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Thought for the Week 21 February – First Sunday of Lent
Do
you know what Peter has to say about the Devil or Satan? He tells us that he
prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. “Resist him,
stand firm in your faith, …” Peter tells us. Paul tells us that “Satan
himself masquerades as an angel of light…” Both are telling us that the
Devil, Satan, uses half truths and truths to his advantage, to ensnare us ---
and Jesus was no exception. If
you look at what the devil says to Jesus you will realise the truth in what
Peter and Paul write. “If you are the Son of God” is the opening gambit.
Well, the immediate preceding section tells us that at his Baptism God told
Jesus, “You are my son….” So, the
answer to that one is yes of course I am, God has confirmed it. Then comes
the crunch bit, “…. tell this stone to become bread.” Easy peasy, I am God’s
Son, I am part of the trinity of God, God lives in me and I in God. Equally
look at Jesus’ position he had been in the desert for forty days and nights,
he had eaten nothing, he was hungry, in fact, after forty days, he was no
doubt starving. He was vulnerable. How easy it would have been for him to do
just that ---- to turn that stone into bread to eat. He didn’t. It would have
been a cheap trick as it would not have served any purpose other than that of
Jesus alone. Satan thought he had found someone to devour and used the
opening gambit, a truth, “You are the Son of God”, pandering perhaps to
Jesus’ pride. It didn’t work ----
Jesus resisted and stood firm in his faith by quoting from Deuteronomy “man
does not live on bread alone.” The
next temptation that Jesus underwent is a peculiar one to my mind. He is
taken by the Devil to the top of a mountain and is shown “in an instant all
the kingdoms of the world.” Then is promised the splendour and authority over
all “ if you worship me”
Jesus knew what he was about, he had begun his ministry, Luke tells us in the
preceding chapter. Jesus knew that following his death and resurrection he
would exercise dominion over the world through his sacrificial act. ----- The
only end that this temptation could have was therefore to short cut the pain
and the agony of the sacrificial act that would break the power of Satan, of
sin and death over the world. But what a price to pay! To worship the devil!
This was a temptation it seems to me that panders to Jesus’ humanity, ------
none of us like the idea of having to undergo pain and the idea of a cruel
death is repugnant. But Jesus was obedient to his Fathers wishes, they had
planned the salvation of the world for many years and Jesus was not going to
be side-tracked by the likes of Satan. He was not prepared to sell his soul
to the devil however attractive the proposition may appear. Calling upon
Deuteronomy again he quotes “It is written ‘Worship the Lord your God and
serve him only.’” And
so we come to the third of the temptations. Jesus ends his days in Jerusalem
by being crucified. Here Jesus finds himself in Jerusalem at the top of the
highest point of the Temple and we get this taunt from the devil, you can
almost hear the sarcasm in the voice “If you are the Son of God” and invites
him to throw himself down, because it is written, and this time the devil
quotes from the Psalms. Jesus answers
with a quote from Deuteronomy again, “Do not put the Lord your God to the
test.” Of
course the situation is full of irony. This is where Jesus is going to lay
down his life, where God is not going to interfere, where Jesus is going to
be mocked with he could save others but he can’t save himself, and where he
would have the epithet put on his cross “This is the king of the Jews”, where
in fact he will cry out in prayer, “Take this cup from me but not what I will
but what you will.”. Where in fact both the devil, Satan, call him/it what
you will, and death will be defeated on that cross. Put to death by the evil
in men’s hearts, the very thing he is to overcome by his death. Then
the devil left him until “an opportune time” ------- that opportune time
seems to me to be in Jerusalem, at Gethsemane, when in fact Jesus prays to
the Father and as a human being and facing a cruel death he prays “Abba
Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me …………”. The
Father’s will prevailed and Heaven and Earth met on that cross as a
consequence of which we through him have the ability to have the relationship
with the God that he wants us to have. But
what do we have to take away from this story of Jesus’ temptation? Jesus
was a man without sin therefore the first very obvious lesson for us to learn
is that temptation is not sin. In fact the bible makes this very clear. If we
dwell upon the temptation then we may have a problem. But notice how Jesus deals
with the temptations that the devil puts his way ---he gives the devil no
chance, short shrift is what the devil gets on each occasion. He doesn’t
argue, he doesn’t discuss with the devil he simply quotes from biblical text
and on each occasion by so doing draws a line under the issue ------ no
further discussion. By opening up discussion we give the idea ---whatever it
may be ----- time to germinate, to
take hold and we give time to ourselves to rationalise, to make excuses as to
why we should do something that our conscience is telling us not to do. As a
consequence the foot is in the door and we are then on a slippery slope. If
you go back to Adam and Eve and the fall of man, it is exactly what happened is it not? Eve
was tempted and instead of putting the temptation out of her mind entered
into discussion with the serpent. Who, by making her think that she would be
like God and would be able to discern right from wrong, encouraged her to
rationalise and to dwell on the temptation. Verse 6 of Genesis 3 “When the
woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the
eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” What
is good to know is that just like us Jesus was subject to temptation and he
has words of tremendous comfort for us doesn’t he? First of all though look
at what the writer to the Hebrews has to say on the subject, “Because he
himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being
tempted.” Jesus tells us to take heart for he has overcome the world and at
Gethsemane he tells his disciples to “watch and pray so that you will not
fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the body is weak.” In the Lord’s payer which Jesus taught we
pray “deliver us from evil”, taught us by a man who knew just how weak the
body was and how easily we could fall for he had been there. Paul
is another who gives us encouragement. In 1 Corinthians he writes “And God is
faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when
you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up
under it.” Let’s
leave temptation and move on. Although I do think that the other two things
we learn from this morning’s gospel are closely linked to the avoidance of
sin. Let’s
deal with knowledge of the Bible first, since the other subject of obedience
has the bible as its springboard. Of course at Jesus’ time the Jewish
scriptures comprised the Old Testament alone but what I have to say applies
to the whole bible, as we know it today. In our reading what is of paramount
interest is the fact that the devil uses the bible to persuade, to strengthen
his argument, in this case the Psalms. How often it is that the Bible is used
to rationalise a position, to justify the way we act, how often one verse
taken out of context is the foundation of the sin of pride, of our saying you
worship God your way and I’ll worship him his way, and the unity of the
Spirit is broken. So be careful when that little voice inside us wants to use
scripture to back up our position------ it may be wanting to lead us astray.
