DEAL OR NO DEAL?  tHE qUESTION OF FAITHFULNESS

1st Sunday in Lent

            We’ve seen them in cartoons or in commercials.  Our hero is faced with a choice between good and evil.  On one shoulder sits an angel in white, on the other is a devil dressed in red.  The devil temps our hero to do the wrong thing, the harmful thing, the evil thing.  The angel on the other shoulder does all he can to convince our hero to choose the good, the wholesome, the right thing.  There is for our hero a tug of war going on within him.  In cartoons or commercials this struggle creates a humorous situation.  But our laughter may be of the nervous variety.  For this struggle is all too real and familiar to all of us.  When it comes to choosing the good or evil thing, there is a tug of war going on inside us.

            Well, where does that struggle come from?  We’ve not met any red-suited devils on our shoulders, but it seems that there must be some being opposed to God’s will calling out to us to divert us from God’s will to some other will, some other vision for what our human life ought to be.  The apostle Paul becomes very autobiographical when he tells the Christians in Rome about his own inner struggle with sin.  “Sin” is sometimes defined as disobedience to God’s law.  In the third chapter of the book of Genesis, another view of sin comes into focus.  In the story of Adam and Eve, God tells them not to eat of the fruit of one particular tree.  A serpent comes along and tells them that eating that fruit will make them “like God, knowing good and evil,” a poetic way of saying “everything.”  If they know everything, then they can dismiss God from being in control of their lives, and they can run things themselves.  And that’s just what they decide to do.  That’s another way of looking at sin.  It is our arrogant attempt to dismiss God from being in control of our lives, and making the decision to run things ourselves.  The apostle Paul, in sharing his own inner struggle with the Christians in Rome, gives us still another way of looking at sin.  For Paul, sin itself is like a power, if not a personal force, that engages him in a difficult struggle for his life and his will.  So he tells the Roman Christians this:  “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . .  I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.”  Our gospel lesson calls this same force “the devil.”  Temptation in our gospel text comes in the form of a person.  Don’t imagine the devil in the form of ugliness, repulsive to look at.  Instead, imagine the devil as quite pleasing to look at.  Imagine that you cannot take your eyes off of him or her.  However we picture the source of temptation, we experience it as very real.  Temptation sometimes seems to come from within, as Paul describes; or from without, as portrayed in our gospel text.  What we can say with certainty from our own experience, is that there is a force or there are forces arrayed against the will of God.  God wills love and justice and wholeness.  But in this world—maybe even within ourselves—there is a force at work to cause hatred, bitterness, brokenness, envy, mistrust, and hostility.  That is to say, there is a kingdom opposed to the reign of God, and we have all experienced its powerful and dreadful attraction.

            Oh, and maybe you’ve noticed.  Temptation often comes when we are alone.  Temptation is not so great when we are aware that we are being watched.  Something about the company of others that keeps one on the straight and narrow path.  Oh, sure, we can be tempted by the crowd to do the wrong thing.  Such is the mob mentality.  Children in Africa are convinced by others that they should become children soldiers committing unspeakable acts.  An entire nation becomes convinced that a new Nazi leader has the answers to their national problems, and that nation carries out unspeakable acts in its gas chambers.  We know we can be led astray by the mob.  That is no less demonic.  And yet, temptation often comes when we are alone, away from the watchful eyes of others.  New technology allows parents to spy on their babysitter.  The hidden camera shows what the babysitter does when she thinks no one is watching.  We see her yell at and hit the baby, things she would never do in the presence of the baby’s parents or anyone else.  In the privacy of the home, one spouse physically abuses the other.  In public they look like a happy couple.  The abuser wants it to look that way; the victim is afraid or too embarrassed to tell anyone.  Certainly there are parts of our lives that we do not completely disclose to the world.  I know that’s true for me.  You, too?  Sure.  We’re all like that.  We don’t allow most people in our lives to know where we have given in to temptation.

            Now look in our gospel lesson.  Look and see that Jesus is completely alone in the wilderness.  There is no one with Jesus to see what he does.  No one but the one tempting him, that is.  There are no witnesses here in the wilderness.  We probably only know about this event because Jesus later shared his experience with his disciples.  We can be sure that it wasn’t only in the wilderness that Jesus faced temptation, but also throughout his entire ministry.  But here in our gospel lesson, Jesus is very much alone.  There are no disciples with him to see what he does.  He can do anything here in the wilderness and no one will be the wiser.  That’s what makes these temptations so powerful.  Who would ever know?  Jesus is alone, very much alone.

            Wait!  Not alone.  Jesus was—how did our gospel put it?—“full of the Holy Spirit” when he returned from the Jordan where he was baptized.  Jesus was not alone, but in the company of God’s empowering Holy Spirit.  And in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was equipped with the word of God.  The story of Jesus’ temptation is an inspiration to us.  While Jesus didn’t give in to temptation—which is the difference between his life and ours—he was tempted the same way we are.  While we sometimes give in to temptation, we learn from this story that we do not go into our wilderness alone.  We also live in the power of the Holy Spirit.  If we have been engaged in Bible study over the years, we also face our temptations equipped with the word of God.  The Holy Spirit had led Jesus into the wilderness to go through a time of testing, a time for Jesus to decide what kind of Messiah he would be.  At his baptism, a voice came from heaven, saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  In what that voice said, we heard echoes of Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42, one of the Suffering Servant poems.  At Jesus’ baptism, we get a clear indication that God had called Jesus to be the kind of Messiah who will suffer and die for the benefit of the world.  For Jesus to be obedient to the will of God, he would have to be obedient all the way to the cross.  Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness—and surely throughout his ministry—all involved the choice to divert from the will of God and to become a Messiah who would win the people over without having to suffer and die on the cross.  A powerful set of temptations, all of which would eliminate suffering and dying according to God’s plan.  The story of Jesus’ time of temptation is inspiring to us, because we can learn that we are equipped with the same equipment Jesus had in the wilderness:  the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit and memory of the word of God.  Jesus faces these temptations empowered by the Holy Spirit and equipped by the word of God.

