Temptation Reflections
1ST SUNDAY IN LENT
MINISTER
Rev. David J. Wood
SCRIPTURE
Matthew 4: 1-11
Our reading from Matthew 4 is the reading heard in churches all across the world for this 1st
Sunday in Len. Lent, as one author put it, is “An Outward Bound for the soul.” I like that. It is
a time to venture out, to pay attention, to listen closely, to break new ground…to engage the
struggle that is the spiritual life. To not fear the wilderness.
Like many of you, I have been dipping in and out of the Olympics. For me, the highlight was
watching Alysa Liu win her gold medal. She exuded pure joy….to the point that winning
seemed beside the point. As you know, after winning world championships at age 13…at age
16 she “retired.” Unheard of! Who does that? And, according to all the experts, whoever does
that will never come back…no matter how hard they try. She did come back, two years ago.
An incredible story. In an interview on 60 Minutes, when she was asked about why she chose
such a challenging pathway, she said, “I love struggling—makes me feel alive.”
There is a deep connection between the experience of “struggle” and the spiritual life. As
someone put it, “The life of faith is like jumping off a cliff and building wings on the way
down.”
The 40 days of Lent…map on to Jesus experience of 40 days in the wilderness…clearly a
jumping off point for Jesus.
This is an experience Jesus had at a pivotal moment in his life…recorded in three of the 4
Gospels…could only have been recounted by Jesus. And deemed by his Disciples to be
important enough to be passed on to us …which means even though this story is unique to
Jesus…he had the unique relationship to God (Son of God)…it is intended to be formative to
and for our own lives as well.
It is recounted for our encouragement.
Did it really happen…or was it more like a dream…did he imagine it? The best answer is: Yes.
Hav you ever had a dream that felt so real and so true to life that it was as if it actually
happened? It stayed with you. It was real.
No question, that it was a deeply spiritual, mystical encounter…
One moment he is in the wilderness suffering from hunger;
the next instant, he is in the center of Jerusalem, on the pinnacle of the Temple; and then he
finds himself on a high mountain overlooking all the kingdoms of the world.
All the marks of a mystical vision…and, as anyone who has had such a vision will tell you,
nothing is more real and true and formative.
Evil is personified as Satan in this episode…not because evil is a person…but because evil is
always encountered as something deeply personal. I think the personification of evil also
serves as a way of communicating that evil not something simply born in us that arises from
some deep, dark, corrupted place in our hearts…it is in some sense beyond us…originates
outside of us…to which we are vulnerable but not powerless to resist or overcome.
I think the right way to name this whole episode not “The Temptations of Jesus” but “The
Temptation of Jesus”
: these temptations are three versions of one temptation.
They are ways for Jesus to avoid the human condition… to transcend, supersede, lay aside his
humanity…
—Humans cannot turn stones into bread
—Or Rule over all the kingdoms of the earth
—Or survive a great fall.
Satan does not question his mission, his destiny…he simply offers a alternate pathway to
accomplishing it……a pathway that offered the guarantee of a good ending, no risk, no
unknowns, complete control.
To accept this offer, to walk that pathway would be to avoid suffering…death…(which human
beings cannot). To take that pathway he would avoid being stuck the passage of time (as mere
humans are)—you can have it all in an INSTANT.
Satan was simply offering an efficient means to accomplish your desired ends…faster, easier,
sooner, with a LOT less pain. After all, it’s all for a good cause, the highest, most noble cause of
all. Surely such an justifies these means.
Also, before we move on, I want highlight a couple of things.
• Satan quotes Scripture…that’s worth pondering. Proof texting is not proof of
truth.
• When Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and says that he has the
power to give them to Jesus, Jesus does not dispute that claim. Any offer of
political power to usher in the Kingdom of God on earth…should set of alarm
bells. How many Christians have chosen to trade the power of love for loveless
power?
One of the reasons we don’t read this story well…is that We know the end of the story. It’s easy
to assume that Jesus did too…to imagine Jesus is somehow above the struggle. I think that can
cause us to miss the gravity of this episode in the life of Jesus.
The best way to read this episode in the life of Jesus is to imagine that he did not know the end
of the story. There is a struggle that is depicted here that is real, and deep, and in some sense,
ongoing…”the Devil left him until an opportune time.”
Everything that follows would indicate that Jesus struggled to the very end…prayer in the
Garden of Gethsemane…”if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” In the midst of his dying
on the cross, he cries out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Each time, in the face of each temptation, Jesus declares his fidelity to God…and to whatever
way God has for him. He will not reach for the low hanging fruit
And don’t miss this: in doing so…Jesus chooses solidarity with us…With his humanity…with
our humanity….he embraces the human condition and he refuses escape it…even to the point
of death….in everyone of these temptations he is offered a way out of the human
condition…each time he declares emphatically, “No!”
He casts his lot with us. As the writer of the Book of Hebrews writes, Because he has known the
vulnerability of our human condition, he is with us in our moments of testing and trial. He
walks with us, makes a way for us. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
Maybe Lent is the season to take the risk coming to terms with our humanity—to know God
here in the midst of the flesh of our daily lives..
Whenever we find yourself in the wilderness,
We will feel alone…but we are not isolated…Our way is not unknown…there is One who
knows this way, cast his lot with us…one who makes a way out of no way.
Whenever you find yourself in the wilderness,
Know you’re in good company. Jesus meets us there…Not to make us less human but to make
us wholly human…to make us whole. In Jesus, we come to know God as the ONE who meets
us in the midst the reality of our human condition…not to save us from it…but through it.
In his memoir, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery.
Richard Selzer recounts an encounter he had in the midst of his surgical practice…
Selzer walks into the room of a patient recovering from a very delicate surgery he has just
performed. The young woman’s face has been permanently altered from the surgery…her
mouth is now twisted in palsy…a tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her
mouth has been severed.
The surgeon had no choice…to remove the tumor embedded in her cheek required that the
nerve be cut.
The woman’s young husband is in the room by her beside. They are so taken with each other
Selzer is hardly noticed.
As he looks on, he wonders to himself, how what he has done will impact the love they so
clearly have for one another.
The young woman eventually notices Selzer and turns her face towards him and raises the
pain-filled question,
“Will my mouth always be like this?”
“Yes,” Selzer answers gently…but plainly and directly.
“it will.” He goes on, “It is because the nerve has been cut.”
She nods and is silent…in that moment it was as if everything hung in the balance.
The young husband makes the first move…
He smiles, draws nearer to her and says,
“I like it…it’s kind of cute”
Unmindful of Selzer’s presence, the young husband then bends to kiss her crooked mouth…and
as he does, he twists his own lips to match hers…
to show her that their kiss still works.
“I hold my breath,” Selzer writes, “and let the wonder in.”
…I hold my breath and let the wonder in….
And the Word became flesh…for us and our salvation. Amen.