ROBERTO DESANDOLI
1st Sunday in Lent / World Day of Prayer / Communion
Genesis 2: 15-17; 3: 1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5: 12-19
Matthew 4: 1-11
“Within Reach”
This morning, we have heard the story, from the Gospel of Matthew, of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness that we begin with every Lent:
You perhaps know the story already:
The journey into the wilderness
The temptations of the devil,
And the 40 days of fasting; the basis for our 40 days of Lent
As we read and interpret this Scripture together as a worshipping community this morning, there are a couple of things that I would like to draw our attention to.
The first, is that in this story, the devil temps Jesus with things that are within Jesus’ reach.
What I mean by that is that even though, to any of us, the temptations that the devil offers before Jesus are things of fantasy (asking us to turn stones into bread, or intentionally falling from the temple into the hands of angels, or of receiving all of the kingdoms of the world for our own…), even though these things are not realistic for us, they are realistic for Jesus. They are things that Jesus could have reached out and taken, had he given into the devil’s plot.
That’s the first thing I want to talk about this morning: how the temptations of the devil are offered on the basis of things which are in reach for Jesus.
And that: when we read the Gospel story of the Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, we should read it with eyes tuned to the fact that—for Jesus—these things offered by the devil are not fantasy, they are not beyond possibility; rather, they are things that Jesus could have taken for his own.
And that this holds true when it comes to temptation in our own lives. The devil does not tempt us based on things of fantasy. I am not tempted to live the rock star life. I am not tempted to fill a yacht with drugs and beautiful women (I’ve seen a lot of rockstar biopics, the whole thing looks just exhausting). But even if I wanted to do that, I just don’t have the means, and the devil knows it. The things that I am tempted by, and the things that you are tempted by are much more within reach.
They are simple. They are every day. They are things we pass by each day. Things in our own homes or our own neighborhoods. Things we could take for ourselves in secret. Things that no one would know about. Save for ourselves.
That is the first thing this morning; the troubling news of this text: that the devil knows how to tempt us (both Jesus and ourselves) with things that are within our means to reach out and take.
The second thing that I would like us to read together and pray through together this morning is that while the devil’s temptations are clever and attractive and within reach, God’s means of salvation are all the more gracious and beautiful and also, within reach.
That while the devil’s offerings are tempting, in part because of their accessibility, God’s offering of salvation is so much more inviting and no less accessible.
That’s the Good News this morning: the second thing.
But before we arrive at the Good News, we need to go back to the beginning of the story and to read and to hear for ourselves the story around which our Season of Lent is built.
And please, I invite you to read along with me in the pew Bibles in-front of you. Matthew Chapter 4, verses 1-11.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
Now right away we notice something that needs an explanation.
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit…”
How do we begin a story with “Then”? Well if we go back one chapter, or even one verse in Matthew’s Gospel, we find ourselves in a familiar place: Jesus’ baptism by John in the wilderness. This is a story we see several times in our lectionary reading calendar each year, and they end with what are familiar words (and if they’re not familiar yet, please keep coming, they will be):
As Jesus was being baptized by John “a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
These familiar words are then immediately followed by the word “then” and then Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
Let us notice something here though. Something I did not actually notice until I was preparing for this sermon this week. In Chapter 3, verse 17 we have Jesus Christ, being baptized and hearing the voice of God the Father, then in the very next verse, Chapter 4, verse 1 we have the words “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit.” In two verses, we have all three persons of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit!
Don’t let the chapter break distract you. Matthew is not messing around with the baptism and temptation stories. He is saying:
Look right away we’ve got God in Jesus (the Son) hearing the voice of God the Father.
And immediately after that Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness!
When we see something like this happening in the Gospels, we should be thinking to ourselves “Something big is about to go down!”
This should stand out to us like when the whole squad is together at the climax of a heist movie or when the whole posse is together at the end of the Western.
We should be going:
George Clooney AND Matt Damon are getting ready!
John Wayne AND Yul Brynner are saddling up!
Father, Son, AND Holy Spirit are on the move!
Something big is about to happen!
And indeed it is.
In fact, it is no coincidence that something big is about to go down. It’s not just as if the whole squad or the whole posse is gearing up and the bad guy (in this case the devil) just happens to find the heroes at that moment. Not at all!
Let us read Chapter 4, Verse 1 closely again:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
“…to be tempted by the devil” there is a plan in place here.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not just on the move, they are working together in order for Jesus to go through what He must so that He can be the saviour of all humanity at Easter.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
Friends, this is what Lent is all about. It is about journeying with God in Jesus Christ in His forty days in the wilderness; it is about trusting in the Father and in the Holy Spirit who journey along with us; it is about intentionally emptying ourselves for 40 days so that we can understand, along with Matthew, along with the disciples who Jesus Christ really is. Who He is, what He has gone though, and what He is right now doing in our lives in order to save us and offer us eternal life.
At this early point in Lent, this is where we are.
We are waiting with Jesus.
We are waiting through those forty days.
We are waiting in order to witness what was necessary for this tempted and famished Jesus to become our Lord and our Saviour.
And again, let me make my first point this morning plain: Jesus was tempted.
The things that the devil offered to Jesus; an end to hunger, the safety of angels, the kingdoms of the world – these things may have been impossible for us to take for ourselves but they were not impossible to Jesus and He was tempted.
He was tempted as surely as He was hungry at the end of His 40 day fast. And, as Matthew tells us, Jesus was not just hungry, He was famished.
The Good News of Jesus Christ is that we have in Him a saviour who can sympathize. Jesus can sympathize with our hungers, with our temptations, with our weaknesses. Jesus is both fully God and fully human. In that wilderness, in those forty days He knew hunger, he knew desperation, he knew the doubt of not knowing whether He could withstand the things offered to him. Jesus, through His humanity, does sympathize with us in our humanity.
