Luke 4:1-13
Introduction
We are in the season of Lent—a season of cultivating, letting go, and becoming. But in order for us to become, we have been taught, from our text for today, we first have to go through a wilderness wandering; we have to sacrifice and fast, we have to fight with the devil and resist temptations.
Lent, therefore, has become known as a season of divinely inspired “pop quizzes” designed to see how good or bad we are, how right or wrong we get it, how faithful or unfaithful we can be. And that is emphasized by the concept of “giving up something for Lent”—chocolate or potato chips—a delectable something we love to indulge in, given up so we can put our faith in Jesus to the test. But is that what Lent is about? Is that what God wants us to do—pass God’s divinely inspired “pop quizzes”? I really don’t think so.
I mean, if you want to give up a delectable something and it helps you understand at a deeper level who you are, and whose you are, fine by me. If it helps you cultivate and let go so you bear good fruit and flourish—great. But if it’s to prove to God, or even yourself, you are worthy to be God’s child, then I would encourage you to reconsider what exactly Lent is.
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Last Sunday we stepped off into the season of Lent with the call to consider what in our lives needs cultivating. This week we step further into the wilderness and we encounter the devil himself and his temptations. But the temptations don’t have to be a test of will or faithfulness. The temptations can actually be a means of discovering what in us needs let go.
Move 1
Our text for today makes me wonder… What if Jesus had said, “Ok. Sure, I’ll do it?” What if he had turned just one tiny stone into a small loaf of bread? Why not fill the emptiness? Not a feast or even a big loaf. No butter or jam—just a little something. He hasn’t eaten in 40 days—he’s hungry. What if Jesus had accepted the glory and authority of all the kingdoms of the world? They are rightfully his anyway, so would it have mattered? And while we are at it, why not free fall into the arms of the angels if it’s available? Sounds pretty great.
What if Jesus had said, “Ok. Yes, I’ll do it?” Would Jesus have been less beloved? Would he have no longer been God’s Son? Would Jesus have been a failure? These sound like questions of idle curiosity, but they’re not because though Jesus did not say, “Ok. Yes, I’ll do it,” I have. And I’m going to venture to guess you have as well.
Each of us has known the wilderness wandering where we have hungered to be satisfied, hungered for power, for glory. We can’t turn stone into bread but we sure have filled our emptiness and fed our hunger with something less than nutritious and life-giving, something other than what we know God would want for us.
This is to say nothing of the times we know better but we don’t do better, when we take the easy way out, a shortcut through life. And it’s easy to justify because “everyone does it.” No harm. No foul. No one got hurt. Besides, I deserve it, and no one knew.
The emphasis here is that Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness are not all that different than our temptations—making the wilderness not so much a place as it is a situation. Satan is not asking Jesus if he wants bread—Satan is saying, “Hey if you are who you say you are, then just do something you are able to do. No harm. No foul. No one will get hurt. You deserve it.”
Just like Jesus we are presented with the challenge— Who am I? What is my life about? Which means in the wilderness there will always be a tempting voice quick to offer an answer, an idea, a way.
Jesus was tempted in every way as are we. The difference is that Jesus said, “No,” and sometimes we’ve said, “Ok. Yes, I’ll do it.” But here is the question we need to ask ourselves… In that moment when we have said, “Ok. Yes, I’ll do it” are we loved less by God? Are we somehow less God’s son or daughter? Do we get God’s big red “F” marked on our divinely inspired Lenten quiz? Some might say, “Yes. That is what God says.” Really? Ok then. Let’s turn the questions around.
If when we are tempted in the wilderness—given the divinely inspired quiz—and we say, “No. Not gonna do it”, are we more beloved? Are we more God’s child? Have we passed the quiz and become a divine spiritual success? Some might still say, “Yes” but is that really what God is trying to get us to? Is God expecting, demanding, requiring divine spiritual success from us? Or is God wanting us to get to something else? Is God maybe wanting us to realize that who we are, and whose we are, is not contingent upon what we do right or wrong?
That duality between good and bad, right and wrong, passing and failing, often underlies our understanding of temptation—the divinely inspired pop quiz— with God and us waiting the results of our score. But this idea of scorekeeping by God, and us, is what gives Lent its bad reputation and it is what so often keeps us stuck from realizing that it is only when we face our temptations—really let them confront us— that we discover what we need to let go of so we can then truly become who God intends for us to be.
