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Luke 4:1-13

Tempted But Not Surrendered

February 29, 2004

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.

On Ash Wednesday of this past week, the movie produced by Hollywood Superstar, Mel Gibson, was shown on 4600 movie screens across the country.  The Passion of the Christ has become a very controversial and highly anticipated event.  This controversy has helped it become one of only 3 movies to open in the middle of the week and to sell more than $25 million in tickets by its opening day.[1]

All this controversy surrounding a movie made about the life of Jesus reminds me of another movie released sixteen years ago. 

Mel Gibson’s movie of this week seems to be getting the support of Christian organizations across the country.  The Last Temptation of Christ was disapproved of by most of those same groups when it came out in 1986 because it was far less true to the actual text of the New Testament than the Passion of the Christ seems to be. 

The Last Temptation told the story of Jesus as a young man, confused and tempted by sexuality and all the choices he had before him.  One writer and reviewer described Jesus’ “last temptation” before he is crucified as being “tempted to leave the cross for the life of an ordinary man who knows the felicities of marriage, sex, and family.”[2]

Although an interesting exercise of imagination, nothing in the biblical accounts suggests that this struggle and temptation was one that Jesus actually endured.  But clearly, throughout his ministry, Jesus was tempted.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was faced with the temptation to not go through with the crucifixion, in the end giving in to the will of the Father in Heaven saying, “remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”[3]

In the verses from the gospel according to Luke which we’ve read for this morning’s text, we find that Jesus is tempted three times while in the wilderness.  He is tempted by hunger, by ambitious pride and by power.

He is out in the desert, alone, and struggling with the possibilities of his future and what it holds for him.  And the devil shows up…

Do you believe in the devil?

Two boys were walking home from church and sharing their reflection on the lessons of the day. They had been studying the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. One boy said to his friend, “Do you believe that stuff about the devil? Do you think there really is a devil?”

The friend looked back at the first boy and said, “Naah, it’s just like Santa Claus — it’s your dad.” [4]

A few years ago at Andover Newton, I met a woman who was also working on her doctoral degree.  She was working on a book studying Satan and how Satan is depicted throughout the bible.  We would tease her and referr to her as the “devil-woman.”  Her study was to take a close look in all the scriptures from the Old and New Testament that dealt with Satan or the Devil and try to understand biblically what kind of a figure he was.  Her idea was that she was going to prove that in scripture, the devil is shown to be not the great cosmic monster and evil beast that he has come to be known as in the modern world, but that biblically, the devil is the tempter, a mischievous, troublemaker, disobedient to God, eager to get others, like Job and Jesus in trouble by luring them away from God through deception and temptation.

My friend and fellow doctoral student felt that however mischievous, deceitful or tempting the biblical devil was, he was not the prince of darkness and the master of all things evil.

I’ve heard others too over the years say to me, there is no such thing as the devil.  That evil certainly is a force and a power in the world, but that Satan, some great horrible master of the underworld and the ruler of hell sitting there all red and pointy eared with a pitchfork and long tail, doesn’t really exist.

Regardless of whether Satan exists in reality or not, temptation certainly does.

Have you seen the commercial sometimes shown on TV, where the young woman is visiting in the home of a friend? She’s in the bathroom primping at the mirror, when temptation overtakes her and she sneaks a peek in the medicine cabinet. Snickering at the bottles and tubes she finds on the shelves, when she puts one of them back, the shelf comes crashing down and all the contents of the medicine cabinet fall to the floor. “Ever feel like getting away?” is the commercial’s tag line. [5]

Temptation is real.

While a man and a woman are shopping at a mall kiosk, a shapely young woman in a short, form-fitting dress strolls by. The man’s eyes follow her.

Without looking up from the item she was examining, the woman asked, “Was it worth the trouble you’re in?” [6]

A little boy desperately wanted a new bicycle. His plan was to save his nickels, dimes and quarters until he finally had enough to buy a new 10-speed. Each night he asked God to help him save his money. Kneeling beside his bed, he prayed, "Dear Lord, please help me save my money for a new bike, and please, Lord, don't let the ice cream man come down the street again tomorrow."[7]

Nobody is immune from temptation.  Temptation itself is not sin.  Martin Luther said about temptation, “You can’t help it if a bird flies over your head, but you don’t need to let him make a nest in your hair.”  Temptation itself cannot be avoided, but it can be resisted. 

The devil comes to Jesus, forty days alone and hungry and without food or provisions in the wilderness, and says to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

The Son of God perhaps thinks to himself,  “Why should I suffer like this?  Do I really need to be deprived?  I can do what want, can’t I?  Can’t I at least feed myself?”

But even if Jesus thought like this, or believed these words, as certainly the devil seems to, his response was one of resistance and fortitude, “One does not live by bread alone.”

Hunger could not prevail in its temptation of a hungry man.

Then the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and 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.”

But ambition doesn’t seem to have any more success over Jesus than did the gnawing pangs of hunger at least not outside the plan God the Creator has revealed to him and has recruited him to carry out.  Jesus responds, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

A third try by the devil comes as he tempts Jesus to play with his power.  He simply plies him with the possibilities…”wouldn’t it be great if you just threw yourself off this high tower and called the angels to save you.  After all, it is written, “‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’  Wouldn’t that be fun, to be caught up at the last minute, to be carried away on angel’s wings, c’mon, imagine the thrill!  You can do it if anybody can!”

