Sermon for February 21, 2010

Reed Hopkins

LESSONS OF LENT

 

Psalm 91

 

Luke 4: 1 – 13

 

“Christmas is Over”

 

Is it still February? Don’t let the calendar fool you; February is the longest month of the year. Why they picked February to get the extra day in leap year, I’ll never know; I would’ve chosen June.

Anyway, in February, you know Christmas is over. In January, it still lingers a little. It was a sad sight when I took my tree to the dumpster and threw it on the pile; I felt like I was betraying a family member. It did its duty; it was beautiful; and I chucked its carcass on the pile. Christmas was over.
Once Christmas is over, it’s just plain winter. In December, when it’s cold, it puts a feeling of Christmas in the air. In January, it’s just plain cold. Now it’s February. And who knows what March will bring.
I like white Christmases. We got it. And a white New Year. And a white Groundhog Day. And a white Super Bowl. And a white Valentine’s Day. And a white Ash Wednesday. And… well, you get it.
When Christmas is over, we put away the decorations and the Christmas CD’s and the manger and the little baby. It’s time to get back to normal life, time to face the long winter, and whatever we have to face.

Christmas was over for Jesus. He had to leave the manger, leave Bethlehem, and grow up. After thirty years of preparation, He at last presented Himself for baptism, and then He immediately went to face the reality of being the Messiah.

First was a forty-day period of trial, to toughen Him up, to test His resolve, to get Him ready for the ministry ahead. Luke says that, full of the Holy Spirit, He returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. And there the devil tempted Him.

Matthew reports this incident as well. The two accounts are almost the same, but things happen in a little different order. In Matthew, it’s the bread first, then the Temple, then the kingdoms of earth. In Luke, it’s bread first, kingdoms second, and Temple third. Which way did it really happen?

That really doesn’t need to bother us. Neither account is meant to give us the exact order in which these things happened. Some people have the impression that Jesus went out into the desert and fasted and prayed for forty days, with nothing happening; then on the last day, the devil came to Him, tempted Him three times, and then left, never to bother Him again. Jesus was through with temptation once and for all.

That’s not the way it was. Jesus wrestled with all kinds of things all through these forty days. He was probably tempted every day to eat something, even if He had to make His own bread from rocks. These three temptations are examples of how he struggled. And He continued to struggle throughout His ministry.

That last verse in Luke’s account is very telling. Something Matthew doesn’t include is Luke 4:13. “When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.” That old devil wasn’t through with Jesus yet. If you saw the movie “The Passion of Christ,” you noticed that the Satan figure appeared to Jesus as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and kept appearing all along the route to the cross, and while Jesus was on the cross.

“If you are the Son of God…” the devil kept saying. Later, Simon Peter would say, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” And then Peter started telling Jesus that He was wrong, that if He was the Son of God, He would never be crucified. Jesus lashed out: “Get behind me, Satan!” Peter was dangling before Him the possibility, the chance to save Himself, and turn away from God’s will.

There was the thief on the cross: “If you are the Son of God, save yourself, and us!” Temptation, all the way.

One thing the devil kept tempting Jesus to do was to misuse the power God had given Him. Power that He used to heal the sick, to raise people from death, to do works of compassion for others. The devil tempted Him to use it as magic, to turn rocks into bread, to do daredevil stunts, like leaping off buildings.

These temptations show us at least three types of things that we all wrestle with in our lives.
“If you are the Son of God, turn this stone into bread.” Jesus was hungry. He was vulnerable. This is the temptation to serve your own comforts first.

If you’ve ever fasted, you know what it’s like. When I spend a day fasting, it’s hardest for me about the middle of the day. Skipping breakfast isn’t hard. I’m not usually hungry first thing in the morning. In fact, I don’t mind fasting at all. It’s just my stomach that objects. About the middle of the morning, my stomach starts saying, “Hey. Didn’t you forget something this morning?” Then I get over it until about noon. Then my stomach really kicks in, and says. “OK, the joke’s over. I want food, and I want it NOW!” But finally, about 3:00, it just gives up all hope, and I don’t hear from it any more. If I make it til 3:00, I’m OK. I don’t have the power to turn stones to bread, but if the devil shows me a tasty-looking rock at about lunchtime, I just might take a bite out of it.

Jesus wasn’t ready to end His fast yet. This is what makes me believe that the devil didn’t wait until the last day. He probably came along with the rocks on the first day, when Jesus was starting to feel those pangs. If it had been the last day, Jesus could’ve gone ahead and eaten. In any case, He wasn’t going to end His fast at the devil’s bidding.

The Spirit was with Him. And He knew God’s Word, so He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3: “One does not live by bread alone.” In Matthew He quoted it more fully: “…but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Some things are more important than your comfort.

