Tempted
(based on Matthew 4:1-11)
Our Lenten journey began this week with Ash
Wednesday and now extends through Palm Sunday on April 5. There is some evidence that early Christians
fasted for forty hours between Good Friday and Easter, but the season of Lent
and the custom of spending forty days in prayer and self-denial didn’t happen
until the Council of Nicea met in the year 325, when the initial rush of
Christian adrenaline was over and believers had gotten very ho-hum about their
faith.
When the world didn’t end as the disciples
thought it would shortly after Jesus left them, they stopped expecting so much
from God or from themselves, for that matter.
They hung a wooden cross on the wall and settled back into their more or
less comfortable routines.
Little by little, Christians became devoted to
their comforts instead. It didn’t happen
all at once, but slowly over time.
Generation after generation, each becoming more complacent. Eventually, they decided there was no
contradiction between being comfortable and being Christian, and before long it
was very hard to pick them out from the population at large. They no longer distinguished themselves by
their bold love for one another. They
didn’t get arrested for championing the poor.
They blended in. They avoided
extremes. They decided to be nice
instead of holy.
At some point, someone suggested it was time to
call Christians back to their senses, and the Bible offered some clues about
how to do that. Israel spent forty years
in the wilderness learning to trust the Lord.
Elijah spent forty days there before hearing the still, small voice of
God on the same mountain where Moses spent forty days listening to God give the
law. There was also this story in Matthew
and in Luke about Jesus’ own forty days in the wilderness – a period of
preparation between his baptism and his ministry – during which time he was
tested by the Tempter. For all of them;
it was hard. It was awful. It was necessary.
So, the church announced a season of Lent, from
the old English word lenten, meaning “spring” – not only a reference to the
season just before Easter, but also an invitation to a springtime for the
soul. A renewing. A rebirth.
Forty days to cleanse the system and open the eyes to what remains when
all comfort is gone. Forty days to
remember what it is like to live by the grace of God alone and not by what we
can supply for ourselves.
The problem with preaching this passage from
Matthew is that we make Jesus’ journey in the wilderness about us, but it’s
about how amazing Jesus was and is. We
can’t really substitute ourselves in Christ’s place and say, “Here’s how to
overcome temptation the way Jesus did.” Not
a single one of us would stand a chance for a moment with the Tempter after us
in a desert in the same way that the Tempter tried to entice Jesus. The point of the story is that Jesus won this
victory in the wilderness against the Tempter for those of us who fail. We are left, not imitating him, but in
jaw-dropping awe of him. He’s our Savior
precisely because he dealt victoriously with his own demons in the desert
wilderness. It’s not about a technique
to overcome temptation for ourselves, but rather it’s about our relationship
with the one who conquers those temptations.
Our ancient tradition says that the season of Lent
should be a season of fasting. Give up
donuts for Lent? That’s fine, but to
what purpose? What is the reason behind
the practice? The spirit of the law or
the practice was to become closer to Christ, to more fully grasp our dependence
on Him and our need for penitence from the sin that has separated us. However, I think we’ve treated it more like
just another inconvenience to suffer through simply because that is what we’re
supposed to do. But worse, as sort of
rebellion against ancient practices that ring hollow I think, is the practice
of doing nothing during Lent, which I myself am guilty.
What practices for Lent would bring you closer
to Christ? What practices would
thoroughly engage you in understanding Christ’s own sacrifice for you, for
God’s daily forgiveness of your sins, for fully understanding how much God loves
you and what Jesus went through to prove that?
If it is giving up your craving for candy bars
or chocolate, then continue to do that.
If it is giving up your dependence on caffeine, then do that. If it is giving up a habit that has had a
grip on your life that you want to be rid of, then do that. However, perhaps there could be a different
way to approach Lent this year for some of you.
In the newsletter article this week, I copied an article from Pope
Francis who gave a list of other practices that we might engage in for
Lent.
Fast
from hurting words and say kind words.
Fast
from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
Fast
from anger and be filled with patience.
Fast
from pessimism and be filled with hope.
Fast
from worries and have trust in God.
Fast
from complaints and contemplate simplicity.
Fast
from pressures and be prayerful.
Fast
from bitterness and fill your hearts with joy.
Fast
from selfishness and be compassionate to others.
Fast
from grudges and be reconciled.
Fast
from words and be silent so you can listen.
Jesus’ encounter with the Tempter revealed how
thoroughly dedicated he was to God’s will and call for his life. It also gives us some clues about how to have
that same kind of dedication. Not so
that we can defeat the Tempter ourselves, we can’t, but rather so that we
become closer to God in our relationship with him and just a little bit more
like Christ in our dedication to God.
While Jesus’ temptations are unique, the
Tempters challenges to each of us are not.
The Tempter may not replicate the same temptations with us, especially
since we are not the unique Son of God, but the Tempter does use the same key
issues; namely a challenge to faithfulness.
Temptations and tests in life are not bad, in
fact, they can be divinely sent. The
main issue is our response. Do we
respond in a way that looks to God to guide us through it? Do we trust him, or do we put him to the
test? How do we respond to personal
struggles in our own lives? Do we get
angry? Do we seek to reassert our
control over events (even when we know we have none)? Or do we rest in our faith, look for God’s
hand in the situation, and ask God what we should be learning from what we are
going through? If we are to grow
spiritually, we should expect trials. If
we are to grow spiritually, we need to look to God in the midst of it all.
We also have a habit of blaming God whenever
suffering occurs. We may feel that God
has abandoned us, when, in fact, God may just be trying to get our attention,
revealing a better way to us, or asking us to meet him in the midst of the
suffering. Jesus chose to reject Satan
and turn fully towards God. May we be
able to do the same, growing in our spirituality by walking into events under
God’s leadership, even when we don’t know or understand the outcome. May this season of Lent have substance for
you in what you give up and fast from and what you pay attention to and who you
lean on.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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