First Sunday in Lent

February 20-21, 2010

“Wilderness Temptation”

Luke 4:1-13

 

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our heavenly Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

              “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil.”  So begins St. Luke’s account of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.  Only two of the four gospels give us the long version of this temptation.  John makes no mention of it at all, and Mark covers the whole episode in his typically concise fashion, with two sentences: the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, He was there forty days, Satan tempted Him, wild beasts kept Him company, and angels waited on Him.  That’s it; that’s all Mark tells us about it.  So anyone who remembers more than that about this event is remembering it from either Matthew or Luke, because those are the only two who go into any detail about the dialogue between Jesus and the devil.  And what the conversation proves is that the devil is very Biblically literate; he knows the Scriptures very well, and he knows exactly where to find the verses he wants to put Jesus to the test.  The problem is, he twists the meaning of those Scriptures, and Jesus will have none of that.  The devil cannot sway Jesus by using Biblical texts for his own purposes; Jesus is the Son of God.  He was there when those Scriptures were written.

              So every time the devil offered Him more – more bread, more power, more protection – Jesus turned him down.  “No” to the bread, “No” to the kingdoms of the world, “No” to the angelic bodyguards.  Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit, focused on the will of His Father.  So when it’s all said and done, the devil’s bribes have gone for nothing, and Jesus goes on His way to call disciples and preach the good news of the Kingdom of God. 

              Now oftentimes, when we consider this event in the life of Jesus, we have a tendency to focus on the interaction between Jesus and the devil.  And it’s possible to do that, in a variety of ways.  It’s a fascinating encounter, without a doubt.  But applying it to ourselves is a bit more difficult.  After all, when the devil comes to tempt us, he won’t come at us with the Son of God test that he had for Jesus.  That’s not who we are, and he doesn’t have to work nearly as hard to tempt us.  We get the regular old Adam and Eve test, which means for us, the devil doesn’t need much more than an all-you-can-eat buffet and a tax refund to turn our heads. 

              But what is also interesting about our Gospel lesson today is the location in which it took place: the wilderness.  Have you ever found yourself in the wilderness?  I’m willing to guess that you have.  It may not have been a literal desert or wasteland, but you’ve been in a wilderness, nonetheless.  Maybe your wilderness looked like a hospital waiting room.  Or perhaps for you, it was the wilderness of a marriage that was falling apart and splitting up.  Your wilderness could be the pain of a rebellious child who has turned away from everything you hold dear, including the Christian faith; or it may have been the look on the doctor’s face when she sat down to give you the results of those tests you had gone through.  The wilderness comes in so many different shapes and sizes, but you know you’re in one when you look around for what you normally count on for security and protection, and you come up empty.  No food, no power, no special protection – just some wide-open, arid spaces, and far more questions than answers. 

              Needless to say, this is not a situation any of us seeks out.  Most of us, in fact, spend a lot of time and money trying to stay out of the wilderness, but no one really succeeds at that.  Sooner or later, the wilderness finds us; sooner or later, we have our own testing in the wilderness, our own time in the desert to discover who we really are, and what our lives are really about. 

              What we may not want to acknowledge is that there is value in spending time in the wilderness.  It’s often the place where God forges His people, and strengthens us by the truth of His Word to face the harsh realities of this sinful, fallen world.  Unfortunately, this wisdom about the value of the wilderness is almost lost to us; lost in American culture, to be sure, and largely lost even to the Christian tradition that is charged with preserving it.  Those of us in liturgical churches, meaning churches that still follow the calendar of the Church year, get at least a dose of this wisdom in our observation of the season of Lent.  We may have reduced the concept to cutting some rich food out of our diet, or giving up something we love, but the kernel of wisdom is still there: that anyone who wants to follow Jesus all the way to the cross needs the kind of clarity and sacrifice that is only found in the wilderness.  From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, Christians are invited to do without some things they are perfectly capable of having for the purpose of self-denial and to focus on the spiritual disciplines such as penitence, fasting, and almsgiving; disciplines that help to bring clarity to the soul.

              Lent is the time when we do, in fact, seek out a wilderness of sorts, for our spiritual benefit.  It is a time of self-appraisal, as we walk this journey with Christ to the cross of Calvary.  It is a hard enough journey to walk as it is; virtually impossible when we allow ourselves to be distracted with anything and everything.  A few weeks of practicing subtraction instead of addition in our lives is a good thing, not because your regular life is bad, but because you need to be sure it is your real life, the life you are called to be living; and that’s hard to see if you’re living on fast food and busyness, which is the life most of us have carved out.  How many of us can stand to sit in silence?  A few seconds of it, and we’re reaching for the cell phone, or turning on the television, or doing any number of things.  What Lent provides us with is forty days of finding out what life is like without the usual distractions, which is how most of us learn what led us to rely on those distractions to begin with.  Once you turn off the noise, the silence can be deafening.  Once you turn off the television, you find yourself alone with your thoughts, pondering some things you might rather not ponder.  But when we lose the distractions, we remember once again that it was not in loud noises, but in the still, small voice that the prophet Elijah, in the wilderness, heard the reassuring Word of God. 

              This wilderness of Lent allows us to put any other wilderness we find ourselves in into sharper focus.  Walking the path of Christ, the way of the cross, has a way of casting out all the clutter, all the distractions, and opening our ears and our hearts for the still, small voice of God once again.  And that’s when we realize: when we find ourselves in a wilderness that is not of our own choosing, and all of the old stand-bys that used to bring us comfort come up empty, we are not truly alone.  We have the One with us who walked the wilderness way of sacrifice and temptation; the One who saw others in the wilderness way of sin, rebellion, sickness and death, and in mercy brought forgiveness, healing and life.  We have the One who  walked the wilderness way of betrayal, suffering, and death for Himself, taking up His cross for the life of the world, and then rising again on the third day, so that death and the grave would never have the last word.  By His death and resurrection, Christ has conquered every wilderness that we can face, every temptation the devil can throw at us.  So when the wilderness comes, in whatever form it takes, our trust is in the One who has already walked that way before us. 

              Jesus knows the pain, the suffering that life can bring in this world, just as well as He knows the joys and mountaintop experiences we can have.  And by faith, when you face difficult times in that hospital waiting room or the doctor’s office, in the troubled marriage, the rebellious child, or whatever else your wilderness may be, you have a Savior who walks through it with you, and leads you out of it, the mighty fortress who strengthens and protects you.  By His Word and Sacraments, He “breaks the cruel oppressor’s rod, and wins salvation glorious.”  Find strength in the wilderness.  Welcome to Lent!  Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep both your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.