Lent 1
The Rev. Rod Sprange 

Lent: a time of cleansing and recommitment

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

Welcome pilgrims! I feel like John Wayne when I say that. But I mean it, welcome to our Lenten pilgrimage, because Lent is a journey, a journey in time. It’s a wonderful but sobering time created for us for self examination. A time to acknowledge our weaknesses and temptations. A time to confess to God how we have failed to resist temptation. A time for knowing the Relief of confession, and the joy of forgiveness. It’s a time for being cleansed, and for recommitting ourselves to Christ. We are called to make this journey in preparation for the drama, sorrow and jubilation of Holy Week and Easter.

As I read and studied this week’s readings, three things stood out for me.

The three things are: the temptation to follow the desires of our own hearts rather than God’s will; the relief and joy of confession and forgiveness; and the way in which the powers of evil attack us at our most vulnerable times probing our weaknesses. I’ll leave it to you to spend some time with Psalm 32 to hear what the the psalmist has to say about acknowledging his sins, and the relief and joy he experienced knowing God’s forgiveness and steadfast love. For now, I want to start at the beginning with the first sin, back in the garden of Eden.

You are all familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, the serpent and the forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve had everything they needed to lead fulfilling lives. They had companionship, They had purpose (to care for the garden and all God’s creatures) and they had all the plants and fruits they needed for delicious and nourishing food. God had only one rule for them, they were not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Well, you know what it’s like when we are told there is something we can’t have - we desire it even more.

As you know Eve succumbed and tried the fruit. Adam didn’t try and stop her. And when she offered some to him he didn’t put up any resistance. Immediately they lost their innocence. Once they knew what was evil they were subject to judgement.

The first sin they committed is at the heart of all sin - humankind’s wilfulness. Our desire to do what we want and not what God wants. We think we know better than God. We think we know where happiness lies. We start to worship other gods, wealth, power, prestige, comfort. And when we achieve some of these we begin to see ourselves as superior to others, as somehow special. General confession as part of our liturgy helps keep us humble. We gather together equal in our sinfulness. In our statement of confession each Sunday we ask for God’s forgiveness and mercy that we may delight in God’s will and walk in God’s ways. But listen carefully to what we are asking in this prayer, because we need to understand what we are asking, to be able to pray it with sincerity.

We are asking that we will experience joy doing what God wants, and get excited about discovering God’s will for us - rather than ‘following the desires of our own hearts’. God’s will for us may be very different from our own desires. The outcome of delighting in God’s will, should be that we actually live our lives as God intends. All this assumes that we will spend time and energy in discerning God’s will for us. To discern God’s will means finding out all we can about God and God’s ways. The starting point for this is Holy Scripture. And the key to Holy Scripture is found in the Gospels, which reveal to us, through Jesus’s life, teaching, death and resurrection the very nature of God. Jesus said “If you have seen me, then you have seen the Father”. Jesus knew well, and was guided by, what we call the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. So, to understand Jesus, we need also to be grounded in the Old Testament.

Reading ancient texts and even the 2000 year old Gospels can be challenging. So we need to be able to make sense of Scripture. Oh, that reminds me, we have a six week Lenten series, ‘making sense of Scripture’ - we have the first session following coffee time today - what a great opportunity. Even if you haven’t signed up, you will be more than welcome to join us.

Let’s turn now to the temptation of Jesus.

Jesus had gone to listen to John the Baptist. He decided to be baptized by John. When he came up out of the water he heard God say “You are my Son, the beloved, in you I am well pleased”.

Can you imagine what that might have been like - the amazing affirmation from God - what he had long suspected now fully confirmed. Then the realization of the awesome responsibility he had. He is the Messiah. What does that really mean? What does the Father want him to do? Exactly what is his mission and how is he to achieve it? These would have been huge questions for Jesus.

The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. We pray “lead us not into temptation” or “Save us from the time of trial”. But the reality is we need to know temptation if we are to have the opportunity to choose - for things to be of our own free will. We can’t learn to do that if we never face temptation. Jesus was to take on the difficult and dangerous path of suffering servant, but it had to be a path he freely accepted.

