We Are The Champions

Preached Feb 21, 2010 by Rev. Teri Summers-Minette

Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Luke 4:1-13

In the Gospel according Luke, the Temptation Story occurs just after Jesus’ Baptism and directly before he begins his ministry. In the first two chapters of Luke, we are told who Jesus is.

The angel, Gabriel tells Mary her son will be called, “The Son of the Most High, and “the Son of God” (Luke 1:32, 35). Elizabeth calls the unborn child, “My Lord” (Luke 1:43). The angels tell the shepherds that the newborn baby is, “the Messiah” (Luke 2:11). The prophet, Anna, calls him “redeemer” (Luke 2:38). Finally at Jesus’ Baptism, a voice from heaven proclaims, "You are my Son, the Beloved” (Luke 3:22)

Luke has been preparing us for the rest of the gospel by making quite sure we have a clear sense of who Jesus is, and to whom he belongs. Now, in the wilderness, Luke explains how Jesus’ ministry will be done. The Son of God is not here to grab power for himself, or to work magic for the masses, or to show off how much he matters to God. That's not how it's going to work.

After Jesus’ baptism when the voice says, ‘with you I am well-pleased,’ Luke says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.”

In the bright, hot sun and isolation of the desert, he is left for a long period of reflection and fasting. What happens here is witnessed by no one except Jesus. Yet Luke gives us a sense of the immense struggle which he must have faced. Scholars are in remarkable agreement in their interpretation of this passage about Jesus facing an adversary who almost comes across as a "friend" who offers things that sound well-meaning and perfectly reasonable –at first.

Unlike the voice from heaven, Jesus endures this voice of friendly nagging for 40 days. The devil's voice appears as a string of logical ideas. They are plausible, attractive, and frankly make pretty convincing sense.  After all, why shouldn't Jesus satisfy his hunger with a little bread? Wouldn't it be better for everyone if Jesus ruled the world instead of those despicable Romans? and just imagine how many people would become faithful to God if Jesus simply flung himself off the pinnacle and a thousand angels came to rescue him!

Oh yes, the devil makes sense. To make matters even more difficult, Jesus’ adversary can back up every friendly suggestion with a quote from Scripture. This makes Jesus’ struggle even more troubling and disconcerting. Yet before he can begin his ministry, he must find the strength to defeat his exposed darker side.

I’ve heard people say, “So what?  I can’t quote scripture, and I give in to temptation all the time. Jesus was not like me. Being the son of God makes this just a story about how wonderful Christ is.”

I respectfully disagree. He was exactly like us except in sin. That doesn’t mean he didn’t struggle with sin. The fact that he had to struggle with temptation is one of the main points of the Temptation Story. Being fully human means his struggles were real, internal battles with his shadow side, his darker nature as a man.

If we approach the season of Lent as a time for a kind of spiritual spring cleaning, we invariably will see our own internal struggles. We may also realize that we manage to hold our struggles at bay with a ‘pacifier’ of our own choosing. We use pacifiers to fill the empty places inside of us which belong to God alone. Without our pacifiers, our empty places are suddenly exposed.

Someone once described it to me this way, “The emptiness was terrifying. I wanted to immediately fill it with something, anything! I was afraid I’d have a panic attack or worse.”

However, that hollowness we sometimes feel is not necessarily a sign of something gone wrong. Spiritual director, Rev. Kate Huey calls it: “the holy of holies inside of us, the uncluttered throne room of the Lord our God.”

No doubt Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, understood this. The 2^nd step of AA is to accept that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And many of the following steps prepare the alcoholic to ask for forgiveness. Even agnostic social scientists will admit 12-step programs like AA work for the long term because members accept that the hollowness they feel can only be filled by the transcendent –the divine, and then acts of restitution and reconciliation are attempted.

That sounds exactly like a thorough spiritual housecleaning to me!

From time to time, we all have those feelings like we’re shut into a dark closet: the hollowness, the emptiness, the times when you don’t feel your life has purpose. If you are ready to open the door to your own internal struggle, you’ll probably hear a voice that makes convincing arguments. “If you give up your pacifier, you’ll become anxiety and you’ll either starve to death or no one will love you.” As someone who struggles with the temptation of food, I can promise you that you might get hungry, and you’ll probably get anxious, but you will continue to be loved be caring people and you will not starve.

Is the concept of Lent outdated and too "church-y" or maybe just beside the point in these modern times? Imagine a Christian faith which goes directly from the joy of birth of our Savior to the celebration of his resurrection. The problem with this is that a resurrection faith doesn’t begin at resurrection.  It begins with confronting the darkness. 

Lent is an opportunity for us to remember that we are dust and not merely to wear it on our foreheads….we are given time for corporate and personal reflection and repentance each year, and again, and again, and again God offers us the salvation that only God can give.

Each week during worship we pray a prayer of confession, and it comes right on the heels of a hymn of praise.  That’s no coincidence: there’s a reason behind this line-up.  When we step into the brightness of God’s glory, the dark shadows we cast behind us are more pronounced, more defined. 

We could ignore the darkness and continue on as if everything is just fine and dandy.  But ignoring our dark places only enables them to gain more power over us, and we make the same mistakes over and over.  In truth they will never totally leave us. However it is our decision whether or not we will openly recognize them.  And by the grace of the Light of the world, when we acknowledge the presence of our shadows, they begin to loss their power over us.  

Jesus fasted for 40 days, spent time in the brilliance, and confronted his own shadow, the temptations which could have prevented him from realizing the fullness of his humanity and his purpose. 

As we enter into the season of Lent, he is leading us into the certain knowledge that by facing our own shadows, our own fears, it becomes easier to walk in the light as he walks in the light. (1 John 1:7)

So when you hear a convincingly seductive voice and it is unclear where that voice is coming from, read Luke’s Temptation story again. Then tell the devil to get lost and then decide what you will do for Lent. Better yet, decide whose you will be.

Worship the Lord your God, and serve no other.

Expect great things, from God and from yourself.

And finally, believe that with God, every good thing is possible.