TEMPTATION

Immediately after he was baptized Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he had a showdown with the Devil.  

The gospel writers remembered to tell this story because they want to remind us that there is a power of evil at work in this world. Evil has a lot of names: Devil, Satan, Beelzebub, or Lucifer. Call it whatever you want, but the New Testament declares that evil’s power is real and operative in the world. The mission of evil is to throw the world in to any kind of chaos it can.  The Evil One can strike one life at a time or can eat away at the foundation of civilization affecting thousands or millions at a time - like in starvation, slavery, war or Holocaust. The power of evil can strike suddenly or work  invisibly and slowly, but its purpose is always the same: to get humans to use their power to wreak havoc; to fracture harmony; to enslave others; to create disdain for each other and the one true God.

Many people don’t believe in the power of evil, but blame God for all the bad things that happen.  But the New Testament is clear and identifies an Evil One at work whose goal is to inflict as much damage as it can, on every front.  Evil would undermine the moral foundation of civilization, but also get intensely personal working to undermine your life and your faith in the one true loving God. 

Evil’s primary target is the human heart, mind and soul.  Over the centuries many people have described this experience in vastly different, yet remarkably similar, ways.

Sigmund Freud referred to something he called the "death instinct," a cauldron of rage that lives deep within all of us; an inclination toward death, to tear down self and those around us.

Not long after Freud psychoanalyst Carl Jung describe these similar instincts calling them our "Shadow Side."

The 20th century theologian C.S. Lewis describes this power in his book SURPRISED BY JOY, when he writes:  "Inside of me is a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatred. Their name is legion.”

In the New Testament in 1 Peter we read a powerful verse, “…keep alert, like a roaring lion your adversary the Devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.”  (1 Peter 5:8)

The power of evil is relentless – it never quits.   Luke tells us that when Satan’s temptations subsided, the devil departed from Jesus until an "opportune time."  Evil is always at work, sneaking around looking for an "opportune time" to strike again.  

Luke tells us that Satan tempted Jesus with three temptations, but I think of it as one temptation with three faces.  The one temptation with three faces was for Satan to tempt Jesus to use his power in any way that would divert him from going to the cross.  Each temptation was an enticement to be something other than a crucified messiah - and each one was very appealing: “Jesus, be a bread messiah!”  “Jesus, be a political messiah!”  “Jesus, be a wonder-working messiah!”   Be anything but a crucified messiah. 

Why did Satan wish for Jesus to be something other than a crucified messiah?   Because Satan knew he could easily corrupt power.  Satan knew he could turn and twist aspiration for power for his purposes.  When we look around at the troubles of the world today, that is pretty much the situation - the misuse and abuse of power.   But the one thing Satan could not corrupt was a messiah who willingly gave up his power and gave himself totally and sacrificially to the world in love; a messiah  willing to die for the cause and purpose of divine love; a messiah who would take the worst that could be thrown at him and not use power to gain revenge; a messiah who could look even his executioners in the eye and say "I forgive you."   Satan knew he could never defeat that, so right from the beginning of Jesus' ministry, Satan was desperate to get Jesus to use his power in any way that would divert him from going to the cross.  Satan was determined to entice Jesus to lose sight of his mission to be a crucified messiah; one who dies for his enemies, forgives sins, reconciling God and humanity.

Last year I saw an amazing movie called "End of the Spear." It is the true story of a group of five Christian missionary families in Ecuador in the 1950’s who set out to reach the Waodani Tribe, a violent Ecuadorian tribe defined by revenge killing.  When the five men from the missionary group are speared to death by the Waodani, the wives and children of those men move into the same jungle and continued to reach out to the Waodani to teach them about God.

The day that the Waodani speared the five missionary men to death, a young tribesman named Mincayani was a part of the spearing party.   The five missionaries decided ahead of time they would not resist the Waodani, but would willingly give up their lives, if necessary, to reach them. 

The day came when they finally encountered the Waodani on a Sand Bar in the river.  At first things look encouraging, but then the Waodani turned on them and killed them with spears.

The missionaries could have resisted.  They had guns, but they chose not to use them.   When one of the missionaries was lying on a sand bar in the river dying with a spear in chest, he looked up at Micanyani, the tribesman who just had speared him, and on his last breath he said to him in his native tongue, “I am your true friend,” and then he died. 

Mincayani never forgot that.  In fact it haunted him, and it became a major factor in the unfolding of a miraculous series of events that changed the lives of not only the slain missionaries' families, but also transformed Mincayani and the Waodani people.

These missionaries were so mentored by their Lord who resisted being anything short of a crucified messiah, who willingly gave up power by dying on a cross, that they were able to resist the ultimate temptation of saving their own lives.  These missionaries trusted the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ as far as you can trust it, by willingly giving their own lives.  

In the fourth chapter of the book of Hebrews it says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)

Jesus has been through it all.  He knows what it is like to enter the same wilderness of desolation where we live so much of the time; that wilderness where we are tempted to lose our humanity, lose our faith, lose our love and use power against one another and even ourselves.

Jesus came out of the Judean wilderness, but in a very real sense he never left the wilderness.  We could say that he spent his entire earthly ministry in the wilderness, going to those places of human desolation where people had succumbed to the evil’s temptation and had lost their love, and lost their humanity, and lost their faith.  The wilderness can be anywhere: school, home, work, play, or leisure.   The wilderness can be any life circumstance:  illness, death, failure, success, victory, defeat, being hurt or wounded.  The wilderness can occur with anybody:  family, friends, peer group, strangers, co-workers.   The wilderness is anywhere where Satan tempts us to give up on love, discard our trust in God and Jesus as a crucified messiah; and use our power, if ever so subtly to condescend and fracture the harmony.

The late Henri Nouwan said shortly before he died, “What makes temptation… so seemingly irresistible? It is because temptation is about power and power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asks, ‘Do you love me?’ We ask, ‘Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand of power in your Kingdom?’” (Mt. 20:21) We are tempted to replace love with power.”

To say that Jesus went out into the wilderness is to say that he went as far as it is possible to go in order to find you and bring you home to God.   He faced the worst temptations of life, even the ultimate temptation of not giving his life, and he never blinked.   He willingly and totally shed power that was rightly his, and even journeyed into despair and death to lay claim to your life and mine.

In Christ, you can now live your life in a whole new and different way.  You still live in the wilderness where Satan prowls around seeking someone to devour, particularly you.  But as desolate as your wilderness can be, you are not alone.    As Martin Luther profoundly expressed in the old hymn, “A Mighty Fortress,”

(You have) a champion who comes to fight
whom God himself elected.
You ask who this may be?
The Lord of hosts is he!
Christ Jesus mighty Lord;
God’s only Son adored.
He holds the field victorious.