            Now we listen to the devil.  We get a clear understanding of what alternative visions he presents to Jesus, visions that would eliminate the need for suffering, visions that are opposite to God’s plan.  Listen to what the devil has to say:  “If you are the Son of God,” the devil whispers into Jesus’ ear, “command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”  Indeed, Jesus is “famished.”  Why not use his divine powers to eliminate his hunger?  What would be wrong with that?  Yes, the Holy Spirit has led Jesus into the wilderness for this time of testing, this time of visioning, this time of decision making.  But we’re only talking about a little snack here in the wilderness.  It would only be a little diversion from God’s plan.  What could it hurt?  Wait!  That sounds like us!  That’s the way we reason, isn’t it?  It is, if you’re anything like me.  We have clearly heard the word of God direct us in one direction, and we wonder to ourselves, “Why not do what the devil says?  What harm would it cause?”  Jesus resists the temptation to divert from God’s plan, including his time of testing in the wilderness.  He answers the devil with a quote from the book of Deuteronomy:  “One does not live by bread alone.”  Indeed, as Deuteronomy 8:3 says, “. . . one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”  Jesus does not divert, not even a little, from God’s plan.  So then the devil shows Jesus a mental video of all of the kingdoms of the world.  Imagine that!  All the kingdoms of the world!  He says to Jesus, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I will give it to anyone I please.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”  Imagine what you could do with all that power!  You could do all kinds of good with that power.  You could command wars to cease.  You could command the terrorists to become farmers and to engage in killing the innocent no more.  You could command the hungry to be fed by those who have an abundance.  You could do all those things, if you ruled all the kingdoms of the world.  Just one quick bow to the devil.  It would hardly be noticed by anyone.  Just a little quick bow.  But Jesus knows better.  He doesn’t recognize the devil’s authority, for it is the kind that has been snatched for a time but will not last.  God has ultimate authority, and Jesus’ authority, all through his ministry, is from God and only from God.  So Jesus decides not to divide his allegiance.  It all belongs to God, which is what he tells the devil, paraphrasing the words of Deuteronomy 6:13:  “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”  So then the devil takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple.  Quoting a little scripture himself, the devil invites Jesus to do a swan dive from this high point of the temple and depend upon God’s angels to catch him in their protective arms.  Note that temptations can come from one who knows his Bible well!  Imagine that!  The devil quotes Psalm 91:11-12, saying, “He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you.  On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”  Imagine the impression it would make on the people if Jesus would show such faith in God by jumping from the top of the temple and depending upon God to send his angels to protect him.  Jesus does have faith in God, doesn’t he?  What a temptation!  But, in the end, faith is not about testing God.  And faithfulness does not involve doing wonders to impress people.  So Jesus answers the devil in the words of Deuteronomy 6:16, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  In these three tests, Jesus remains faithful.  He does not adopt the visions offered by the devil.  Instead, Jesus remains faithful to the will of God his whole life.

            Sad to say, we haven’t.  We haven’t remained faithful to God.  Lent is the season in the church year in which we are especially invited to admit that we are not faithful, that we have sometimes “gone to the other side” in the hopes that no one really gets hurt.  We have listened to the voice of the devil saying to us that we can be like God, “knowing good and evil.”  The temptation is powerful, for we like being in charge of our own lives.  We want the power to make our own decisions, without consulting the will of God.  Sometimes we don’t trust God to have the plan that will fulfill our lives and bring us our greatest joy.  So we eat the forbidden fruit of arrogance.  And what happens?  Do we become free?  No.  Does our rebellion against God give us fulfillment and our greatest joy?  No.  Instead, we are shamefully exposed as those who want to take over God’s position of Lord of our lives.  And our rebellion has only contributed to our own brokenness and indeed to the brokenness of the world.  So we had ashes imposed on our foreheads this Ash Wednesday to remind us of the frailty of human life, and how we have not been faithful to God.

            Well, the good news for us is that God is faithful.  And so was Jesus Christ, his Son.  In God’s faithfulness and in the faithfulness of his Son, Jesus Christ, is the promise of our redemption, and by that I mean our forgiveness from sin and God making us into new creations.  See Jesus’ faithfulness to the end.  At the end of the gospel of Luke, we find Jesus at table with his disciples.  He shares a meal with them that speaks of his life-long faithfulness that will be fulfilled when he suffers and dies on the cross to make the kind of impression on the world God intends.  Not that of a wonder-working Messiah, but that of the Suffering Servant.  The impression Jesus will make will be to demonstrate the vastness of God’s love for sinners, for those like you and me who have not been faithful to God.  For people just like us, Jesus is about to die to demonstrate the reconciling love of God.  So he takes a loaf of bread, gives thanks for it, breaks it, and gives it to his disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you.”  And he does the same with the cup, and he says to his disciples, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”  This meal, which proclaims the faithfulness of God and of his Son, Jesus Christ, demonstrates God’s love for us, the unfaithful.  How does that powerful hymn say it?  “Alas!  And did my Savior bleed, And did my Sovereign die!  Would He devote that sacred head For sinners such as I!  Was it for sins that I have done He suffered on the tree?  Amazing pity!  Grace unknown!  And love beyond degree!”