Luke 4:1-13
March 9, 2025
Many years ago, I served a small country
church in a temporary pastoral position. They were a nice congregation, and it
was a sweet church. I was there during Lent and the church had regular meals
together. After one of these meals, a friendly complaint was made by one group
in the congregation. The complaint was that when it came to the desserts there
were too many chocolate ones. There were folks in the church who had given up
chocolate for Lent and would appreciate a non-chocolate dessert alternative
being offered. After this “suggestion” some other folks piped up and said they
were giving up sweets altogether, so how about not having any desserts at all?
I think the dinner coordinators were willing to offer a non-chocolate goody or
two, but no desserts at all was not an option. Never gonna happen my friend.
This was a relatively light-hearted
controversy; no one was truly offended or upset by what was offered or not
offered at these meals. The folks who gave up chocolate just didn’t want to be
overly tempted to break their chosen Lenten fast. And since I used to regularly
give up chocolate for this season, I didn’t mind having other sweet treats
offered instead. But I began to wonder then about what real temptation is. It’s
something I still wrestle with today, especially when I must confront the
temptations Jesus faced in his time in the wilderness, the story we always read
on this first Sunday of Lent.
When it comes to Jesus’ time in the
wilderness, the oft-quoted phrase is that Jesus was tempted in every way, just
as we are, but he did not sin. While this is true, I think that it leads us to
interpret it in two ways which are not helpful. First, I think it makes me want
to diminish the depth, the seriousness of his temptations, as though the only
temptation Jesus faced was trivial, such as “If the devil shows me one more
M&Ms commercial, I am going to lose it!” I doubt that the devil would have
wasted this golden opportunity to lead the Son of God astray with a temptation
that was small or insignificant.
And the second troubling
interpretation that we turn to is that Jesus was tempted, sure, but he was
Jesus, which means he couldn’t sin, not really. I know that I’ve preached on
this before, but I think it bears repeating. I wouldn’t be surprised if deep
down a lot of folks believe that while Jesus may have been fully human as well
as fully divine, when it came to temptation his divinity took over. He may have
been human, but his divine side stopped him from doing the wrong thing. But
this would mean that Jesus wasn’t so much a savior as he was a superhero. Unlike
the rest of us, he could laugh in the face of temptation, because he knew that
he was immune to such things.
But that would mean that he wasn’t
really tempted then, just as we are. To be tempted as we are, even if he didn’t
fall into the tempter’s trap, means that Jesus was really tempted. Really
tempted. He had to be. If this story of Jesus’ time in the wilderness is to
teach us something, open our minds and eyes and hearts to something about God
and Jesus and wilderness living, then Jesus must have been truly tempted. He
must have felt the longing that we feel when we are faced with a temptation.
There must have been teeth to those temptations or otherwise what’s the point?
So, let’s think about what true
temptation is, and let’s consider the temptations that Jesus faced. A long time
ago, a mentor in ministry told me that true temptation comes disguised as
light. True temptation looks like it’s the good thing, the right thing. I talk
about chocolate being my temptation, but I already know that too much chocolate
isn’t going to be good for me. It won’t be good for my physical health or my
mental health, so it’s a temptation, sure, but one that could lead me away from
God? Hmm, probably not. It’s more a temptation to feel guilty. But, what if I
were offered the chance to feed people – thousands and thousands and thousands
of people? There are so many, too many, hungry people in this world, people who
are literally starving to death, and what if I was offered the ability to feed
them easily and quickly by turning one thing into another. That’s temptation.
That’s temptation dressed up as light.
I read a commentary by theologian
Dan Clandennin that mentioned priest and theologian, Henri Nowen. Nowen wrote
about these three temptations and the first temptation he termed as
“relevance.” Jesus had been in the wilderness for 40 days and he had been fasting
for 40 days. So, when Luke writes that he was “famished,” it is a sure bet that
he was just that – famished, ravenous, starving. The devil is a wily
opportunist, so he sees tells Jesus to prove himself and feed himself at the
same time.