If we too are to accept our calling as disciples of Christ, we need a close relationship with God. And, we need the support of a healthy, loving Christian community, to strengthen our resolve and to help us discern where God is calling us. We need to discern both our gifts and how we are called to use them for God’s purposes.

Jesus has spent those long days and nights fasting and praying discerning God’s will. He was famished and probably exhausted, mentally and physically. What an opportune time for the Devil to appear to offer temptation.

The Devil knows our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities, but was no match for Jesus. Listen to the first temptation he offers Jesus; try and identify the very first and most basic vulnerability or potential weakness he tries to exploit. The Devil says to Jesus, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’

What do you think - what potential vulnerability is the Devil trying to exploit? He uses it twice here, and it is something that comes up again at the crucifixion. Listen to those first 7 words ‘If you are the Son of God…’ What one word pokes at an area of possible weakness? It’s the word IF. Sometimes we read this quickly and it can sound like confirmation. But that would be simply written as ‘You are the Son of God, command these stones…’. Listen for a possible sneering voice ‘If you are the Son of God command these stones’. Could it be that the Devil is trying to sew a seed of self-doubt in Jesus exhausted mind?

After possibly trying to sew self-doubt, the Devil attacks Jesus physical vulnerability - hunger. The Son of God should be able to turn stones into bread. Imagine being famished and someone introduces the thought of freshly baked bread. But Jesus is not susceptible to this temptation and responds that spiritual nourishment is more important than physical comfort. He is not about to abuse his power for his own comfort. We can be tempted to put physical comfort above our spiritual well-being.

The Devil again begins the second temptation with “If you are the Son of God…” He takes Jesus to Jerusalem and places him on the highest part of the temple. He tells him to throw himself off because scripture says God’s angles will protect you. This would have been a spectacular demonstration of Jesus’s Messiahship. All the people would see this amazing miracle. The Devil has done what unscrupulous people sometimes do and that is to use scripture inappropriately to prove a point or convert someone to their point of view. This is an abuse of scripture. Jesus uses another appropriate scriptural quotation to correct the Devil - we must not put God to the test. This demonstrates too, that while all of scripture contains truth and is important, some areas of scripture are more central to our faith than others, and lead to core beliefs.

In the third temptation the Devil takes him to a high mountain to show him all the world’s kingdoms. Notice here the Devil doesn’t remind Jesus of being the Son of God - he wants Jesus to be awed by the power the Devil says he will give him if he submits to the Devil and worships him. That is one of humanities biggest temptations, to submit to evil to obtain or keep power and it leads to idolatry - the worship of false Gods like power, money, prestige, comfort, safety rather than worshipping and putting our trust in God, Father Son and Holy Spirit.

At this point in Matthew’s account the Devil leaves Jesus and the Angels come and wait on him. In Luke’s account, he adds a puzzling phrase. Luke says “The Devil parted from him and waited for an opportune time.” The Devil never gives up.

This addition has always puzzled me until this week. I was thinking about those words “If you are the Son of God…” Where else do we hear these words - or very similar ones?

It’s at the crucifixion. Luke 23 “The leaders scoffed him saying, he saved others, let him save himself, if he is the messiah of God”.

And one of the criminals crucified with him also mocked him saying, “‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’

These words, probably inspired by the Devil, were said to Jesus at what must have been his lowest point. He was dying on the cross in agony He had been deserted and denied by his friends and disciples. He was heard quoting Psalm 22 - ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’. At the very end when he was so close to death, was the Devil trying one last time to instil doubt, to undermine his faith? If that’s what he was doing, it didn’t work, because if we read the whole of Psalm 22 we find it ends in hope and trust in God.

The reality of human existence is that the Devil - or evil powers, attack us at our highest and lowest points.

At our highest points we are tempted to think we are self-made, we give ourselves all the credit for our successes, and we forget to acknowledge God’s gifts.

At our lowest points the temptation is to lose faith and deny God. A strong loving community can help with both of these. Keeping us honest and humbled at high points, and surrounding us with God’s love at our lowest.

We belong to a parish where this is true. God has given us something special in this place, let’s never take it for granted or undervalue it.

Using some of the words from the Ash Wednesday service:
Let us observe a holy Lent by self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and by reading and meditating on the word of God,
Amen