How many of you remember your first day at school, or your first day at a new job? You usually get some kind of orientation, don’t you. At that new job, maybe you spent the morning in the human resources signing benefits papers and getting company policies explained to you, maybe you get led around, were introduced to fellow workers and shown where the cafeteria was.... And at school, what did you get? Pretty much the same, right? You get introduced to people and places, maybe the professor hands out the syllabus or the teacher explains her grading policies. Everybody wants you to succeed. Failure costs too much, whether it’s an employer dealing with turnover or a school trying to keep its academic standards up.
Except, of course, in the Marines. Actually, in all the armed services, but the Marine Corps prides itself on being the toughest. Not that I ever went through it, mind you, but books like Leon Uris’ Battle Cry or W.E.B. Griffin’s Semper Fi don’t leave too much to the imagination. You get dropped right in it from your very first day. Part of the point is to wash out the ones who won’t make it right away, so that nobody wastes their time, neither you nor your drill sergeant. It’s a tough service that asks a lot of its people, and it’s better to wash out at the beginning than to wait until you’re actually in combat before you find out you can’t handle the pressure. It helps if you know how tough it's going to be before you sign up.
Fortunately, Jesus was properly equipped, because that’s more or less what happened to him. The minute the official induction ceremony was over, Jesus got dumped right in at the deep end of the pool.
In the passage immediately prior to the one we just read, Jesus had been baptized in the Jordan river by his cousin John the Baptizer. Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell the story in pretty much the same way, but John’s gospel adds something extra. (Remember that the John who wrote the gospel is not the same person as the John who baptized Jesus.) The Baptizer was beheaded by King Herod long before the Apostle sat down to write his memoirs. But anyway, John the Apostle quotes John the Baptist as saying, “I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water ... that he might be revealed to Israel.... I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” [Jn 1:31,34] That’s when Peter’s brother Andrew first met Jesus, along with Philip and Peter and Nathaniel, and John reports that they all go off north to Galilee to begin the ministry of teaching and healing that occupies their next three years.
But Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell of an interval between Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of his ministry. They all tell of a time of testing in the wilderness.
Just a couple of weeks ago I preached on that familiar passage from the Lord’s prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Or as a more contemporary translation puts it, “do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one." [Mt 6:13] Jesus didn’t get a positive answer to that prayer, did he? Or at least not to the first part. The part about not being led into the time of trial was answered in the negative. All three Gospels tell us that it was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness. This was not an adventure, an opportunity to strut his stuff for the great examiner. And Jesus did not relish the rough road ahead any more than we do. In fact, I think it’s very interesting that Jesus’ ministry begins with a time of very tough testing, and ends with an even tougher one, that terrible night in the garden of Gethsemane when he asked his Father to “remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” [Lk 22:42] Twice during that same night he told the disciples to pray “that [they might] not come into the time of trial.” [Lk 22:40,46]
As we look at this passage it’s important for us to remember that these were real temptations. The things that Satan was offering to Jesus were things he may very well have really wanted, and what's more they were things that he actually had a right to. What is important for us to remember is that temptation rarely comes dressed in ugly clothes.
There’s a wonderful story about a baker watching a little boy hovering next to a shelf filled with fresh-baked cookies. “Now then, young man,” said the baker as he approached the boy, “What are you up to?” “Nothing,” replied the boy: “Nothing.” “Well, it looks to me like you were trying to take a cookie.” “You’re wrong, mister,” said the boy. “I’m trying not to!” It’s only temptation if it’s hard to say no.
Satan gets to us by offering us shortcuts. Satan gets to us by taking legitimate desires, desires that are God-given, and telling us that it’s okay to try to fulfill them in unlawful ways. And it is all too easy for us to tell ourselves that the ends justify the means. It is a good thing to admire beauty. It is a bad thing to knock over an art gallery. It is a good thing to desire success. It is bad to step on others to get there. It is a good thing to desire a child. It is a bad thing to kidnap a baby.
These trials that Jesus faced were chances to take shortcuts, opportunities to skip a few steps in the training program, a chance to walk across the grass instead of taking the path God had laid out for him to follow.
What Satan offered Jesus was, first, food. And Jesus was hungry. Just think - he’d been out there on the dry, rocky, barren eastern slopes of the Judean wilderness for forty days, and he was hungry. It’s not just physical hunger that is at issue here, though. It’s also the question of whether or not you can trust God to provide. Even beyond that, it’s a challenge for Jesus to prove that he really is who he says he is. Notice that the tempter starts out by saying, “If you are the Son of God...” As if Satan didn’t know exactly who Jesus was. Are you ever tempted, when someone misjudges you, or belittles you, or doubts your abilities or credentials or competence, to prove them wrong and then rub their nose in the mistake? Well, Jesus was the son of God! He did have the power to turn the stones into bread. Surely God didn’t want him to go hungry any longer, why not just go ahead and command the “stone to become a loaf of bread"? Where’s the harm? Have you ever heard anyone justify a shortcut on the grounds that “surely God wants them to be happy”? Both no-fault divorce and the new push for homosexual unions are examples of people abandoning God’s instructions in order to gratify a temporary desire at the expense of God’s long-term agenda.
Jesus knew that what Satan was suggesting was more than a challenge to prove his power, his strength, or even his identity. And it was far more than recommending a fast-food solution to the hunger problem. What Satan was asking was for Jesus to substitute his own judgment for God's, to not wait for God’s timing or respect God’s restrictions, but to re-schedule things to suit himself, to “do it his way.”
