and faith to trust and choose God’s revealed way. God has given us, too, His Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who illuminates God’s path. It is the Spirit who gives us the wisdom to discern between our way and God’s. It is the Spirit who strengthens us to resist temptation and to choose God’s way. The same Spirit that filled Christ and empowered him on the way to the cross, fills us and empowers us on the way of the cross.
Jesus was faithful to God’s way – the way of the cross – even when it seemed there might be easier, or safer, or less costly, or less painful ways. The real question, especially during Lent, is: will we, like Christ, by the power of the Spirit, be faithful to the way of the cross? To the glory of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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