Lent Begins

Jesus answered [the devil], “It is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Luke 4:7, quoting Deut 6:13, 10:20

The 1988 movie “The Last Temptation of Christ”, produced by Martin Scorcese and starring Willem Dafoe as Jesus, was – and in some circles still is - a source of great controversy. Church groups vehemently protested the film, and it is still banned in some countries. The crux of the controversy – the “last temptation” of the film – was for Christ to come down off the cross, marry Mary Magdalene, and live a normal family life. In the final scene, Jesus resists this temptation and dies on the cross, with the final words “it is accomplished.”

On this first Sunday in Lent, we journey with Jesus into the wilderness as he is confronted by temptation three times. In one sense, the experience is unique to Jesus – as the beloved Son of God, he was tempted in ways that on the surface seem alien to us. But in another sense, we face versions of these same temptations every day.

We’re told (in Luke 4:1-13) that, immediately after his baptism, the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. The devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread, to worship the devil in exchange for earthly power over all the kingdoms of the world, to jump off the pinnacle of the Temple and provoke God into saving him. In response to these temptations, Jesus refers to the primacy and the sovereignty of God – “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only. Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Jesus’ time in the wilderness was a time of discernment, of seeking guidance for the way forward – of discerning his mission, discerning why God sent him. What would Jesus’ life teach his followers about God the Father. The three temptations are short cuts that, on the surface, made perfect sense, but would have derailed Jesus’ ministry before it had started. He was tempted to turn stones into bread – to use his relationship with God to meet his own needs, rather than the needs of humanity. The temptation to jump off the pinnacle of the temple is a temptation to make his ministry about spectacles and showy miracles to draw attention to himself – Jesus as magician. While Jesus indeed did miracles of feeding and healing, these miracles were focused on meeting the needs of others, of freeing others from Satan’s bondage, not to draw attention to himself – and the Gospels often record Jesus as telling the recipients of his miracles to keep the miracles a secret. The temptation to gain power to rule the world, at the price of worshiping Satan, is a temptation to gain earthly power – for the best of intentions, of course – but bypassing the day-to-day experiences of human limitation and weakness that would face Jesus every day of his ministry, bypassing the betrayal and arrest in the garden of Gethesemane, bypassing the unjust hearings before religious and secular authorities, bypassing the mockery of the soldiers, bypassing the cross. This is the temptation that produces Hitlers and Stalins, produces genocides – when indulged by the church, produces Inquisitions and witch hunts - the temptation to pursue power at all costs, regardless of the human suffering inflicted on others. So great was Jesus’ trust in God, so great was Jesus’ love for humanity, so great was his love for each one of us, that he resisted these temptations, these short-cuts of instant gratification that would instantly have made an end to Jesus’ work of salvation.

In the wilderness, Jesus came to know, more profoundly than ever, the magnitude of his mission of bringing salvation to humanity, the insidious power of Satan’s opposition – and the profound love of God that never let him, and never lets us, to our own devices. As it was for the children of Israel, the wilderness was a place of testing for Jesus. We know from Scripture that the ancient Hebrews often failed the test of the wilderness, often gave into temptation, often doubted God’s power and God’s love. And Jesus’ temptations were put in ways that raised these same doubts – “if you are the Son of God. If. Are you really the Son of God? If so, prove it.” The temptations even quoted Scripture for the purpose of twisting it, quoting from Psalm 91 – which we read responsively today – a beautiful song of trust in God, and turning it into a challenge to force God to come out and show his power, to strut his stuff.

In the wilderness, Jesus came to know, more clearly than ever, who God is and why God had sent him. The season of Lent, into which we have now entered, is a chance to share something of Jesus’ wilderness experience – to pull back from the noise and clutter and distraction and busy-ness of our daily lives and experience closer communion with God. Traditional Lenten practices such as fasting or “giving something up for Lent” are ways to put aside the things we use to numb or distract or distance ourselves from God – in Barbara Brown Taylor’s words, to give up our pacifiers – and experience more fully our daily dependence on God. Others, rather than giving something up for Lent, take on something new for Lent – enter into a spiritual practice such as meditation or keeping a spiritual journal. And, of course, here in Bridesburg, we draw closer to God and our neighboring congregations by means of sharing in the Wednesday night Lenten services. This coming Wednesday’s service will be here at Emanuel at 7 p.m., and I encourage everyone to attend if you possibly can.

In our individual lives and in our gathered life as Emanuel United Church of Christ, we will face lesser versions of the same temptations that Jesus faced. Just as we learn to resist the those late night TV advertisements for weight loss pills and exercise machines and kitchen gadgets that promise instant results – let the buyer beware - we are called by God to overcome temptations to make our individual lives and our congregational life about meeting our own needs, about taking short-cuts and avoiding discomfort – temptations to reduce our faith in Jesus to a private, warm fuzzy feeling in our heart, with no effect on the quality of our lives or our relationships to God and neighbor. Our United Church of Christ statement of faith speaks of God calling us into God’s church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, and it’s a package deal – we don’t get one without the other.

After his baptism, the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. And despite all the ways in which we distract ourselves, all our pacifiers, there is still a restlessness – because, in the words of St Augustine, God has made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Him. Therefore, in the words of the letter to the Hebrews, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Amen.