Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
This story isn't hard to understand but it's pretty hard to identify with personally. We get that Jesus resisted the devil but we tend to view this as a historical event...just something that happened to him. Most of us don't have experience turning stones into bread or being offered the kingship of the world.
This event was historically and theologically significant. Nobody before or since has ever been able to resist the devil as Jesus did. All of us have slipped up. All of us have sinned. These verses define God as God. They show why Jesus was able to give his innocent life to break the power of death and sin when all of our guilty lives together wouldn't suffice. But they also contain a personal, hopeful element...a connection between us and God and not just a distinction. That connection comes precisely in the human-ness of the temptations the devil put before Jesus. The devil knew just where to strike, at the heart of our fears and the desire to keep ourselves strong and safe instead of relying on God. We hear echoes of these temptations every day, just as if the devil himself were whispering in our ear.
The first temptation was to turn stones into bread. What was the reminder here? "Jesus, you're hungry. You're empty. Nobody is feeding you. Do something about it or you're going to gnaw your insides out until you perish."
The world tells us we're empty every day. Every commercial starts with this premise. You're inadequate. You're broken. Something's missing. The right toothpaste or deodorant or spaghetti sauce will fill up that void! We learn this language from an early age. How many Disney movies have you seen where the young heroine did not have her problems solved when Prince Charming arrived at the door? We spend our lives looking for things to stuff into the empty place: items to buy, houses to move into, people to love, money to accumulate, shows to watch. None of these things are bad in themselves. Most are good! That's why we hope they'll fill the emptiness for us. But none ever do. No matter how many things you throw into that empty spot, it seems to swallow them all. You eat a banana, you're hungry again the next day. Your husband gives you a good birthday gift but then Valentine's Day is just around the corner. You bought the toothpaste and your teeth are shiny, but now they tell you that you need the body spray. You're never done.
"Turn these stones into bread" is not much different than "Turn this cash into a new truck". How long does that really satisfy you? How long will the voice be quiet until it starts whispering that you're empty again?
The second temptation was to bow down before the devil and receive dominion over the world. The message: "You're powerless. Things don't go your way. That's bad. Seize control, order it the way you wish. Then and only then will you be happy."
How often do we fall prey to this voice? The world is out of control. We get reminders every day. Prices are too high. Trains and planes don't run when we want them to. The evening news bombards us with unexpected and tragic developments from all over the world. Kids are unruly, today's music stinks, you can't get a good deli sandwich anymore because it's all pre-processed stuff, and taxes stink.
If only we ran the world things would be better. We'd order that everything be convenient, cheap, high quality. We'd stop the conflicts, outlaw the wrong-doing, lower the tax rate, bring back decent music!
Of course we don't have the power to rule the world, but we can rule our world. We acknowledge all the turmoil outside of our close-knit circle lives but we'll be damned if anybody's going to tell us how to spend our money, raise our families, disagree with our politics. In our houses, families, communities, we rule. We keep it the way we want it. If something doesn't fit and we can't change it, we just draw our circle small enough to exclude it.
This is effective, but is it good? Does it really solve things? I don't know if you've ever experienced a family where just one person got their way in all things at all times but in my estimation those situations don't turn out well. They don't tend to foster love or growth. Those who come through that kind of experience usually end up worse, not better. Ditto for town politics, school groups, churches, and so on.
When the world whispers, "You are powerless" our instinctive response is to grab as much control over as many things as possible and hold on at all costs. This generally takes us away from goodness instead of towards it, snuffing out life and love instead of helping them flourish.
The third temptation was for Jesus to cast himself off the temple roof to prove that God loved him and would take care of him. In this we hear the most insidious, tempting message of all: "You are alone. Nobody understands you. Nobody cares about you. Nobody loves you."
Who among us has not heard this voice at one time or another? It's at the root of every self-harming escape you can name: drug and alcohol abuse, ill-planned promiscuity, sabotaging otherwise healthy relationships, an endless list of others. "Nobody cares about me. I'll do this thing to show how hurt and wretched I am. Perhaps then somebody will pay attention and I'll get the love I need. If not at least I will have proved how wretched I am, so I'll end up right either way." For most of us this ends up in mild self-destructive behavior, making the wrong choices when we know better. Sometimes it ends up devastating lives, families, entire communities.
Humans can endure and prosper through almost anything. If you don't believe me, ask yourself why anybody lives in North Dakota. Being alone--not occasionally as a relaxing break but truly, utterly alone--is the one condition humans can't abide. (See also: Genesis 2:18 "The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”) That makes this whisper, this fear, very powerful. We're liable to grasp at anything to avoid it or to distract ourselves from it.
Ironically, our responses to this fear end up isolating us even more. We tend towards cynicism, self-protection. "If you don't look out for yourself nobody will. You can't love others until you love yourself first. Whatever it takes to get ahead in life is justified." All of these try to answer that insidious whisper. If we live by these tenets, we end up more alone than when we started.
Every solution we come up with to any of these temptations only make the evil worse. That's why the devil found humanity such a delightful playground before Jesus stepped in and messed things up. Jesus changed the course of our destiny through a couple of simple affirmations:
- I am putting love of others before my own need.
- I will not let any fear or anything that happens to me overcome that.
- I will set aside the voices that tell me this will end in my doom. If I'm going to die anyway, I might as well die doing something wonderful in love rather than dying in fear trying to preserve myself. Fearing something doesn't change it but love transforms even the darkest things into light.
- I will trust that God will walk with me, provide for me, and save me. This will give me confidence that I don't have to do it myself, allowing me to stick to 1, 2, and 3.
Bingo. Done. The devil and all his temptations are overcome in that moment.
The devil wins when we try to argue right and wrong with him, whether that's if the garden fruit will make us like God or if this toothpaste or that will make our teeth shinier and bring us true happiness. The devil loses when we say, "You may be completely right, but it still doesn't change things." That's all Jesus did in the wilderness. Go back and read Luke 4 again and see if you don't hear it. Then look at your temptations and distinguish between the things you think will make you happier/safer/more in control right now and the things that will truly be good for you and the world.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
No comments:
Post a Comment