First Sunday of Lent, Feb 21, 2010 Nancy Meehan Yao
Psalm 91
1You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
2will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.”
9Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place,
10no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.
11For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
12On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
13You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.
14Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name.
15When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.
16With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.
Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Last Wednesday we began the 40 days of Lent, a time of preparation.
The word Lent comes from an Old English word, for spring, Lengten, meaning to lengthen- as in, the days are beginning to lengthen. Now, for people who have gone to Florida for the winter, or for people who live in the Southern Hemisphere, this doesn’t mean much. But for us, who are famished for every particle of daylight and sunlight we can get, even the idea of lengthening days is a hope for us.
Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days. The 40 here is a number filled with meaning and memory- Noah and his family were on the ark for 40 days of rain, Moses and the people of Israel were in the desert for 40 years- Jesus is in the desert for 40 days- and Lent, a time of increasing daylight, is a time of 40 days. It is a time of preparation and testing.
This story appears in all 3 synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. In the Luke account, after his baptism, in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit appears like a dove, and Jesus hears a voice that says “you are my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.” And then Jesus is in the wilderness.
The light in the desert is harsh. Anyone who has ever been in a desert can tell you .-It is perilously dark at night, and cold, but when the sun comes up, it comes fiercely- so that people who live in a desert area are forced to do things early in the morning, or late at night, because the sun is blinding and dangerous. The light and heat are crippling. But the light is also revealing.
While in the desert, Jesus is set upon by the devil- the accuser—who acts as a prosecuting attorney. He comes after Jesus with one simple word….”if”….”If you are the Son of God, then turn these stones into bread. …“if you will only worship me….” And lastly, again, “if you are the Son of God, then prove it! Throw yourself down- and as God said--you’ll be safe, right?…” The devil is working here, asking questions, planting doubt about Jesus identity.
The devil offers what seem to be reasonable things—bread- for himself and the world! Power—to overthrow the Romans, perhaps, or power to set things right in the world. And glory—for if Jesus was to emerge safe, in the middle of Jerusalem, then surely the Temple authorities, the people, would understand just who he was, and what he could do!
They seem to be reasonable, but in the harsh light of the desert Jesus see what satan is really like. Because Jesus’ answers to the devil all are simple: “no”.
In a few moments, we will receive new members into our church. While we have known and loved them for a while, today they are making the formal step to join us in our common life and worship together. And I will ask them questions, questions that re-affirm the covenant made at their baptism. The first of these is this: “Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?” And the answer is simple- “I do”. Simple to say, that is, but not simple to live out. The devil is still alive and working in our lives, planting doubt about our identity, our identity as children of God.
The second question I will ask is “Do you turn to Jesus Christ…?” Turning away is not all there is: when we turn away, we also then turn towards something or someone. When we say “yes, I do” to our spouse, then we are saying no to a host of other things and people. When we say “I believe in God” we are saying no to everything that is not God. Every “no” is also a yes to something else.
The blinding light of the desert, the cruel light of the wilderness, can show us the difference between yes and no. The cruel light of the desert can show us the truth about our lives. In that bright light, we can see the broken places in our lives. We can see the pain we have caused others, where we have failed to be who God created us to be. But we also can see the places of grace, and the places of healing. We can see just how dusty the house is, and see how beautiful the sky and trees look. We can see the darkness of our own souls, but we can see the smudge of ashes, shaped in a cross, and the damp spot left by baptismal waters. This is not to say that the desert is fun, or exciting, or even a place we would choose to go—ever. But when we are in the desert, there is so little: just stones and dust and bright light. There, we can begin to see.
I do not want you to think that Jesus was not really tempted. Unlike Tiger Woods, Jesus does not say that he worked hard and felt he deserved to enjoy all the temptations around him. Jesus was fully human and fully divine—like us in every way, the Apostle Paul says, except for sin. But notice something that we often miss in our reading of this story. Jesus was not without resources in the desert. And neither are we.
Jesus had Scripture—all of his answers, his “nos” are from Scripture. This is why it is important to hear the word of God, to study the word of God. It is like food and water in the desert for us. There is a lot to be said for memorizing Scripture. Memory verses are not as popular as they were when many of us were children—but there is a great deal to be said for having Scripture so deeply within us, so deeply ingrained, that that is what comes up in times of trial and distress.
Jesus had the Holy Spirit. Right there in the first verse, it says “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit IN the wilderness”- the Spirit did not drive Jesus out to the desert, shove him out of the car and then speed away—God’s own Spirit did not abandon Jesus at his time of testing—and the same is true for us. WE ALL go through times of wilderness, times of testing, long dark times of temptations and wrestling with evil and its power in the world, and in our own lives, and in the lives of the people we love—but the Holy Spirit is with us, in that desert, in that time of trial—the Holy Spirit has not abandoned us. The question to the new members begins “trusting in the gracious mercy of God…” That in itself, that trusting, is a work of the Spirit, and is evidence of the work of the Spirit in our lives. The passage we read today ends “and the devil departed from him, until an opportune time.” There will be more testing, more trials—but the very next verse, one we didn’t read today, v 14, says “Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee…” the testing, the trial, did not separate Jesus from the Spirit of God.
And I want us to notice one more thing. The sequence of events is the same for us. Jesus, at his baptism, was declared by God “my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This does not get said after Jesus successfully lives in the desert for 40 days, after Jesus says “no” to the devil and the temptations. No, the order is this: Jesus is baptized, called and blessed, and after that, the temptations come. The same is true for us—in our baptism, we are marked by God, blessed by God, claimed by God—and the temptations begin later.
The 40 days of Lent are often described as a time of renouncing: renouncing dessert, or the internet, or chocolate—and perhaps renouncing something, for a time, gives us strength, to renounce other, bigger things, with the Spirit’s help, to renounce sin and evil in the world, and its hold over us. These practices are not grim and despair-filled: rather we learn the meaning of hope in the grace of God in the practices of these disciplines. The light in the desert times is harsh, but it gives us light to see clearly. And what we see is the One who died on the cross for us, the One who was raised to bring us new life, the One who is Light of the World. Amen
