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Sunday 25 February 2007

The Temptations of Christ, Lent 1

The Temptations of Christ

Deuteronomy 26.1-11; Psalm 91; Romans 10.8-13; Luke 4.1-13

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Heb 4.15

It was that great 20th century commentator on the human condition, Mae West who remarked that “I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.”

In fact a popular theological conundrum for students (from the 5th century onwards when this Gospel was adopted for the first Sunday in Lent) was usually expressed in this form:
Was Christ: able not to sin?
OR : not able to sin?
The answer of course is ‘Yes’. If he had sinned, he would not have been the sinless God. But if he had not been able to sin, then he would not have been fully human. (I know that’s a bit hard for many of you, already weakened by much fasting and abstinence...)

So does this mean that the temptations were in some way a sham - not real temptations?

No! In fact the opposite is true. Only the sinless can know the full intensity of the temptation to sin. The holier the life, the more severe the testing.

One of my happy memories of my engineering course - apart from the week-long experiment Richard, my lab partner and I carried out on measuring the speed of ballbearings rolling down an inclined plane completely immersed in 20 gallons of golden syrup - cleaning up afterwards was such fun… one of my other happy memories, was designing and building a model bridge out of aluminium and testing it to destruction - the Omega point. The better constructed the bridge, the greater the pressure that needed to be applied before the Omega point was reached.

The life of our Lord was so coherent, so integrated, so well-constructed, that the pressure applied to break him was more than most of us can possibly understand.

We break far too easily, for our interior life is often ill-constructed. Oscar Wild’s dictum is the familiar pattern: “I can resist anything except temptation.”

And these temptations of Christ, recorded in the synoptic gospels, represent the continuous process of testing at every stage of the Son of God’s life, right up to the end. So in the garden, before the cross, he resists the allurement to let the cup of suffering pass from him, and sweats great drops of blood in his anguish and fight against temptation.

The film ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ for all its weaknesses, takes seriously the manhood of Christ, tempted in all points as we are.

Although this is a real account of the trials of our Lord, it is also stylized and symbolic in the way that Luke presents it. (Matthew gives a different order and slightly different detail; Mark gives only a summary.)

Jewish readers would have picked up the parallels between Jesus and Adam, Moses and Israel. Here is a recapitulation of history which Paul recounts in Romans and the OT lesson rehearses. Adam failed and followed the sensual in preference to the spiritual, laying down the foundation for idolatry which we all follow. Jesus succeeded where Adam failed and followed the path of obedience to his Father.

Moses spends forty days on the mountain, in preparation for receiving the Law. Later he is taken up a high mountain to survey the Promised Land of God. Jesus is set on a high mountain to survey the promised land of Satan. Moses never reaches the Promised Land - but Jesus, the new Joshua - Saviour - succeeds and carries his people with him.

Israel puts God to the proof at Meribah and Massah during their forty years of testing in the wilderness. They demand signs: water from the rock; bread in the desert. Jesus, as the faithful Israel, demands no proof from God but is trusting and obedient. Satan has quoted Ps 91 (today's gradual & tract) “He shall give his angels charge over thee” but Jesus has construed its meaning aright: in quiet trust and confidence he submits to the will of the Father. He is the living water, the Bread of Life.

Notice how Christ, in his weakened state, falls back on familiar Scriptures. In fact the three quotations are from the early chapters of Deuteronomy which recount the wilderness experiences of the people of Israel. Christ would have been educated as a Jewish boy, by learning Hebrew scriptures by heart. They were deeply embedded in his mind.

There is great value in having fixed in our memory, familiar scriptures, familiar prayers and hymns of the people of God. When we are physically and spiritually weak, they can be of great assistance to us. It’s a good Lenten discipline to try and learn some passage or prayer by heart.

The temptations themselves can be looked at in different ways. At one level, they were an appeal for Christ to misuse his divine powers to obtain the common human goals of Sustenance, Protection and Security. At another level, they are the common snares of Christian leaders to be selfish, to sensationalise and to compromise.

What of the temptations we face? They are many and different according to our personality and the setting of our lives. We are not tempted to turn stones into bread, but we may turn bread into stones for others by our selfish indulgence and the demand for immediate gratification.

We are not likely to feel the urge to prove God’s physical care to sceptical friends – perhaps by standing at the front of the queue for a Harrod’s Sale. But we may be tempted to care for ourselves and our own needs at the expense of others.

We are all likely to be offered much in order to gain very little.

The big temptations are not too difficult. They are obvious and we either sin boldly, or flee from the situation, like Joseph, leaving our garment in the hands of Potiphar’s wife - often with a mind to go back for it later - for when we flee temptation, we usually leave a forwarding address.

No, it is the thousand subtle temptations that sneak in every day and like the gentle acid rain falling on the great cathedral, wear away our defences and ruin us.

The temptations to live as though God did not matter; to live as if “I” am the centre of the universe; to love things and use people, rather than use things and love people; to neglect responsibility; to wound others; to lack compassion.

Lent is a time to take stock and make repairs; to remember that we have a flawed human nature. As Luther put it: “I’m more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals.”

And Lent is a time to strengthen our defences, by selfless giving, by disciplining our demanding bodies, by fortifying our minds with the truths of our faith, by reminding ourselves through our devotions that we are greatly loved by one who gave himself for us and longs for us to live full lives by following his example. And in case we think this is an impossible dream, then we are urged to remember that

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb 4.15