 

Next was the temptation to throw God aside and go for wealth and power. How many of us can be pulled away from even our most deeply-held principles, when money or power is offered?

A church secretary answered the phone. The voice on the other end said, “I’d like to speak to the head hog.” The secretary responded, “If you are referring to our pastor, I’d appreciate it if you’d speak more respectfully about him.” The caller said, “Well, anyway, I want to talk to him about a ten thousand dollar donation to the church.” “Oh! Hold on, I’ll get the big pig for you.”

A lady called a pastor and asked, “Can you come over and baptize my kittens?” The pastor said, “Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Baptism is a holy sacrament, meant only for people. I can’t desecrate the sacrament by administering it to animals.” The caller said, “Gee, I’m really disappointed. I was going to donate twenty thousand dollars to your church, but I guess I’ll have to call somebody else.” The pastor said, “Well, hold on a minute. If your kittens are Presbyterian, that makes a difference, of course.”
But it can get worse. How many people’s ministries have been ruined because love of money, or love of power, or sexual temptation, meant more to them than God?

Again, Jesus found strength in the Spirit and in the Scripture. He quoted Deuteronomy 6:13. “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’

And then comes the temptation to find the easy way out. A popular Jewish belief was that when the Messiah came, he would announce himself by jumping off the highest point of the Temple. When the angels caught him, everyone, from the lowest worshiper to the High Priest, would know him as the Messiah. If Jesus had done this, He would have been instant Messiah. No persecution. No arrest. No cross. No resurrection. No payment for our sins. No redemption for us.

How often are we tempted to take the easy way out? We might be tempted to read the Cliff Notes instead of the book for a school assignment. We might be tempted to walk by a homeless, hungry person on the street, thinking, “I’ll pray for him.” Or, just throw a dollar at him and get away quickly, when what he really needs is somebody to share a meal with him and talk to him, and pray with him. But that’s hard. That means involvement. So we choose the easy way.

There’s also the temptation to misuse Scripture. After Jesus has replied twice with Scripture, the devil tries that, too. Yes, the devil can quote Scripture, and quote it accurately, but in the wrong context. “It is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you.’ Straight from Psalm 91. Don’t you believe the Bible, Son of God?”

Lifting a Bible verse out of context and using it to prove a point is the devil’s work, but a good many Christians do that.

Once, when I had dinner with a Christian family, the mother gave the chicken bones to the dog. I asked, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll choke on a bone?” “No, because we will pray for him.” Well, that’s commendable; pray for your dog; pray in all faith; but don’t give him the chicken bones to begin with!
And so Jesus, who can out-Scripture the devil anytime, answered with Deuteronomy 6:16. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

And the devil left Him— until an opportune time.

One thing this passage reveals to us about Jesus is His humanness. He struggled with temptation. Some people might be tempted to think, “Well, of course He didn’t sin. He was Jesus! He couldn’t sin!” It’s as if Jesus just brushed the devil off without a thought.

No. It was hard for Him. This was temptation. It’s not temptation unless it’s hard to resist. Jesus felt the strong urge to do what the devil asked. Jesus could have turned His back on God and gone another way. Jesus had the choice to disobey God. Jesus was free to choose evil. But He chose God.

His struggles give us hope for ourselves. Jesus understands us. He understands what we go through. Hebrews 4:15 says “He has been tempted in every way as we are.”

Temptation doesn’t mean you are an evil person. When you are tempted to do wrong, don’t beat yourself up. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “I’m a terrible rotten person.” You are a child of God. You are tempted. Temptation is strong. And sometimes you sin. Jesus understands. He’s here to love us and pick us back up again when we fall.

But there’s the opposite temptation, the temptation to think, “Well, even Jesus was tempted, so when I sin, it’s OK.” No, it’s not OK. Jesus resisted temptation. He was tempted sorely; He had every opportunity to sin. But He stayed faithful to God. He is not an excuse for us, but rather He is an example. Be strong. Know your Scripture. Lean on the Spirit’s power. Resist the devil.

Yes, Christmas is over. It’s now Lent, that time of year when we get ready to do a little spring cleaning, to be cleansed of our sins and drawn closer to God. It’s that time of year when we come face to face with the temptations of Christ, with the arrest and death of Christ.

Now we’re getting more and more weary of shoveling out snow, and seeing the dirty, sooty hunks of snow that fall off cars. And I’m sick of finding new leaks in the church ceiling every day.

But the good news of Lent is: the snows of winter melt into a flowery spring. The winter of Lent leads us to the spring of Easter. Our struggles with temptation, and our struggles to follow Christ, lead us to the glory of new life.