Sermon by the Reverend John Bradley
17th February 2013
Jesus' temptation in the wilderness follows immediately after his baptism. The wilderness is a place of purification where nothing can live for long. Jesus ate nothing for forty days and at the end of that time he was literally beginning to starve to death. If most of us ate nothing for forty hours we would say we were starving but after forty days without food, all the body's reserves of fat have been burnt up and the body starts digesting its own organs. That is a medical definition of starvation. So Jesus was in an extremely vulnerable state.
Why did Jesus teach us to pray that our Heavenly Father would not lead us into temptation? What loving parent would deliberately put temptation in the way of their child like a bowl of sweets on the coffee table with a sign saying 'don't touch!'? But suppose you had designed a toy that was meant to be indestructible; you might well give a prototype to some boys and say "see what you can do with that!" That's the difference between temptation and testing. Part of the expectation of Jesus' hearers was that just before the glorious Day of the Lord came there would be the fiercest time of testing, the darkest hour before the new dawn. For Jesus this darkest hour came when he was at his physical weakest. In the dry, lifeless wilderness he encountered the Devil.
My headmaster, J W Harmer, was an authority on religious education. He wasn't good at remembering our names but when he taught RE he had the habit of firing questions at anyone he thought wasn't paying attention. "Who is the devil?" he once asked, "The boy behind Jones". "No, sir," said the boy, flustered, "it's not me!" The Old Testament has three elements which become one in the New Testament. The subtle snake, the twister who deceived Eve in Eden is the first to challenge what God has said. 'Did God say...?' The right answer was "God said it, I believe it; that settles it!" but Eve used her own intuition instead. The second element is the Accuser, the Satan, a title more than a name. He appears in the book of Job where he is given divine permission to put Job through his darkest hour. The Satan is not wicked, just the Chief Prosecutor in the Court of Heaven. The third element comes from the superpowers which bring about the eventual destruction of Israel, especially Babylon. The overwhelming characteristic is pride and the demonic power is called the Beast. Later, especially in the book of Revelation, it is applied to the Roman Empire. The one who Jesus encounters in the wilderness has all of these three elements. 'We wrestle,' wrote St Paul, 'not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, spiritual forces of evil.' It is with this timeless enemy of the People of God that Jesus struggled in the wilderness and we struggle now.
At his baptism, Jesus had heard the heavenly voice saying "This is my Son; with him I am well pleased". But what does it mean to be the Son of God? The three temptations can be seen as three alternative ways of being God's son. In his starving state, the flat round stones in the wilderness began to look like fresh warm loaves of bread. If he was the Son of God through whom the world had been made, surely it would be easy to turn a stone into bread and satisfy his craving? Should he meet people's physical and material needs? He did it when he fed the 5,000 and when his disciples got an amazing unexpected catch of fish. He could go around the world meeting people's needs and be the most popular provider ever. But people would keep coming back for more. After he fed the 5000 some started following him just in the hope of more bread and fish. If he had just healed the sick and fed the hungry why would the rich and powerful have crucified him? They would have been pleased that he was keeping the peasants happy. But then he told the crowds to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. He announced the arrival of God's new kingdom where the world would be turned upside down, putting down the mighty from their seat and exalting the humble and meek. The mighty didn't like that and so conspired to do away with him. He set his course for Jerusalem, the city of peace which had become the maelstrom of oppression, knowing all that must happen there but the first temptation was to be Christ without a Cross.
Then came the temptation of seeking political power. Many people have set out on the road to political office with the aim of making a better world but have been corrupted by the power they acquired. That doesn't mean that no Christian should go into politics but it does mean that political power alone cannot make the world what God intends it to be. When people began to acclaim Jesus as the Messiah, they expected him to take political power, today Israel and tomorrow the world. But when Jesus was on trial before Pilate, the representative of political power, he said "my kingdom is not of this world; if it was, my followers would fight."
Finally came the temptation of dramatic acts which nobody could explain or reproduce. Sometimes unbelieving Jewish leaders would ask him for a sign, a miracle to convince the sceptics that he really was who he claimed to be. Jesus always refused. His mightiest act of all, his resurrection, happened without human witnesses and the first to see him were not Pilate and Herod but women whose testimony in that culture was generally disregarded.
How do these temptations affect us today? We might think that all we have to do to fulfil the commission of Christ is to feed the world, educate the world or even heal the world. But the task is not complete until we have made Christ's disciples. It is not that the Church is a membership club whose main purpose is to make more members but that trusting in Christ is the way to life in all its fullness.
We may not hanker after world domination (!) but it's easy to daydream about suddenly acquiring unexpected power or wealth. If you do the Lottery, what if the deep voice from the cloud said "it's you!"? (but it's not you or you or you!)? Some Lottery winners would say that their sudden wealth has brought them more problems than solutions. When I was a boy, my parents gave me a Premium Bond. It's never come up in 50 years but it could make me an instant millionaire. Such daydreams are a subtle temptation; giving attention to what most probably won't and would bring their own problems if they did! 'Solid joys and lasting treasure none but Zion's children know'! What Jesus heard at his baptism was a declaration of his Father’s love, a love bond which sustained him every moment of his life. A love bond cannot be proved by empirical experiment; to try to do so is to distrust the relationship. There are two love bonds which are fundamental to my life and neither can be proved or disproved by double-blind placebo trials. Both are sources of constant amazement to me. For each there was an event which changed my life. I asked for something I didn't deserve and received far more than I could ever imagine.
In Torquay, South Devon, alone in my room, in April 1966 I prayed that Jesus Christ would become Lord of my life and direct my way in his way. I thought of my life as a car and I asked Jesus Christ to take the steering wheel and direct me in the way he wanted me to go. I had been trying so hard to live a life that was good enough to please God and finally realised I couldn't. I didn't feel any different but from that time onwards I was overwhelmed by a love which transformed my life. I didn't deserve it, there is nothing I could ever have done to win it or earn it. It was pure grace: undeserved favour.
In January 1979 I was near Hamnavoe in Shetland with a beautiful girl with whom I had fallen in love. I asked her to marry me and she said yes! Amazing! A few days later I woke up and thought "What did she say?" And I remembered clearly that she said yes. I wasn't the only one to be surprised. When I introduced my fiancée to some of my college friends they were surprised that I had found anyone willing to marry me and amazed that I had found such a cracker! But the sceptics would say in both cases "Prove it then!" Some people can become sceptical about everything and everyone. When scepticism takes you over like that you can develop scepticaemia - a soul-destroying condition! What kind of husband would I be if I was always trying to prove that her love was real? It is the same with questioning the reality of the amazing grace of my Saviour.
We have a Saviour who knows what it is to be tempted but who showed that it is possible to resist and overcome the attractive but wrong choices and take the costly path of God's way instead. 1 Cor 10.13 This Lent we won't spend forty days and night without food and if you have decided to give up something you enjoy, that isn't the main point. It's all about learning how to be the people who God is calling us to be so that we can be part of God's plan to make the world what God intends it to be. Resist the temptations to take the easy roads; let's follow Jesus on the road of costly discipleship.
Prayer for the Week
Lord Jesus Christ, beloved Son of God, who resisted the subtle easier options and set your face firmly towards the Cross, help us in our weakness to follow close behind you whatever the cost. Amen
