Questions In The Wilderness

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

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Introduction

It's fascinating that we are told that Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. Jesus gave up something in pursuit of gaining something else. We aren't told what Jesus was looking for as he headed out into the wilderness. Still, this kind of seclusion or spiritual practice would not have been uncommon for mystics and other religious people of Jesus' time. In those moments, when we sacrifice something in our pursuit of God is when we often come face to face with the things that tempt us most. When we let go of the things that tempt us and hand them to God, we fear losing what we know and what is familiar. For Jesus, it was not only food and sustenance but also the loss of power and abilities that we associate with a divine being. 

Three questions from the reading this morning reflect what we need to let go of in our pursuit of God. During this season of Lent, we ask ourselves: How are we tempted to deny God's promises? How do we rely on power and advantages? And what things do we worship other than God? The answers can be found in Jesus’ response to the temptations from the evil one. 

The First Temptation

As Jesus wanders in the wilderness, the tempter asks Jesus to break his hunger, satiate his hunger, by turning stones into loaves of bread. I don't know about you, but I love a good loaf of bread. And it's not that bread is a bad thing. On the contrary, bread is life-giving, especially in a biblical context. So the matter at hand is whether we come to rely on bread alone (without the providence of God) or on bread in conjunction with the life-giving power of God. In some way or another, God provides, and we must acknowledge that there will be things that are simply out of our control and not meant to be controlled. Therefore, we must cultivate a spiritual life that follows the balancing of life and faith set forth by Jesus. (Fed by the gifts of earth and God.)

We should know that cultivating our spiritual lives cannot merely imitate Christ. The Protestant Reformer John Calvin wrote in his commentary, "Those who fast daily, during all the forty days, pretend that they are imitators of Christ. But how? They stuff their belly so completely at dinner, that, when the hour of supper arrives, they have no difficulty in abstaining from food. What resemblance do they bear to the Son of God?" (Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke [Volumne 1]) During your Lenten journey, how will you commit yourself to dive deeper into your faith, feeding on the Word and promises of God? Because we cannot fill ourselves with good things all at once and expect to be nourished for the entire span of our lives.

The Second Temptation

So for what purpose does this food provide energy? Because we need to put our energy to work. In the second temptation, we hear the temper say, "All these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me." Jesus resists such a temptation, but it is one that we struggle with on a regular basis. It is one that manifests in our choices and interactions with others and one that can seriously hurt ourselves and others if we don't curb our thirst for control and power. Authority and power are powerful temptations when we have the means and privilege to exercise them. And on a personal level, we have to be careful as well of the various aspects of our lives that we oversee. We have been reminded in Jesus' rebuttal of the significance of the call we have all been given, that our lives are not our own, that our power and talents are not our own, and that they are God's to be used to ensure that all people may thrive in the Kingdom of God.

The Third Temptation

The final thing that we hear in this morning's passage is individual and communal. It asks us what we are and what we worship other than God. The tempter brings Jesus up to the point of the temple and challenges Jesus to throw himself off so that the angels from heaven might keep the foot of Jesus from dashing against the rocks below. Perhaps we worship our vanity, our image. Maybe we worship the status quo and our desire to keep things even-keeled. Or yet we might turn to something even more dangerous, which is worshiping a Jesus that is kept inside a box of our making, to make God's teachings more palatable and offensive. We can worship many different things. And when we go off the path set in front of us by God, we soon realize that the grass is not always greener on the other side. We must guard our hearts to ensure that they are true to worshiping what God has said is good. 

Conclusion

We need to remember how God came to bridge the gaps in our broken world and how each of us is unique, beloved, and special. And this Lenten season, we have the opportunity to explore our spirituality and our faith in a way that reminds us of our mortality, the death of the old, and rebirth in the things that give us and others life. It comes down to whether we have the strength to say, "Away with you, Satan, away with all your false lies, false promises, a false sense of security!" If we manage to summon those words out of our lips this Lenten season, our faith and our lives will be richer for it. Not rich in a material sense, but rich in the sense that our hearts will once again be full after letting go of the toxins that poison us and filled with the nutrients that bring our soul new life.