Luke 4:1-13
Jesus was led by the Spirit in
the wilderness. This is how Jesus prepared for his ministry. He’s just been
baptized, the Holy Spirit descended in a form like a dove, and then, that
Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness. No disciples, no crowds. No healings, no Peter’s
mother-in-law, no raising the dead, no Lazarus. Instead, this time in the wilderness,
eating nothing at all, being tested by the devil. Why this beginning? Why not
ride the wave of, “You are my Son, the beloved,” go to Jerusalem and set things
right? Why not select the disciples and begin to teach and heal? Luke doesn’t
tell us much of why he is here. What he does tell us is that the devil was
there, testing him, until, “the devil had finished every test.” This time of
testing inspired Paul to write later, “For we do not have a high priest who is
unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect
has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 5.15). In these 40 wilderness
days Jesus experienced isolation, solitude, and loneliness; sorrow and joy;
heat and cold; hunger and thirst, and learned empathy and compassion; temptation
and obedience. He learned more deeply what it is to be human. He prepared for
his ministry and the cross by becoming more like us.
Working with
today’s Gospel this last week, I updated some things I thought I knew about this
text:
First, there
were more than 3 temptations:
Luke writes, “…where
for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”
Second, that Jesus
was not alone:
In Mark’s Gospel
we read that, “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness,” drove
him, as one might drive cattle.
But in Luke, Jesus
is led by the Spirit in the wilderness. The Holy Spirit was with him, he was
not alone.
And, the devil
was there. I wonder how he showed up. As a red man with horns, barbed tail, and
pitchfork? Probably not. Perhaps he showed up as temptation to break the fast. Jesus
could have eaten locusts and wild honey, as John the Baptist did. Tempted to skip
prayer time in order to sleep in, or give up after 5 days and go back into town.
And, third, I
learned that the temptations were not over:
“When
the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time,”
which might have come during the agony in the garden, or through Judas, or the
Temple authorities, or with Peter at the time of his denial.
These 40 days in
the wilderness for Jesus call to mind the 40 years in the wilderness for the
Israelites where they were led by God to form them into a nation and into his
people. Unlike Jesus, they did not fare well. Instead, they tested God. We read
in Psalm 95
8 Harden not your hearts,
as your forebears did in the
wilderness, *
at Meribah, and on that day at
Massah,
when they tempted me.
9 They put me to the test, *
though
they had seen my works.
And
in Psalm 78:
19 They railed against God and
said, *
“Can God set a table in the
wilderness?
Is he able to give bread
or to provide meat for his
people?”
27 God rained down flesh upon
them like dust *
and wingèd birds like the sand of
the sea.
29 So they ate and were well
filled,
30 But they did not stop their
craving, *
though
the food was still in their mouths.
For myself, I will admit that I have been tested
many times and have not always come out on the side of “did not sin.” I spend too
much to buy things that please me; I have that extra piece of chocolate—or any
flavor—cake; I surf the Internet compulsively; I binge on Netflix; I surrender
my life to my iPhone and play games on my iPad.
I’m good at
saying “yes” when I should say “no” and “no” instead of “yes,” responding to
the temptation to please someone else rather than do the right thing for me. All
my self-centered responses consume my resources, my time, and my attention. When
I’ll do anything to fill my quiet, how can I be with God?
There are other temptations:
to be impatient, angry, resentful, unloving, and uncaring. To be unsafe in the
car, inconsiderate in being late. Giving in to them pulls me into a darker,
meaner part of myself, with feelings I sometimes like. Honking my horn at a
jerk can feel really good. Sitting in the familiar corner of depression—is like
having a conversation with an old friend. Even though it hurts.
For all these, a
simple question helps me know whether I’m doing the right thing: Does it pull me
closer to God or away?
So, stories of
disobedience from the Israelites—and me—and Luke’s telling of Jesus’s obedience,
which he began by going into the wilderness.
Where do we go
from here?
A few days ago—on
Ash Wednesday—we turned to scripture and prayer.
From Isaiah we
read:
“Why
do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble
ourselves, but you do not notice?”
