Deut. 26:1·11
Ps.91:1-2,9-16
Rom.IO:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13

Lent IC
10:00 Litany
&HE 2B

HOW WE TEMPT JESUS

Credit: Pulpit Resource 3/5/95 & Paul Shearer quote therein.
Previous: 95,98,07

It has long been a custom of the Church on the first Sunday in Lent to read of the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. As a young man, Jesus was tested, enticed. The beginning of adult life is a dangerous time, always. At the beginning of our adult lives is when we are most pre-occupied with the question, "Who am I?". To whom will we listen; who is going to tell us who we are? There are many voices clamoring for our attention.

In today's Gospel, it is the Devil who is trying to tell Jesus what kind of Messiah to be. Notice the nature of the temptations: bread, religious certainty, and political power. All of these are worthy human desires. Yet Jesus resists them; he quotes Scriptures to Satan; and He refuses to be enticed into the world's definitions of how a Messiah should act.

Now what do you make of this strange story? The obvious response is that the story of Jesus's temptations is here to encourage us in our own temptations. He resisted temptation. We should resist as well.

But we should beware when the Bible seems obvious. It is obvious that we need help in our temptations. What may not be obvious is how the Bible names or describes temptations. So I invite you to think of this story, not immediately or obviously about how the Devil tempts us (even if your temptations are lurid and tantalizing), but think more deeply, think of the story as one about how we tempt Jesus, about how you and I are determined to make Him into a Messiah more in tune with how we see our needs, to make Him into our image of how a Messiah ought to behave.

I. If God really wanted to help us, why in heaven's name did He send a Saviour like Jesus who just stands there and quotes Scripture when confronted by our need? If God is love and God is power, why in the name of heaven does God just stand there? Keep that in mind as we ponder this strange story. "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." You have heard this before. Temptation is a function of hunger. Let's have bread as proof that God is our kind of God, a God who responds to our hungry need. What good is religion or praying, or getting out of bed on a cold Sunday, if it doesn't warm our hearts? Give us bread. "We have forsaken everything and followed you," said the disciples to Jesus. "Now what's in it for us?" (Matt. 19:27) When Satan enters the story, this seems to be his main theme: nobody serves God for nothing. "If you are really the Messiah," says Satan, "make bread, minister to their need, because that's really the reason for their worship - the real reason they fall on their knees, finger their Prayer Books, put their dollars in the plate, and wear gold crosses." But can we really force God's hand like that? "Man shall not live by bread alone", not even the bread of a heart religiously warmed with a sense of God's presence.

II. Well, if God won't always give us what our hearts desire, can't God at least give us a sign? What's the harm in a little sign? Here's a world where a believer can look at a butterfly coming out of a cocoon and say, "There's your proof of God." A non-believer looks at the same thing and says, "Here's your universe working just fine, with no need of fairy tales about God". The world seems to be set up that way. You can read it as "This is my Father's world," or, "This is an amazing series of cosmic accidents." Why not a clear, unambiguous sign?

And we're not speaking selfishly here. It's not just for our sake that we would like God to do something, to take a stronger hand in the world, to show a sign. It's for God's sake: it would make things easier for Him as well as for us.

"Teacher, we want a sign," said the disciples. "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign": that was His reply. He won't give us that kind of clear, overwhelming, unambiguous sign.

III. Well, who do we say that He is? The heavenly voice at His baptism and last Sunday at His transfiguration said that He was the Son of God. But what do we make of that, as He just stands there, quoting Scripture, giving neither bread nor a sign? He neither grabs at political power to change the world, nor does He give bread to feed the world ."If you are the Son of God..." - that's a big IF that Satan poses - and Jesus does so little to remove it.

When Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus said that the Son of Man would suffer many things, and be rejected, and be killed. Peter blurted out, "God forbid, Lord. God forbid that you should be a God who would be rejected and suffer and finally die just like us." What good is a God like that? No bread, no sign, no power, no glory! God forbid! Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Get behind me, Satan!"

Can you see? The Satan, the Tempter, is one of His own disciples. The ones who offer Him the greatest temptation, who are desperate to transform Him, are His own people - us. The temptation He resists is us - Jesus's own people, who rather than follow on His own terms, try to make Him over into our own image of who God ought to be, rather than follow Him as the God that the Scriptures say He is.

The good news today is that He is able to resist temptation in the wilderness, or here in the Church. "Get behind me, Satan". He not only quotes Scripture, but he lives the Scriptures, embodies in His own life the God of Whom the Scriptures speak. Later, they tempted Him even as He hung in agony upon the Cross: "If you are the Chosen One of God, save yourself." This time He didn't quote Scripture or demand that we get behind Him. He just hung there. Sometimes, when we ask Him to be our kind of God rather than the God He is, sometimes, in love, He is silent.

It is hard to hear our Lord demand that we get behind Him as He moves down the dark and narrow way toward the Cross. The good news is that He walks that way for us, in spite of us, because of us. It is also our way, this way of the Cross. And the good news arising out of His victory over temptation is that He will go ahead and be God. This Messiah is not pliable to our demands. If He is going to go on and save us, He must first be able to hold out against us and our demands. He will go ahead and be a real God, not some projection of our egos.

We are tempted by the desire to know, and we find it difficult to be content with faith. It is the sin of tempting God by demanding knowledge when He has desired for us to be content with faith. At bottom, you see, it is the difficulty we have in trusting ourselves to God.

Let us pray:
Not our will but thine be done, O Jesus. Don't
just do something, Jesus: stand there. Stand there
for us, faithful even when we are not, true to
Scripture even when we are not. Be the God for us
that we don't deserve and didn't ask for. In spite
of us, don't just do something, but stand there.
Amen.