A power trip, a thrill ride, an adrenaline rush.  Jesus seems immune.  He responds, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

But such immunity is not universal is it?  Have you ever heard of the appalling sport of “subway-surfing”?

Here’s an excerpt about it from the New York Times, from last November.

“In the second subway-surfing death in a month, a merchant marine cadet riding on top of a train in the Bronx was killed early yesterday morning when a steel girder fractured his skull in the darkness. A second cadet was critically injured.

The cadets were the latest casualties of a dangerous stunt that had seemed gone with the 1980's and 90's, only to return twice in recent weeks. A Chelsea high school student was killed on Oct. 20 when he rode atop a moving train in the tunnels beneath Greenwich Village.[8]

Thrill seeking – it may be the one of most enticing temptations for teenaged boys.  As a father of two sons, I know I can wait a little before those teenaged years arrive.

But power and ambition and hunger draw more than just teenagers and college kids to do things they never expected they’d do.  And hunger is much more than the growling belly that draws us to unhealthy.  Hunger can also describe all the many types of physical needs and desires that gnaw on our bodies.

“A LUST-CRAZED boss threw 170 workers on the dole by swindling £600,000 to keep a call girl and two other mistresses” says one news article published this past week in Scotland. The married dad-of-two’s travel business crashed because of his obsession particularly with a £1000a-night prostitute known as 'Sultry Tia'.  The 51-year-old spent almost £500,000 on [relations with her] and gifts, including a BMW car, exotic holidays, an apartment and cash.  He will be sentenced next week for theft, false accounting and forgery.  He fell for [the girl] after seeing her [dressed scantily] on the internet.  One source involved in the case said: 'He blew almost half a million on her it really is unbelievable.  'He was quite simply obsessed and kept on dipping into the accounts to get more and more money to pay for his fantasies.  'It is easy to see how he gave way to temptation. But it sent the company into liquidation.  'At one time, he was a successful, happily married family man with two kids. Now he's ruined and, depending on the way the judge looks at the case, he could go to jail.'[9]

Train-surfing and embezzling over a million U.S. dollars to satisfy sexual fantasies.  Turning stones into bread, jumping off a high building for the thrill of being saved by angels. 

Certainly not ordinary temptations are they?

But I’m sure we can each name some ordinary temptations of our own that are no less enticing than some of those I’ve already mentioned.  We each have our vices, our own unavoidable foibles.

My grandmother, who died almost thirteen years ago, had very high blood pressure and other serious issues with her heart and vascular system.  She was in constant arguments with my mother over what she ate.  I can hear her to this day, “You can’t eat those olives, they’re too salty.  Look at your legs, look how they’ve swollen with water again.”

I think in this modern era, it’s a taboo to talk about temptation with any sincerity.  I think we all think that we are above such things.  That we are in constant and utter control over ourselves, our bodies, our urges and our desires.  But its simply not true is it.  Its difficult to do what we know is right, especially when what we know is not right is so enticing.

A trio of painters plummeted 1,000 feet while tethered to the same rope, suddenly anchored to nothing.

The calamity occurred when a lifting rope slipped from a hoist, killing the painting company's owner, a worker, and the owner's stepson.

The safest way to ascend a tower is climbing its ladder while latching and unlatching safety lines, experts say. But that exhausting technique takes hours, so many crews are tempted.  They are tempted to "ride the line," and that's what this crew did.

One end of a 3,000-foot nylon rope was attached to a hoist. The rope ran to a pulley at the tower's top, then down to the ground. At the end were three loops, six feet apart. The crew apparently each put a foot in a loop, then latched their safety harnesses to the rope, and held on.

The crew apparently rode the line to about 1,000 feet without problems. But then something happened -- perhaps equipment got snagged on the tower -- and the rope went slack, sending the company owner and his workers plummeting.

Investigators found numerous mistakes: The men rode a rope without proper safety lines. The hoist, overloaded by the weight of the crew and their equipment, was not designed to lift people and had no braking system. And it was illegal for the owner to assign his 16-year-old stepson to such dangerous work.

Had the state decided to levy fines, the tally might have amounted to thousands of dollars. But there was no point, investigators decided. In an instant, the Quality Tower Painting Company was gone.[10]

Temptations are real and they are universal.  Cutting corners on work, on a diet, on a financial plan, on God’s plan are among countless universal impulses that grip every human being alive, even the human being that was also the Son of God and mysteriously equal parts God and equal parts man.

What are the temptations of hunger, pride, and the desire for power that tug on your soul, the soul of you’re your family, your church your community?  How do you respond?

Lent is a time to worry a bit about this.  Lent is a time to pay some attention to how this works in each of our lives.

Every spring professional baseball players prepare for the season with spring training; every spring ordinary people prepare for summer by doing "spring cleaning." Every Lenten season Christians prepare for life of living in resistance to temptation. 

Jesus escaped to the wilderness to struggle with his demons and temptations through solitude, prayer, fasting for forty days, exactly the same length of time that has been adopted for Lent itself.

Lent began this week.  Today is the first Sunday in lent.  I invite you all to take time during the next 40 days and engage in some particular spiritual practice which might help you with the inevitable temptations which come.  Spend time alone, in prayer, fasting if you wish, meditating on God’s word, meditating and perhaps considering the lives of other Christian heroes as we will do tonight during our Lenten bible study, so that when temptation comes, you are prepared, ready to invite God to his rightful place at the head of your life and to resist the inevitable pull of hunger, power, prideful ambition or anything that might draw you away from who you want to be and whom God wants you to be.

Amen