And from the
prophet Joel:
“For
the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
a
day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!”
a day of clouds and thick darkness!”
t
These
prophetic messages and the remembrance of our willful sinfulness create an urge
to see Ash Wednesday as all disobedience and mortality, doom and gloom.
But with God, we are never left without
hope.
On Ash Wednesday we also read in Psalm 103:
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
3 He
forgives all your sins
4 He redeems your life from the
grave and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness.
And
from Paul:
We entreat you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The
liturgy of Ash Wednesday helps us away from darkness.
·
First,
from the Ash Wednesday collect: “Everlasting God, you hate nothing you have
made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 264).
·
Second,
that we worship the God of all mercy, and obtain from Him perfect remission and
forgiveness.
·
And, third, we are invited, in the name of the
Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by
prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy
Word.
A
wonderful invitation that comes every year and from which we can learn to move toward
obedience, toward life, toward God. But how?
I turned to
Google for a moment.
What Should I Give Up for Lent?: 50 Unique Ideas from
EquippingGodlyWomen.com
ChristianityToday.com: What to Give Up for Lent? Consider Twitter’s
Top 100
And popsugar.com a fitness site, tempts us with: The Calories
You’ll Save Giving Up These 10
Foods For Lent
From the Twitter list and others of that sort—no surprises.
Facebook, Twitter & Social Media
Starbucks — with a suggestion to donate the money instead
A perennial favorite: Chocolate
Alcohol —a good idea for many
Fast Food and Junk Food
School & Homework
Lent
Religion
Also found some worthwhile
suggestions:
Give up Worry
Gossip
Complaining
Swearing
And fear
BustedHalo.com lists:
1. Make a commitment to read the Sunday scriptures
before Sunday.
2. Try a new spiritual practice.
3. Think about what you usually spend
your money on.
4. Take something on — 40 days of letter
writing, 40 acts of kindness, 40 phone calls to the important people in
your life.
In the 2015
“Pope Francis’ Guide to Lent,” the Pope’s bottom line was this: give
up something for Lent only if it demonstrates compassion and enriches others. He
preached the need for Lenten observances that don’t draw attention to the practitioner.[1]
I also found, “Lent would be an ideal
time to step outside of your comfort zone and spend a little time attempting to
understand those you consider the enemy.”[2]
And “Lent doesn’t have to be only about
giving up something, it can also be about giving to others.
Try volunteering,
giving to the homeless or just being more conscious of those less fortunate.”
There are Lenten resources from the national
Church, our Diocese, our Acorn newsletter, a Lenten Booklet (in the gathering
hall).
ForwardMovement.org, offers Lent Madness, a lighthearted Saintly
Smackdown, a way to learn about Saints of God from all ages (information in the
gathering hall).
Richard Rohr offers a daily meditation,
which I highly commend to you.
Links to all these and more are
available in the Blog on the church’s website.
So many options, of which these are only
a few. It can be overwhelmingly difficult to make a choice. What can I choose in
the next day or two before I forget all about it? To what can I really commit? What
is my prayer life? Where are my growing edges?
I’ve probably overwhelmed you with
details and options, so before I end, I want to return to scripture, to Jesus’s
forty days in the wilderness, his time of temptation in which he gave us an “example
of his life,” and “his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation.”[3]
We cannot match his obedience, nor live fully
to the example of his life, but we can take up our cross and follow him. We can
invite him into our lives and pray to enter his. We are human – as he was – we do
what we can, though we can always strive for more. We can remember his ministry
and take up the call to go into the world to love and serve the Lord.
Being a Christian is neither simple nor
easy. It’s much more than just going to church on Sunday. We are called—in Lent
and always—to move more deeply into our faith, our worship, our lives in the
world, and our lives in Christ.
The Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday concludes,
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Where is your treasure? Where is your heart? Stepping into the
wilderness was an act of obedience for Jesus. Are you willing to step into your
own wilderness, taking Jesus with you, as an act of obedience?
Let us pray…
God, we ask for your blessing during this Holy Season of
Lent.
Give us the grace of your presence, your inspiration, and
your call to a renewed life grounded in you. Amen[4]
[1]
AJC.com, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
[2]
From the Internet, source lost.
[3]
The Book of Common Prayer, A General Thanksgiving, p. 836
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