The second temptation that Satan dangled in Jesus’ face was political and economic power. And this time he makes the invitation to abandon God the Father more explicit. We might think to ourselves that Jesus would never be tempted by power! After all, he gave up being one with God in order to become human and live among the poor and needy. But think. Jesus has had thirty years of living among people who had very little, people who were living under foreign occupation and daily experienced all kinds of injustice and misfortune. Wouldn’t you be tempted to by the thought that you could change all that, that under your wise and benevolent rule no one would ever go hungry or mistreat a servant or defraud a customer? As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Communism and socialism are attractive to many people because they see it as a solution to the inequality and injustice we see all around us. And it’s so much easier, isn’t it, to force people to "share and share alike" than to teach them to want to do what is right. Wasn't Robin Hood a hero? Steal from the rich to give to the poor. Surely God would approve. Satan was saying to Jesus, in effect, “You don’t really have to suffer to get the perfect world you want. There’s an easier way, a quicker way. Just worship me instead.”
Sounds good, doesn’t it? But unfortunately, Satan can’t deliver on his promises. The offer was a delusion and a lie, just like all of Satan’s promises.
Finally, Jesus was offered the chance to prove - not to himself, he knew that, but to everybody in Jerusalem - that he had God’s favor. Satan even quotes Scripture to try to convince Jesus to throw himself off a high tower in Jerusalem. It’s particularly diabolical because, after all, what could possibly be wrong with any experience of radical dependence on God?
Well, of course, God provides for us and protects us when we are serving him, not when we are showing off. Jumping off a tower has nothing at all to do with the work Jesus is supposed to be doing on earth; it’s a dare. It’s a way of asserting power over God, not of trust in God. Think of a pretty, confident young trophy wife pushing her indulgent, elderly, powerful husband one step too far.... The pre-nup is likely to have her right out on her ear.
"Lead us not into temptation," says the Lord’s prayer. "Ask the Father not to bring you to the time of trial," said Jesus to his disciples.
Remember that tests aren’t necessarily bad things, though. In fact, in many cases they are essential for growth. As James the head of the Jerusalem church wrote, “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” [Jas 1:2-4] And sometimes God does lead us right smack dab into a real zinger.
The questions on these tests - or should I call them pop quizzes? - tend to be pretty much the same, whatever the context.
The questions God places before us are
· Do I look to God to get me through this, or do I make up my own solutions?
· Do I trust God, or test him?
· Do I get angry at God, or ask him to justify his actions?
· Do I know what God wants of me when times get tough?
· Do I know God well enough to recognize when he’s not the one speaking?
One of the keys to recognizing whether the voice you hear is God’s or Satan’s is that Satan always uses selfishness - the idea of rights, or entitlement - as part of the bait on his hook. If you are the Son of God, surely you deserve... food, power, protection, whatever. If God loves you, surely you have a right to these things. Surely you should demand them. If God loves me, why have I not been given everything I need to be happy?
Of course, Jesus’ temptations are unique. But they have a lot in common with the temptations you and I face every day. Because we all look for short cuts. We all look for the easy way. Satan offers us short cuts to success, short cuts to spirituality, and short cuts to happiness.
But short cuts to success wind up like Enron. Remember Enron? All the gimmicks the lawyers and accountants came up with didn’t just put off the inevitable, they actually dug the hole they were in deeper, until finally the whole house of cards fell. Whereas with patience, good stewardship, and honest accounting principles they could probably have weathered the storm.
Short cuts to spirituality typically involve blindly following either the latest religious fashion - whether it’s the prayer of Jabez or liberation theology - or reducing the whole of Christianity to one or two sentences like “do not judge” or “God is love.” These are not bad in themselves, but they are only part of the picture. They are short cuts. Discipleship involves self-discipline, effort, and focus, not simple sloganeering.
And short-cut relationships ... the casual sex that our culture not only condones but encourages is a clearance-rack relationship, a band-aid on a deep wound of loneliness, a fake intimacy that avoids the risk, the investment and commitment the real thing requires. Short-cut friendships dissolve in hard times, when patience or forgiveness or courage is needed. Short cut relationships leave us lonelier than we were before they began.
But just as Satan uses the same tactics with us that he used with Jesus, encouraging us to feed our own needs or egos or fears, we can use the same tactics that Jesus used to defeat him.
Because although God may not answer the first part of our prayer the way we would like, letting us experience trials and tests of all kinds as we stumble through life, God has already given us the means to be delivered from the evil one.
The world, the flesh and the devil are a trio that old baptismal formulas asked new Christians to renounce. And Satan - the enemy of God and of our souls - tests us on all three levels, in all three arenas of combat. Our bodies, our souls, and our wills are equal opportunity targets for temptation. We are tempted to build empires of wealth or power, we are tempted to make up our own rules, we are tempted to worship the wrong gods. But we have exactly the same weapons against temptation that Jesus had. Every word that Jesus spoke to Satan is a sword that we can use to defeat the temptations that we encounter. The sword of the spirit is the Word of God, and it is enough to face and defeat any threat the enemy can throw at us.
. “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” [Dt 8:3]
. “The LORD your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear.’“ [Dt 6:13]
. “Do not put the LORD your God to the test.” [Dt 6:16]
These words have power. If these words are not the right ones for the temptation you are facing, somewhere in Scripture are the right words for the moment. Remember always that “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” [1 Cor 10:13]
But these verses, these truths, don’t do us any good if we don’t know them. We might as well play football without a helmet, or drive without a safety belt, or leave the house unlocked. God has provided us with all the protection we need, all the safety we could ask for. But too many of us just don’t bother.
What’s the easy way out you’re looking for? What’s a short cut you may have taken?
