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February 29,  2004;  The First Sunday of Lent, Year C
    The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector

Once upon a time was a woman who was married to a husband who was a tightwad.  She had to fight for everything she that wanted.  One day she told him that she was going to the mall, but just to look.  He replied, “Well ok, you can look, but don’t buy anything.”  Several hours later she came home with a new dress.  “What is this?” her husband fumed.  “I thought I told you that you could look, but you were couldn’t buy anything.”   “Well,” she replied, “I saw this lovely dress and thought that I would just try it on, and when I did the devil said to me, ‘It sure looks good on you.’”  “Right then and there you should have told him, get thee behind me Satan,” her husband exclaimed.  “I did,” she answered, “but when he got behind me he said, “It sure looks good from back here too.”

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when the focus is upon sin and temptation.  Each year on this, the First Sunday of Lent, we hear the account of how Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness right after his baptism.   The story is important for us, because through it we can learn how to overcome temptation when it comes our way.

It is important to realize that the temptations that Jesus faced were real.  These three temptations – satisfying his hunger, a desire to succeed, and a sense of security[i] are all normal desires, yet when they are abused, as was proposed in the temptation story of Jesus they lead to evil.  I say evil because it is the opposite of good, or as Jesus points out in the scripture he quotes, it can draw us away from God.

First, Jesus was hungry.  We would be too, if we had fasted for forty days.  Did you notice that the temptations did not come on the first day, or even at the end of the first week?  Satan waited until Jesus’ stomach was growling from the pains of hunger.  This seems to be very typical of when temptations come to most of us – when we are least able to resist them on our own.[ii]

Second, Jesus must have had a desire to be successful in bringing the Good News to all people.  The devil’s offer was inviting.  Why wait, he said, I’ll give it to you right now if you will worship me.  In a society where instant gratification is so prevalent, this offer is probably even more inviting that it was for Jesus.[iii]

Third, Jesus wanted some sense of security in his undertaking as the Son of God.  Why not, as the devil put it, test God.  Just throw yourself off the cliff, he said, and your Father will catch you.  We do have a tendency to want to make sure that God is paying attention and won’t let us down when we really need him.[iv]

These needs were present with Jesus in the wilderness; otherwise there would have been no temptations.  Yet as we know from the story Jesus he did not succumb to these or any other temptations; and because of this, he gives us the example of how we can overcome temptations when they come our way.

At the heart of the temptations is Jesus’ identity.   Listen to the words again:  “If you are the Son of God…?”   “If you then, will worship me…”  And again, “If you are the Son of God…”

Who am I?  I have talked about this several times before in sermons.  It is a very important question, not only for Jesus, but for each and every one of us.  Who am I?  For Jesus, that question was answered for him at his baptism when the voice of God said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”[v]   We also are claimed by God through our baptism, as being his beloved sons and daughters.

But knowing who you are, does not exempt us, just as it did not exempt Jesus, from encountering temptations.  What it does is provide us with a sense of what we should and should not do.

Temptation according to the Webster dictionary is, “the act of enticement to do wrong by promise of pleasure or gain.”[vi]  I read somewhere that the word enticement comes from the Greek language and was originally used to describe the “dropping of bait” in fishing.  Now, being a fisherman, I can understand this analogy.  I choose the juiciest worms or the liveliest minnows to appeal to the fish’s appetite, so that I can catch them.  But I don’t just use worms.  I have a tackle box, actually more than one, full of artificial baits that I also us to entice fish to bite.  Sometimes, though, I wonder if I am the one who has been caught by the attractiveness of the artificial baits.  I seem to have been “caught” by more of these artificial lures in the stores than I have caught fish with them in the lake.  Could it be that the fish see the bait, the temptation, for what it really is, artificial, and are laughing at me?

We must learn to respond to temptation when it first appears to us.  Jesus responded to the temptations in the wilderness immediately.   He did not say, “Well, let me think about it for a while and I will get back to you.”  Jesus looked temptation in the eye, saw it for what it really was, and said no.

Temptation is meant to lure us away from God to focus on ourselves.  The easiest way to avoid temptation is to have our eyes open and see it for what it really is and what it will do to us.  It is like taking a test and having roving eyes.  Do we just happen to see the answers the person next to us is writing down?  Of course not.  We want to do well on the test.  The question is are we willing to cheat in order to get a better grade.  But what happens later in life, when those questions come up and we don’t know how to work the problem in order to get the right answer?  Temptations can often be a short cut that will eventually catch up with us.

When we are faced with temptation, we must not hesitate to call upon God for help.  Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit when he entered the wilderness.  He did not have to face temptation and the devil by himself.

In Alcoholics Anonymous there is a crucial first step that everyone must take if there is any hope for their recovery.  It is the acknowledgement that, “I am powerless over the control of alcohol in my life.”   The road to recovery begins by admission that the individual cannot resist the temptation on their own.  While we may not want to admit that we need help to resist temptation, it is like the old adage, “Those who play with fire will eventually get burned.”

When the smoke cleared from the wilderness battleground, it was Jesus who stood victorious over the devil.  So may it be for us also in the wilderness of this world, that through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we to will rise victorious over temptation and the devil.

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