Two sentences to begin with - firstly, the closing sentence from the Gospel reading we’ve just heard: “Angels came and ministered to him.” And secondly, some very familiar words from the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation.”
Temptation is very much our theme this morning. On the first Sunday in Lent, we find Jesus in the wilderness. After his baptism he’s led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. The Greek word is a strong one - so you could almost think of Jesus as propelled into the wilderness by the Spirit. He needed this time of testing, he needed the time to face up to the reality of temptation, he needed to know he could deal with the things that might otherwise lead him off course.
Now this only makes sense if Jesus is fully human, tempted in just the same way as us. And in fact the Gospel itself only makes sense if Jesus is fully human - God not just looking like one of us, but truly becoming one of us. And for the ministry of Jesus to be real and for it all to work, there would need to be a wilderness time first. That’s also true for me as a Christian, I find. I may not have to physically go out into the desert like Jesus, but I do need to face up to temptation, and to see myself, my strengths and my weaknesses, in an honest light, if I’m to be any use as a disciple.
So we’re given this purple time in our church calendar, Lent. It’s there so we spend some time in the wilderness. So I can strive to see myself as God sees me. So I can discover more of what he’s wanting me to do. God is calling me to a ministry that’s special to me. Peter writes this: “As living stones, you are being built up as a spiritual temple” If I’m to be part of this temple I need to know which is my particular place in the wall, the place God wants me to hold when I say yes to his call. But I don’t have to say yes. God calls, but I don’t have to follow. God makes himself vulnerable to my no. And if I say no, my place remains unfilled, and some particular loving hope of God for me is dashed.
Angels ministered to Jesus in the wilderness, but only at the end of the story. He was on his own to do the tough stuff first. I’ve been on a few retreats in my time; one I recall came at something of low point, when I felt under pressure and quite unsure about what I should be doing next. What I’d have liked on arrival at the retreat house would have been for the angels to be involved right from the start, so the rocky bits got smoothed out, and the dark and scary bits got brightened up. What I wanted was to feel good again, but that didn’t happen; the road stayed rough and the sky stayed dark. I had quite a tough time on that retreat, and yet it worked: by the end of my time I was in a much better place, and I could see more clearly where to go. Maybe there were angels there after all, they just weren’t going to do the work for me.
The wilderness is where we’re tempted, but temptation can help us to see things more clearly; it can be good for us, if it helps us to see the pitfalls and problems, and know how to deal with them. It was the devil who tempted Jesus, but it had been the Holy Spirit who first put him there to be tempted.
I think most of us are good at resisting the big obviously bad temptations, and most of them are going to be against the law anyway. But a lot of the temptations that come our way are not obviously bad. They can look plausible, they can seem to be a way of making good things happen, and anyway - the voice of temptation tells us - it can’t do any harm, and everyone’s doing it.
Let’s think for a moment about the temptations Jesus faced. He was tempted to turn stones into bread; and to jump from the pinnacle of the temple so the angels could come and bear him up, so they could catch him and save him, rather than staying hidden in the background. And he was tempted to go for earthly power. Or, in other words: Feed yourself - you need it - and you could feed the hungry too; dazzle the crowds, make them believe in you - isn’t that what you want? take power, be a king - think of all the good you could do.
Not one of those temptations was obviously bad in itself. Don’t we often wish that something difficult in our lives could be made more easy, that our work could be completed done more quickly, that our efforts could achieve more certain results? But in all of them Jesus would have been going his own way and not his Father’s way. Taking a short cut, going for a quick fix, a lesser victory than the one set for him. This kind of short-termism means we put a makeshift idol, a false petty god, where the real God should be in our lives; and there are no short cuts to salvation. So Jesus uses holy scripture each time to reject what the devil has suggested - even when the devil himself has used scripture as part of his spiel.
The temptations Jesus faced would be there throughout his ministry, but his time in the wilderness meant he could know them for what they were. The same sorts of temptations will come our way as we do our best to follow him. Look for a moment at the last one, where the kingdoms of the world are laid out before Jesus. With political power, think how we can change things for the better! But who do we have to square with in order to get that power? No matter how pressing the needs around us may be, or our own concerns and ambitions and responsibilities, we must always be looking for where God is, and asking him where he would have us be. For if we always insist on letting God set our agenda, then the devil won’t get the last word.
So what is God’s agenda? When asked, Jesus quoted the summary of the Law, and we’ve used it already in this service: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.” So love is at the very heart of all that God wants from us and for us. His love reaches everywhere and touches everyone, even the people who don’t or can’t recognise it, even the people who openly reject it. And Jesus tells us we should love even our enemies, and pray for those who treat us badly.
So though we may pray “Lead us not into temptation”, temptations can in fact work for our good, if we face them in the wilderness, and give ourselves time and space there to deal with them. That’s a process of self awareness that can reveal the desert inside ourselves - the places where we ourselves are dry and barren, and where our love is wearing thin.
Lent as a wilderness time is God’s gift to us. A time God wants us to use to get stronger, to become better disciples, and to draw nearer to him. So we can respond to his great call to us to be the stones from which his temple is built. Note by the way that we’re stones, rather than bricks. Bricks tend to be all one size and shape, they’re interchangeable. We’re stones, each one different, and each with a place we’re designed to fit in the wall.
So make the most of our forty days in the wilderness. We enter it to face reality, to hear God’s call and respond to it, and to identify and turn away from the things we might allow to get in the way of God, and stop us hearing his call as we should. To take Lent seriously won’t be easy and shouldn’t be easy, but it will be worthwhile. It’s about not choosing our own way, but going with God. That’s what Jesus set himself to do . . . “and angels came, and ministered to him.”
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