Here we are at the beginning of Lent, a season of intensified spiritual discipline in preparation for the celebration of the Resurrection.
Lent serves the purpose of addressing and meeting our core need as human beings to draw near to and encounter God. Lent is a valuable gift the Church gives us for addressing this innate inner longing.
And as always the 1st Sunday’s Gospel is about the 40 days fast in the wilderness and the temptations. Why? What are they all about?
The purpose of the temptations in the wilderness is to show that Jesus is ready for and has the authority for leadership in ministry.
Now, Jesus wasn’t the only one who spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness. Moses did that going up Mount Sinai and came back with the Law carved in stone tablets. Elijah did that and came back with a clear mandate about who would be ruling what kingdom.
When Jesus comes back he doesn’t bring anything back except himself, and he begins to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come.
This Gospel reading is a demonstration for us of Jesus’ alignment with the will of God to indicate his capacity to rule. The role of the devil is to test Jesus’ readiness and reliability, his authenticity.
After Jesus has finished his fast, when he was hungry, then the devil says to him: So you’re the Son of God – a God-realized person, eh?, totally enlightened, then you certainly can change stone into bread and take care of that hunger of yours.
But Jesus replies, quoting from Deut. 8:3, which reads: “He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”
Turn stones to bread? No need for that. The Gospels record 6 times when Jesus took a small amount of bread, blessed and broke it, and then fed THOUSANDS.
Test #2
Luke 4:5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. Luke 4:6 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. Luke 4:7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
Notice - The devil is claiming all authority. Interesting. I think the devil is lying. He’s been known to do that. After all that’s what the name Satan means: liar.
But what he is presenting to Jesus is not the plan for Jesus, not the kind of Messiah he is in this invitation to buy into messianic kingship over all the temporal nations.
Rather – we read at the end of Matthew’s Gospel: Matt. 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Matt. 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…
Do you see how this is different from ruling all nations?
The test or temptation is around moving from one orientation of reality to another, moving from what is centered in the self and brings power to the self to what transcends self and serves self-emptying instead.
The devil says, Luke 4:7 If you, [then,] will worship me, it will all be yours.” Luke 4:8 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
Worship expresses the relationship of serving, not ruling. In worship we are not feeding our ego, but acknowledging another as Lord. Right? Isn’t that what we are about when we come here for a worship service?
Temptation #3
Luke 4:9 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…”
Well, Jesus was continuously at risk for his life, someone was usually out to get him, and he did not ask to be spared. In the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed:
Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”
If he is going to fall and die in the falling, then so be it. In fact, THAT would be the plan – the Cross.
The temptation was to see whether God is present or not. To test God’s presence is to doubt God’s presence. But Jesus was utterly integrated in conscious awareness with the divine presence.
You can’t put God to the test if you are AWARE that God is always with you. Well, so much for tempting Jesus!
So Luke 4:13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
That opportune time comes much later in Jerusalem.
Luke 22:3 Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; And Jesus at that time, at the Last Supper, also tells his Peter and his disciples: Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, Luke 22:32 but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
Simon Peter has had some sort of idea about preserving Jesus from crucifixion, and he follows him into the courtyard of the high priest, where he then fails miserably as he ends up denying our Lord 3 times.
Two who would resist Jesus’ plan of complete self-emptying on the cross: Judas and Simon Peter. How do we also resist that?
And so that takes care of the temptations – Jesus expresses perfect self-emptied clarity about his mission and ministry.
Then if we were to go on with the next verse after the Gospel reading for today, we would read: Luke 4:14 … Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and … to his home town: Luke 4:21 Then (in the synagogue) he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The truth of the writing of old is now being lived in your presence.
This is the outcome of the 40 days’ fast in the desert.
Now we are entering another Lent, another 40 days in the desert, a spiritual desert this time, a spiritual space for encounter with God’s revelation, and discernment regarding our own clarity for mission and ministry. Let us make good use of this opportunity of Lent, it being a very good place for spiritual growth and development, there in the sparse environment which is more conducive.
So, how to use Lent, to observe Lent: We are doing that here as the gathered community liturgically and musically for these 5 Sundays of Lent, creating a sparseness to enhance and support the spiritual work.
Individually we can also create an inner desert/sparseness to foster our spiritual practices of prayer, meditation, scripture study, fasting, alms giving, self-denial and penitence, to help us in facing the inner demons testing us about our own clarity of mission and surrenderedness to God.
Now is the opportune time.
MAKE GOOD USE OF IT.
