Jesus’ Temptations are Ours

2 Corinthians 6:1-10       St Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil.

For those of you who are following the call of the Church to a Lenten fast, you have now entered the wilderness.

For those of you who have not followed this call of the Church, are you really be satisfied with same old, same old?  Are you really satisfied with who you are in your spiritual walk?  As I mentioned last Sunday, a Lenten fast is a kind of initiation rite, to move us to greater maturity in our faith – we will not end up being the same person we were before we undertook this.  It is not to late to join, you can start tomorrow (we don't fast on Sundays, even in Lent, but celebrate the Resurrection).

Our Gospel today was appointed for this Sunday very early in the Church’s history, since at least the 5th or 6th century.  It is given to us both as the reason to observe a Lenten fast (Jesus did it) and as our example of how to follow a forty day fast faithfully.

We are told in the Gospel, that Jesus was led, right after His baptism, by the Holy Spirit, to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  He was led by God to this fast.  This was the same motivation that later led the Desert Fathers to leave the comforts of the city or the monastery and go into the desert.  It was not to escape temptation but to confront the devil head on.  In our privation we come to see better our susceptibility to manipulation by the demonic – the layers of confused motives and unclarity of thought and of distraction can be more easily broken through.

A couple things to say before we get to the temptations Jesus experienced.

Jesus goes through these confrontations when he is most vulnerable – “after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came…”  If we are spiritually sleepy and very comfortable in this world, we can begin to have ideas of our own self-sufficiency, that we are the authors of our life.  If this is the case the devil need not tempt us, we have already succumbed to his wiles.  But we can expect ourselves to be most under attack when we are uncomfortable, under the most pressure or stress from family life, from work – and the stress we add through our privations in Lent.

Second, it is normal through the ages for those painting pictures of the temptation of Jesus to portray an actual devil character – that helps us to see what story is being portrayed, but that is not the normal way of the devil’s actions.  If we could see such a character it would be more easy to identify him and be on our guard!  Rather, think of these words of the tempter as the very thoughts entering into the mind of Jesus, where he must decide if this is a thought to follow – then it becomes a little clearer how we are subject to temptation.  We need to be on guard when an idea comes to our minds about an action to take – is this of God, or my own idea, or a subtle trick from the devil.  The devil works by twisting subtly the truth, the ideas in our minds – Jesus calls him elsewhere the father of lies [St John 8:44].

These three temptations of Jesus can be looked at in many different ways, so what I’m saying is not the definitive exposition of them, but here is one way of looking at them.

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In the first temptation:  Jesus is hungry, and the devil said to him:

“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

Jesus responds to the thought that comes into His mind with the words of Moses in Deuteronomy [8:3] to Israel:  “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”  Moses was describing how the difficult time for Israel of privation in their Exodus, and God’s measured provision of food, led them to trust in God and not in themselves that they would have enough.

How might this temptation and Jesus’ response apply to us?

Fasting is in part about learning how our desire works, at the most basic level.  In the moment of wanting more, we pause and reflect that that desire could actually be ultimately a desire for God.  We’re not going to satisfy that desire in the same way we have become accustomed to.  We’ll wait in our moment of inward distress, by not fulfilling that desire, and instead turning to God.  Literally, we could go and read the Bible (words that come out of the mouth of God), or go for a walk, and pray and listen to what the Lord might be saying to us.

For us, the temptation is not about using spiritual power to make actual stones into bread when we’re hungry – we just get our food from the cupboard or fridge.  But for us it is about not making our inner stones, our discontents, go away by covering them over with our favourite foods.  We sit with those discontents, we allow them to surface, we bring them before God and seek a word from His mouth.  The food can wait.  And we relearn our dependence upon God, and to deal with our struggles in a new way.

These are deep fruit of fasting.

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In the second temptation:

The devil took Jesus to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus’ response to the thought put into his mind by the devil – even the assembling of God’s Word in an inappropriate way – Jesus’ response is again from Deuteronomy [6:16], “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”.  This time Moses is speaking to Israel about the time in Exodus when the people demanded that God prove Himself to be there by giving them water.

How might this temptation and Jesus’ response apply to us this Lent?

Whereas the last temptation was about not being spiritually minded enough, this is about not being overly spiritually minded.

In this case we might be confused in our spiritual loftiness that we needn’t worry anymore about the body.  In the early church there were hermits who starved themselves to death, or damaged their health through extreme ascetic practices.  That’s probably unlikely for us.  But something that is quite usual for us, in our daily lives, is not taking time to sleep enough or more importantly to rest our minds.  Are we missing our Sabbath day of rest (filling it with activities like every other day)? when we’re tired will we just medicate with stimulants? Are we taking care of what we put in our minds? are we forgetting our creatureliness and assuming God will send his angels to catch us when we fall?  Not a few of us have experienced burn out.  We are embodied souls, foremost spiritual, but let’s not forget the body and mind God has given us, and the command to care for his creation, to care for our own bodies and the practical needs of the poor whom we can help.

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In the third temptation:

The devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Jesus’ response to the devil are again from Deuteronomy [6:13; 10:20], “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”  Moses was summing up to Israel what the Lord requires of us.  It is a kind of restatement of the first commandment.  We are to worship or serve no one but God.

How might this temptation and Jesus’ response apply to us this Lent?

In our Lenten vulnerability, in our turning our minds in our distress to God, in our not satisfying ourselves with food or worldly entertainment or distractions, and having time to walk by ourselves to think and to pray, to ponder our lives, we’re to look at our most inner desires and ambitions.  Have we cleansed the thoughts of our hearts from all covetousness, from what is worldly – are we offering our souls to something less than God?

Paul is our example here of one brought to maturity in Christ and who holds all he does under the call to worship God and serve him only.  In the Epistle he lists the things he does… as servants of God…by truthful speech… in the power of God…  “As poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”

Jesus wants the salvation of all the kingdoms of this world, that is why he came.  But Jesus knows it will not come through worldly ways, through lies and expediency, through worldly wealth and power, the way of the devil, it will not come by avoiding going up to Jerusalem...  The way of the Cross must not be avoided for Him, and it cannot be avoided for us.

Is there some way of the Cross that we are called to, some cross that we are avoiding taking up?  Are we avoiding dying to something worldly that is damaging our soul and the souls of those around us and are we avoiding some necessary suffering, taking up some responsibility, that Jesus is laying upon us?  May the Spirit bring these things to our minds this Lent and give us the strength to die to what is ungodly and to take up our responsibility.

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So three temptations we can expect – to forget our spiritual nature, to forget our embodied nature, and to forget the way to the kingdom of heaven is by the way of the Cross.

Let us prepare ourselves now to receive Christ afresh, through repentance and faith, to be strengthened in our Lenten walk against the world, the flesh and the devil.  And may the result of our Lenten fast be drawing nearer to God, greater health of body and soul, and the gift of deep and abiding joy.

Amen +