First Sunday 0f Lent

In 2010 a former pupil of John Wheeldon School on Corporation Street was invited by the people of Stafford to turn on the Christmas lights. PC David Rathbone had been shot in the eye by a gunman earlier that year by 37 year old Raoul Moat. Moat was on the run from police having shot and seriously injured his ex-girlfriend and executed her new partner.  On Friday last week, two men who assisted in Moats crimes were convicted and found guilty of attempted murder and murder.

It’s a horrific life event which reveals what can happen when we are tempted away from our calling to be truly human as God intended. When we are controlling, abusive and oppressive towards human beings weaker than ourselves. When we are tempted to succumb to obsessive jealousy so that that nothing can stop us hurting another person. When we can be tempted and seriously injure someone whose job it is to protect us from harm.  Temptation that is succumbed to, can have such horrific and devastating life changing results. 

Two thousand years ago an early Christian writing to the Hebews tells us that Jesus was tempted, like all other humans in every possible way (Hebrews 4:15), so it shouldn’t surprise us that after the momentous moment of Jesus’ baptism, having heard Gods’ voice come down from heaven like a dove that the next recorded moment in Jesus’ life is the story we have read in our gospel reading today. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert and tempted by Satan. We read that three times Satan tempts Jesus away from his calling to be truly human, God’s chosen person, servant to the whole world.

The first two temptations test the strength Jesus has just received in baptism when God had said to him.  “You are my Son, my beloved one”.  “Ok then” says Satan, if you’re really God’s Son, then lets see you feed yourself and do something very dramatic like leap of the top of the temple, that way people will know then that you’re special. The third temptation is bolder still, “forget God” says Satan, “worship me instead and I’ll give you power and greatness like nobody’s business”.

Jesus was tempted but sees where Satan’s going with his demands. Each time Jesus answers with the Bible and in God’s Spirit. Jesus is devoted to God and to living by God’s word, so no he won’t feed on any other kind of bread because that will never satisfy  you. Jesus won’t step outside of God’s plan for his life, he won’t do anything to steps outside of God’s will. Jesus is committed to serving God alone and there isn’t space in his life for worshiping anyone else.

Jesus quotes from the Bible using scripture like a sword, brandished in battle, warding off the enemy. Each quotation is taken from the story of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness. Matthew contrasts each bible of the passages to Jesus. Just as Israel has come through the waters of the Red Sea, so Jesus has come through the water of baptism. Israel spent forty years in the wilderness and Jesus spends forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. Where Israel had failed time and time again, Jesus succeeded in faithful obedience to a loving God, revealing God’s love and light in the world.

There are echoes here of the story in Genesis of Adam and Eve in the garden. Tempted once, resulting in such a devastating outcome. In contrast Jesus is tempted but stays close to his father resulting in the reversal of the effect of the garden and bringing the reconciliation of all people through the cross. By saying no to Satan, who sought to stop Jesus obeying his father; instead Jesus says yes to his father and ultimately yes to the cross.

In the week that lies ahead of us now, the first full week of Lent, Christian people are encouraged to set aside time to pause and reflect on their lives before God. We will be tempted away from our calling to be truly human as God intended us to be. We may not go on the rampage in a jealous and drug induced frenzy seeking to hurt those who have hurt us but we may tempted to: hurt someone else with our words or actions. We may well be tempted to be jealous of another person or thing such that it becomes more important to us than a healthy and loving relationship with God. We may well be tempted to say things that are unkind about others either to them or behind their back instead of building them up and encouraging them in their walk with God. We may well be the tempted to wield power over others who are vulnerable and weaker than us.  We may well want our own way or to be heard to the detriment of someone else. And all this goes on in the lives of us as individuals, within our church communities and as nations, as we see all too clearly day by day in the frightening pictures we receive from across the world on our TV screens and newspapers. 

Our temptations this week may be different to those Jesus faced on the cross, but they have the same end. They distract us from our baptism calling, to be God’s children, to listen to and follow God. Why? Because God has called you and me into a relationship in which God has a plan and purpose for us as his daughter or his son to be truly human. That relationship is worked out though in a community, with others, which is why our relationships with one another are so important and matter. 

Corrie Ten Boom, who suffered greatly under the Nazi regime and in the death camps of the Second World War, reminds us that there is power in correcting our focus when we get lost, a power to raise our spirits and aid us to press on. Corrie writes, “If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you’ll be at rest!”

And that’s the way to correct our focus; by looking at Jesus. The easy way for life is to go with the flow, to follow what others do. That path is wide and many travel on it. The path of people who believe in Jesus and wish to follow him in life is narrow and at times very hard, but the rewards are beyond our imagination, stored up for us as treasure in heaven where no moth can eat it or rust ruin it.

So when we’ve messed up, which I and we do, we have a saviour, Jesus, who knows and understands each of our temptations and failures to be truly human as God intended. He is there, with arms ready to welcome back the repentant believer. And at the cross we experience reconciliation, healing and the work of wholeness.

When we’re tempted this week, as we will be, we have Jesus’ example to follow. Jesus was in the wilderness with God’s Spirit and so are we. We are not alone and we are encouraged to pray for God’s Spirit to us say “no” to temptation. We are encouraged to seek God’s way of behaving towards others and God’s creation, by reading and studying the Bible day by day both alone and with others, remembering passages of scripture and by seeking with great care to apply them to the way we live our lives. We are invited to come to the Eucharist now, to be reconciled, to receive bread and wine to strengthen us in our resolve to be faithful followers of Jesus. Amen.