Sermon for 1st Lent 2014

Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on March 9, 2014
Revamp of a sermon preached at St. John's Davis, WV on March 13, 2011 with additions from a sermon preached there on Feb 10, 2008
Scripture texts: Genesis 3:1-7, Matthew 4:1-11

It’s scary sometimes how well the devil knows us.

Truth is, human beings are not complicated. There are certain basic things that everyone of us wants out of life. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what language you speak, what religion you follow, what culture you were raised in. These things are universal. Some of these things are good; We want life, food, clean water, a roof over our head, a good family, etc. Some of these things are not so good, things we desire that we keep hidden from others: power, wealth, the accolades of admirers. These things are often more shameful to admit, but if we’re honest, most of us would have to confess they lurk within our hearts.

We all want these things. And it is in those desires where the devil will hit us first and foremost. It is in those desires where we are weakest.

I saw a show on the History Channel a few years ago about the Hartford Circus Fire. In July of 1944, the Ringling Brothers circus was doing a show in Hartford, CN when the circus tent caught fire. Although the circus personnel tried to evacuate the tent in an orderly fashion, a panic ensued. The end result was one of the worst fire disasters in American history, with over 150 people losing their lives in the fire.


The History Channel interviewed a number of survivors of the fire and many of them were very candid about their experiences. One even admitted that when you’re trapped inside a burning tent, everyone around you, regardless of whether they are friend, father, sister, or even child, becomes a mortal enemy. One has to wonder how many of those 168 people who died in that fire did so because they got in the way of someone else, someone they thought they could trust, someone they loved.

A grim question, and perhaps somewhat extreme, but it does highlight how savage we can become when one of those basic desires (in this case, life) is threatened. By the same token, we can perhaps also see how far we might go when one of those basic desires is offered to us. Temptation always comes where we are weakest.

With that in mind, we can now turn to the four examples of temptation that appear in our Scripture lessons today. The first is one of the most famous: the story of the Fall from Genesis. I always find this story to be absolutely brilliant, because it truly shows just how clever the devil really is and how easily Adam and Eve fall prey to his tricks.

The temptation is simple: Eat this and you will be like God. How clever. Probably the most persistent myth of the human condition is that we are in control of all aspects of our lives. We delude ourselves into thinking we rule this world; that even nature itself is at our feet. All it takes usually is a hurricane, earthquake, a hostile wild animal, or even an illness to dispense with that delusion, but so many of us avoid those that we continue in our fantasies of control.

Imagine though if it wasn’t a myth. Imagine if we truly had the power to control everything. We’ve been grasping for that power from the dawn of time. Napoleon, Caligula, Stalin, Hitler, and all the other tyrants of history are all examples of people who tried, to the detriment of so many others. Are we surprised that this is the first sin? We shouldn’t be. It’s our deepest and darkest desire. As the Tears for Fears song says (rightly) “Everybody wants to rule the world.”


Fast forward a bit to the temptation of Jesus. Here, the devil sees himself with the ultimate opportunity. Before this, God was invulnerable. Immune to the devil’s tricks. But now, incarnate as a human being, Jesus is vulnerable. He has all our human weaknesses. Will he fall prey to our human desires also?

The temptation story starts out simple. Jesus has been in the wilderness for many days, without sustenance. The devil’s first offer is again simple: food. Use your power to make food. It’s like the survivor of the Hartford fire. When your life is truly in danger, you’ll do anything to save it. Jesus is starving and he could have food if he gives in. Jesus says no.

Now, for those of you who know your Bibles well, you probably know that the order of the next two temptations switches depending on whether you’re reading Matthew or Luke. So I’m going to do a switcheroo here and use the Lucan order and the reason for that I hope will be clear in a minute.

Which means the next temptation is the mountaintop, third in Matthew, second in Luke. Talk about “everybody wants to rule the world.” That is, of course, what the devil offers here. Alright, Jesus, use your power. Bring these nations to heel. Put them under your feet. You deserve to rule the whole world. Just bow down before me and it’s yours. Of course, the devil knows full well that Jesus doesn’t have to worship him to achieve this. He can do it on his own. He has the power to subjugate the world all by himself. He says no.

And that brings us to the last temptation, the top of the temple. Throw yourself down says the devil and let the angels prevent any harm from coming to you. This is, I’ve long argued, perhaps the most insidious of all these temptations, because it goes to the heart of why Jesus came to earth in the first place.

You really want to be human, Jesus? Let’s see how far you go with it. The devil, of course, knows why it is important for Jesus to be human. He knows that there cannot be an Easter, without Good Friday, cannot be an empty tomb without a cross, and there cannot be a cross if God remains invulnerable, untouchable. Jesus’ humanity is the key to the whole plan and if he denies it here, it’s over.

So Jesus says no. It will not be this way. Jesus will not avoid death; he will die on a cross. He will die as a human being, so that we and all of humanity may live.

Note the similarities between the temptation of the garden and the three Jesus is offered in the wilderness. The desires, those human desires, are the same. Power, survival, ambition. These are things we all want, even if we’re at times ashamed to admit it. But there is a key difference. We ordinary humans are powerless, thus when the devil tempts us, he offers us the power to gain what we want. Eat the apple. Be like God and take what you desire. But Jesus has power. He is the son of God, fully divine and fully human at the same time. So the temptation changes. Now it is to use that power in contradiction to God’s plan. Eat your fill, be invulnerable, be invincible.

The devil always hits us where we are weakest. For us, it is our powerlessness, our inability so often to gain what we want most. For Jesus, it is in his power, to use it wrongly, to abandon that which makes him human and vulnerable, because what he came to do requires that he be human and vulnerable.

If he rules the world, no one can arrest him. If he cannot he hurt, the nails cannot pierce his wrists. If he wills himself not to starve, then he can will himself not to die. But if he doesn’t die on that cross, then all the world will come to ruin. If he doesn’t die, we will.

So Jesus says no to the devil and he says yes to the cross. And because he says yes to the cross, he says yes to the empty tomb. Not just for himself, but for all of us. He defies the devil for our sake. He allows himself to be human, to follow the plan God set out for him. He allows himself to be killed, so that we might have life. He says no to the power, no to those deepest desires in his human heart, and yes to life for all of us. Amen.