Today is the first Sunday in Lent;
Lent being, as we know, the main season of fasting and penitence in the church’s year.
The other penitential season of course is Advent, but Advent sadly has been more or less overtaken by Christmas, and unless we try really hard, Advent doesn’t feel very penitential anymore; so we really do need to make the most of Lent as time when we re-set our priorities, and our relationship with our faith and with our Father God.
The gospel reading for today effectively shows us Jesus doing just that – I mean, defining his relationship with God -because we have to remember that these scenes, the scenes of his temptation take place right at the beginning of his ministry.
Jesus is found in the desert; St Mark says, the Spirit threw him out into the desert; the Greek word, ekbalei, is the same word that “ballistic missile” comes from. The desert is always seen as the place where trials and temptations take place; and there Jesus is on his own with nothing between him and God, or, indeed, between him and the evil either.
There are three temptations, aren’t there? And it is noticeable that in two of them - the first and the third, the Devil – the tempter - begins with an interesting phrase:
“If you are the Son of God ….”
If you are the son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread;
If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple …
IF you are the son of God -
This is attacking Jesus right at the point when he was working out his own identity – his own ministry, under God, in the human environment. What did it mean, in reality, that he had, in the words of the creed, descended from heaven, to show us God in human form, to show us how to be?
How in fact was he meant to negotiate being divine and human at the same time? What did being God incarnate actually mean?
The Devil, it seems, is quite anxious to define the terms of this engagement for him. And that, I reckon, is partly what these temptations are really for.
So the Devil – evil personified – tempts Jesus in three ways.
First of all, over food. Since Jesus is absolutely starving hungry, why not do something about it? Why not use his special powers? As God’s anointed one to turn a stone – there are plenty of those around – into a loaf of bread and give himself something to eat.
After all, I can imagine the devil saying,
You are important.
You need to keep going.
You deserve it.
And I find myself here quoting from an awful lot of tv advertising according to which we deserve quite a lot of things, from delicious, melting chocolate, melt in the mouth ice cream, silky smooth hair conditioner, to a lovely holiday in the sun – because you’re worth it, because you owe it to yourself.
As good a line in temptation as any. As if we don’t know what we are worth already.
So, temptation around food. That’s the first one.
Second temptation:
Why bother with God, says the Devil? Why not just get on board with me? As you know, I hold most of the positions of power already.
You and I together could really go places.
As God’s son Jesus clearly does have very important things to do, and clearly really does need both power and influence to be able to do them.
The Devil here is making a claim;
He is claiming that he does already hold practically universal political power, and all Jesus has to do is forget rectitude and sign up.
Cynically, the Devil was 90% right, both then and now –
And unfortunately, current events around the world would seem to indicate that good is losing out to evil, in various places. So, the temptation of power. I think this temptation is called “the ends justify the means”, probably.
Then the third temptation, what I think of as the “superman” temptation. Why not pull a really impressive stunt? Get yourself established straight away as the strongest and toughest person around.
After all, you know that God will protect you because the scriptures say so. Apart from anything else, this is a very clever way of quoting scripture because the scriptures do say so ……
Several psalms reassure us;
He will cover you with his wings, and you will be safe under his feathers;
His faithfulness and truth will be your shield and buckler.
He will give his angels charge over you, to bear you in all your ways;
There are quite a few passages like that.
So why not try it out, and see what happens?
And what’s wrong with that exactly?
Well, I think what’s probably wrong with it
is exhibitionism, for one thing,
and actually a kind of lack of faith, for another.
But more of that later.
These are the three temptations,
In point of fact, it’s not too hard for us to see them for what they are. Because from our vantage point of history We can look forward to the way these three themes – Food, power and faith in God – Play out in the rest of Jesus’s ministry; specifically, into the events of his passion, crucifixion and resurrection, which we celebrate in Passiontide, Holy Week and Easter.
The scene I would place alongside the “stones into bread” temptation is, specifically, the Last Supper; when Jesus, in full knowledge of what was likely to happen next, broke bread and gave it to the disciples, saying “This is my body, which is given for you”; and then “Do this in remembrance of me.”
In other words: the special relationship with God is precisely NOT about making things better for himself. It’s about finding the superhuman strength of mind somehow to give away every last little morsel of himself, his own body, for food for other people, to share the divine presence in himself with those around him to bring them closer to God.
A complete reversal, in other words, of what the Devil was suggesting to him at the beginning of this gospel passage.
It’s rather the same with the second temptation, the temptation to claim power; except that this one is overturned rather more succinctly and neatly.
You remember the dialogue with Pilate:
“So you are a king, are you?”
and Jesus’ reply: “My kingdom is not of this world” …..
however the kingdom of God is to be brought into being, It’s not through power politics.
In many ways I think the third temptation is the most complex of the three.
“Do not put the Lord our God to the test” – yes, certainly; and this is not the only place where we are warned against exhibitionism, against showing off how pious we are. And yet there are the words of scripture. Anyone can see that the psalms of reassurance:
“He who dwells in the shelter of the most high
And abides under the shadow of the almighty
shall say to the lord, you are my refuge and my stronghold, my God, in whom I put my trust”
come from a different mindset from the desire to throw yourself off a building to see what happens. And yet, they do both require A strong, settled and confident faith, complete and utter trust in God to preserve us from all evil.
“Lead us not into temptation, Lord,
because none of us quite knows what is going to happen when we encounter it.
There will be plenty of opportunities in church this Lent to explore our own failings and make amends for them. And so as we begin on our Lenten journey, I would like to leave you with the words of psalm 121, words spoken from a faith which does not require proof or testing, because it comes from absolute reliance on God alone; faith like that of Jesus, which carried him through to the cross, and then out beyond it:
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills:
from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh even from the Lord:
who made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:
he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel:
shall neither slumber not sleep.
The Lord himself is thy keeper:
the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
So that the sun shall not burn thee by day:
neither the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:
it is even he that shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in:
from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Amen.