“If you are the Son of God, command
this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
In other words, make yourself
relevant, Jesus. Prove your identity, do something that you really need right
now, and something that the world needs as well. Be relevant. How does the
temptation to be relevant work in our world today? How does it work in the
church? I ask myself so many times, what do I need to do to appeal to people?
What does the church need to do to be relevant to the world beyond these doors?
Note, that the question is not about what God is calling me to do or calling
the church to do. It’s not asking about the people who need our care or
witnessing to the gospel or speaking truth to power. I mean there’s nothing
wrong with wanting to appeal to people, but if the need to be relevant for
relevancy’ sake lies at the heart of that, then we need to consider that we are
facing a temptation that can take us down a wrong path.
The next temptation Jesus faces is
about power. The devil takes Jesus up – somewhere – and shows him all the
kingdoms of the world and tells him that he will give Jesus all their glory,
and all authority over every kingdom, over all people. All Jesus must do is
worship him. This seems like the most obvious of the temptations. Being offered
power of this kind is definitely a temptation. We know this already. None of us
would succumb to this, much less Jesus. But power is interesting. One of the
first lessons a professor taught us at the beginning of my doctoral work was
that power is not good and power is not bad. Power is, in fact, neutral. It’s
what we do with it, how we use it, how we wield it against or for others.
There’s nothing wrong with having power. Power gives us agency and voice.
Collective power can bring about necessary change, good change. But there’s a
reason that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
How
many leaders, religious leaders, have fallen because of power; their use of it
and even more so, their abuse of it? Yet, many people who ultimately abuse
power and use it to exploit others may begin thinking, believing that they will
use their power for the good. They will use it to do good things, to help
others. And that’s where the temptation lies. Jesus could have taken the
devil’s offer and used the power he wielded over all the kingdoms of the world for
good – at least at first. But when would that power have gone from being a
force for good into a force for evil? By his very willingness to go to the
cross, Jesus turned power on its head. Jesus chose powerlessness to reveal that
the greatest power has nothing to do with kingdoms and authority and control.
The final temptation that Luke
describes is the devil taking Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem
and telling him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for
it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and
‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot
against a stone.’”
Nowen calls this the temptation to
do something spectacular. This is the temptation to spectacle. Do something
amazing. Do something showy. Not only will it prove your identity, Jesus, but
it will look incredible too. Nowen wrote these words long before social media
came into being. But in our social media world, spectacular sells doesn’t it?
Spectacular goes viral, spectacle gets the most likes and hits and views. I
won’t lie, there is something deeply satisfying about getting a lot of likes
for a post or having people share something I wrote or created. It is great for
the ego. But therein lies the temptation. Whatever builds my ego up can just as
easily tear it down, and if it becomes more and more about me, then it becomes
less and less about the One who calls me. You might be able to make the claim
that Jesus’s healings and exorcisms and mass feedings bordered on spectacle and
the spectacular. Yet, the most spectacular trick he could have done was to get
down off that cross, but he didn’t. None of what Jesus did was about spectacle,
but it was about furthering God’s kingdom. It is tempting to think that our
righteousness can best be portrayed in the spectacular, but maybe our faith is
really lived in the quiet, in the everyday, in the ordinary.
Jesus, hungry and vulnerable and
weak, faced three temptations; temptations that don’t seem so strange and
foreign to our lives after all. But even in his vulnerability Jesus didn’t give
into temptation. He didn’t give into the devil’s deceits. Why? Was it because
he was secretly a superhero or because he had the advantage of divinity to help
him? I don’t think so. I think that what Jesus had was full knowledge, full
understanding, full comprehension of love; God’s love, sacrificial love, agape
love. Jesus was fully human, as fully human as we are meant to be, as we are
created and called to be. He knew and lived and breathed Love. Jesus was not a
superhero savior. He didn’t have a secret ability that we don’t have access to.
He was filled with the Holy Spirit, he was filled with God, he was filled with
Love.
The good news is that the power of
love that filled Jesus can fill us as well. The good news is that the power of
the Holy Spirit is our power too. The good and glorious news is that temptation
will return again, but it does not have the last word. Love is the beginning
and love is the end, and it is Love that walks with us in the wilderness. It is
written. Thanks be to God.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Amen.”
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