We need to know our bible inside out so that when we come up against a verse
which seems to justify us we have the whole story to call upon and not just
what suites us. The interchange between Jesus and the devil demonstrates this
very well. Yes, of course the Psalm 91 at verse 11 and 12 says what the devil
quotes but if Jesus were purposively to throw himself from a high place, when
there is no need, just to test those words is that not putting God to the
test? Jesus shows his knowledge of the Bible to be equal to that of the devil
in quoting Deuteronomy 6 verse 16.in reply. In fact this is only the
beginning of Jesus’ ministry and he already shows a grasp of Biblical
knowledge and understanding. As Christians we are all called to follow Jesus
in his teaching, his life, his
compassion and ethic. Two ways in which we can follow him that are relatively
easy are in our prayer life and our Bible reading ------ how else do we learn
of him, his teaching, his life, his compassion and ethic. We are then able to
discern whether the devil, Satan, our conscience, call it what you will, is
behaving as an angel of light. The Bible is our Christian yardstick without
knowing it how do we know the life of Christ, how do we measure. Scripture
was Jesus’ yardstick and he used it effectively to take the sting out of the
devil’s tail. The
last two things I would like us to draw from this morning’s gospel reading is
obedience and faith. They are intimately linked for faith leads to obedience
---- without faith it is unlikely that there will be obedience. In the
immediately preceding section, at the end of chapter three Jesus has been
baptised by John and the voice from heaven has declared that Jesus is his Son
with whom he is well pleased. But
how do we get faith and obedience out of the temptation of Christ? Jesus
does not break with his reliance on, his trust, his faith in God. Each of his
replies to the devil is prompted by a trust in God, a faith that God will not
let him down. I wonder if at any time the words found in Jeremiah crossed
Jesus’ mind, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord……” and
any pandering to the devil’s invitations would break faith with the Lord God.
In fact each of Jesus replies to the temptations he undergoes are God centred
---- by implication the first as well. “Man shall not live by bread alone”
for to finish the quote it says, “but on every word that comes from the mouth
of the Lord.” He doesn’t need to pander to the devil for his faith tells him
that the Lord God has all in hand, even if that means his own painful death
at the end of his ministry for he knew that on the third day he would rise. Jesus
had a choice ---- either he was obedient to the Lord God’s wishes or he
wasn’t, it was his depth of faith that lead him to the decision to reject the
devil and to be obedient, and therefore pleasing to, God, to thus continue
his ministry. There
was another ingredient that was present and an important one, one that we should
never forget. Jesus had just been baptised and the words are He “Full of the
Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the
desert.” Not in our reading this morning are the words at the beginning of
the next section “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the
Spirit….” This divine energy, this
breath of God, this Holy Spirit call it what you will was important to Jesus
and is axiomatic to us today as Christians as followers of Jesus. He, She.,
It is called the Spirit of truth, the Counsellor, the Comforter, and as Paul
writes to Timothy in his second letter God did not give a Spirit of timidity
but of power. This Spirit Jesus had with him throughout this time of
temptation. We are urged to be filled with the Spirit since the Spirit helps
us in our weakness. There can be no doubt that the Holy Spirit of God helped
Jesus, the man, through this desert experience. From it we learn to pray for
the in filling of the Holy Spirit so that we also may be controlled by the
Spirit and not by the sinful nature as Paul puts it. So from this relatively short
reading this morning we can take away with us perhaps the most important of
lessons ----- be filled with the Holy Spirit. It gives us strength to
withstand the wiles of the devil, the sinful nature, our propensity to go in
the wrong direction. It is there to show us the right choices when temptation
comes along, if we are prepared to listen.. It will give us the ability to
recall the right scriptures to stand in righteousness, but it can’t do that
if we haven’t done our part in reading them and learning from them. Mel
Fancy: Reader, Anglican Chaplaincy of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude To return to main Thought for the Week page, click X at top right to close this window. |