Traditionally, during the Season of Lent, Christians around the world find something to “give up” in order to pray deeper into the reality of temptation. Some give up meat or chocolate or coffee. Some, rather than giving up, take something on: a prayer practice, a devotional, a volunteer activity. Each of these things is done in order for us to know our temptation more fully and to know Jesus’ temptation more fully.
During Lent last year, I read an article that was making the rounds among my pastor friends on Facebook (Facebook and other social media by the way, are great things to give up for Lent!). This article made the case that we should dispense with our “traditional” Lenten temptations. The author wrote that there is just no comparison between our fondness for chocolate and Jesus’ act of emptying himself in the wilderness; that the whole tradition cheapens the sacrifice Jesus made for us.
While I can see where this author is coming from, I do not quite agree. And rather than tell you all that your way of honoring Lent is “not enough” I think there is a more faithful way to draw us deeper into Christ and deeper into the Wilderness story. And this is the Good News made known both in this story and in the miracale of our Communion this morning. But before we get to the Good News, we need to understand more fully what is happening.
As I have said, the thing we should understand this first Sunday of Lent is that the devil’s temptations are offered to Jesus as things that Jesus is capable of taking, if you still have the pew Bible open in front of you go ahead and take a look:
The devil’s first temptation is to ask Jesus to turn the stones before him into loaves of bread.
“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
“Jesus, I have heard that you can turn water into wine, I have heard that you are going to turn a few fish and loaves into enough to feed thousands, surely it is no hard task for you to turn a few stones into loaves of bread, after all, you must be hungry”
In response to this. In response to the devil’s invitation for Jesus to do something He could easily do (but He won’t because it would mean using His miraculous powers for His own benefit) Jesus replies by quoting Scripture:
‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
After failing in the first temptation, Matthew tells us that the devil took Jesus to the holy city of Jerusalem and placed the Son of God on the pinnacle of the Temple, before tempting him again:
“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
This time the devil is more clever; he and Jesus both know that the Son of Man was not sent to live a human life in order to feed himself bread from stones, but rather in order to show humanity who He is.
Here the devil gives Jesus an opportunity: “Go ahead Jesus, show us who you are! Jump from the pinnacle of the Temple, surely God will send His angels to protect you”
And again Jesus answers with no more than a Scripture verse “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Finally, the devil shows his third temptation:
The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
“Look Jesus, we both know who you are. We both know that you are to be King of King, Lord of Lords. Why not skip the messy sacrifice part and just take it all right now?”
In anger Jesus rebukes the devil “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
These are the three wilderness temptations.
All things that Jesus could very easily have extended His hand to take.
He could have made the stones into bread with ease. He could have put God to the test and been saved by the angels. He could have taken all the Kingdoms of the world for His own. But He does not. He does not on the basis of His faithfulness to God.
Friends, the point of going deeper into Lent; the point of giving up are true and secret temptations (as opposed to just) chocolate or coffee or Facebook is not that these things are “not enough” but rather that, if we lose awareness of ourselves, we may come to believe they are our only temptations.
The point of fasting through Lent is to know Christ and to know ourselves, not to find a token of temptation in order to give up.
Just as the devil offered Jesus only a sampling of the things that might have enticed Him, we are every day faced with many temptations, and many that we regularly do not refuse.
Each of us has real temptations. Temptations that hold us back.
We are tempted to treat each other poorly out of past hurts, rather than practicing forgiveness.
We are tempted to hold our own opinions as Gospel while holding those of others in contempt.
We are tempted to take for ourselves the fleeting and empty pleasures of this world, ones that become more and more socially acceptable every day: abuse of alcohol and drugs, abuse of ourselves in binging and purging and self-harm, abuse of others in harsh ridicule and social abandonment, in abusive sex practices and pornography.
We are tempted by all manner of things. Things that we spend much time and energy justifying. Things that we know pull us further from the people God means us to be (out of His love for us) and yet we cannot seem to deny when they are so easily within our reach.
We are, all of us (all Christians, all human beings) a tempted people.
That is the bad news this morning.
But here is the Good News.
Though the devil has laid out for Jesus and for us, his temptations so that they are easily within reach; God has done the same with our salvation.
Let me say that again:
Even though we are tempted, even though these temptations are real and within reach, the Good News this morning is that God has put our salvation just as close.
In the simplest elements, at no cost, in churches scattered in every corner of the world and in the Holy Spirit who is even beyond these, God has offered Himself to us.
God offers Himself to us in bread and wine.
Bread and wine that is offered without cost, without strings, without any hindrance or fencing, all so that we can reach out to Him. So that we can reach out to Him with the same hands we have used to take temptations for ourselves, we are given the opportunity to reach out and accept His free gifts of bread and wine; to have Communion with Him and one another, to receive forgiveness, to receive mercy, to receive Grace, to know that though we have failed and faltered, though we have given into temptation, God will not turn His back on any one of us.
Friends, today is the first Sunday in Lent. It is a day on which we focus on the reality of temptation and the reality of what Jesus withstood that we cannot in order for us to see and to know what it cost Him to become our Christ, our Saviour.
Today is a day for us to take stock of our own temptations. To question whether we are being truly honest with God and truly faithful to Him when we pray for the strength to give up taking what we know we ought to resist.
But today is something else.
Every Sunday, whether at Advent or Epiphany or Lent or Easter, every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection: a day to give thanks for the saviour, and the advocate, and the friend we have in Jesus Christ. Come, let us give thanks to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit this day, let us enjoy Communion with Christ.