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Last week emphasized how Lent is about cultivating what needs cultivating so we can produce good fruit. And now with this account of Jesus’ time in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, we are being confronted with the need to consider what it is in our lives that is tempting us, that is hindering us, that is making us believe if we are not perfect, if we don’t get it right, somehow we are not who God says we are—because we need to let go that way of thinking and believing, because it’s not what God is trying to cultivate in us.
Move 2
Every year at Lent we hear this story of Jesus’ temptations, either from the Gospel of Matthew or Luke. The dust of Ash Wednesday becomes the sand of the wilderness, the place of temptation—all of it bringing us face to face with the devil himself—who will win?
Well we know of course, and because we do often we forget what has happened just before this time in the wilderness. Jesus is baptized by John at the Jordan. And at his baptism the Spirit descended upon him and the heavenly voice declared, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
That’s the reality before the wilderness temptations, before any test results are in. And that is the reality for us as well. The relationship, the status, the belovedness of God has already been established. Whether Jesus said yes or no did not determine his sonship, his belovedness, or how pleased God was. The temptations, the victory over the devil, did not determine how God would know Jesus. But they did determine how Jesus would know himself.
In struggling with these temptations, and learning how we overcame them, Jesus begins to know himself, to know he is to the Messiah. The voice, the declaration that spoke at his baptism, confirmed his baptism, his sonship, his belovedness. And now Jesus himself believes it. Jesus’ wilderness experience was him becoming what he was to become. He then owns this, and declares it, in his first public teaching—the text that immediately follows our text for today— where he comes out of the wilderness, goes to his hometown synagogue, and reads from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor….” Concluding it all by saying, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
The temptations were not a pass-fail exam for Jesus. Rather the temptations became the resource that led Jesus to understand himself. And that’s what temptations are for us as well. Every temptation reveals a struggle, a need, once fertile ground now turned to stone. Every temptation is a chance for us to know what we need to let go of so we can become again, and flourish. Every temptation is an opportunity to rediscover again our identity as a beloved child of God, in whom God is well pleased, because it’s not about how right or wrong we are, it’s about knowing and believing there is no temptation—passed or failed— that will make God love us any less or could make God love us more.
Conclusion
The temptations did not establish Jesus’ sonship, they helped reveal and confirm it. It’s the same for us, because if that is Jesus’ way then it is also our way. Our responses to the temptations of life, whether “yes” or “no,” tell us something about ourselves. They offer information about who, and whose, we believe ourselves to be. They reveal where we place our trust, how we see the world, and our way of being towards being in the world.
In facing our temptations we discover our hunger and emptiness. We find out where it hurts and see how we act out of our wounds. We discover our weaknesses. And in facing our temptations we can become awakened and self-aware, we can discover what is in us we need to ask God to help us let go of. With each temptation we learn a little more about ourselves. And that is important and faithful information to know and have so with God’s help we can begin to let go.
And that is Lent. Not a divinely inspired quiz, but rather a divinely inspired time of discovery that reveals to us what we need help letting go of.
Lent offers an opportunity for a new life and a new way of being as beloved children of God because cultivating, letting go, healing, producing good fruit, flourishing can only happen after such a discovery has been made. And such discoveries are made when we commit to this Lenten wilderness wandering…and come face to face with all of its temptations. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, March 13, 2022, Lent 2
Holy God, as we continue on in this season of Lent, as we continue on in these season of life, we know and understand challenges and struggles, and even temptations will come—for they always come. And when they do, we sometimes are able to meet them faithfully, but we admit other times we do not. And we need you to meet us again in our wilderness, and pull us back to the path that takes us through the wilderness to the place of new life you are surely taking us.
We give you thanks O God for the miraculous example of Jesus—becoming human, yet fully divine; obedient to your word while in this world; coming as the Savior the world needs.
And still your plan went further, showing us through his example, how to face challenges, struggles, and temptations.
There is great comfort for us in Jesus’ ways of being in the world but not of the world. Because Jesus experienced temptation and was victorious, he shows us again and again how he can help us and guide us in our times of temptations.
He was tempted with challenges about his ministry, confronted with temptations about his identity—and each time Jesus could have taken shortcuts. He could have used his full divinity and made it easier on himself. But instead he chose the long way, the hard way, the way of the cross, of suffering, of refusing the shortcut, and living out your call for him. He refused to compromise and showed that the way of faithful obedience will always be the path through the wilderness.
So help us we pray, to see as Christ sees—seeing your way even when another looks so appealing. Empower us too, to look deeply at the temptations we are drawn to, so that we might discover what needs cultivated and what needs let go.
Hear now the prayers of our hearts, shared with you here and now, in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of the one who shows us the way, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray saying, “Our…”