Text: Luke 4:1-13
Theme: "Things Conditional and
Unconditional"
1st
Sunday in Lent
February
17, 2013
FIRST
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Denton,
Texas
Rev.
Paul R. Dunklau
+In
the Name of Jesus+
Jesus,
full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted[a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the
end of them he was hungry.
3
The devil
said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
5
The devil
led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the
world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority
and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7
If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
9
The devil
led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If
you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For
it is written:
“‘He will
command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[d]”
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[d]”
13
When the
devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
14
Jesus
returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread
through the whole countryside. 15 He was teaching in their
synagogues, and everyone praised him.
It
is a dangerous thing to be led by the Spirit of God. We Christians claim to be
"followers" of Christ. But
there's a subtle difference between "following" Him and being
"led" by Him.
The
First Sunday in Lent, on an annual basis, brings us the story of the temptation of
Jesus. That's right; He was tempted
too! This year we hear it from the Gospel of
Luke. Matthew's Gospel adds a bit to the
narrative and takes a little bit of it out.
Mark's Gospel, not surprisingly, gives us the shortest account.
Matthew
and Luke say that Jesus was "led" by the Spirit into the wilderness
-- or, to be more precise, the desert.
It doesn't say that He followed the Spirit. The Gospel of Mark, for all its brevity and
speed, is even more vivid. It says that
the Spirit "drove" Jesus into the desert. The word can mean to "throw" or
"cast".
As
I said, it's dangerous to be led by the Spirit of God -- or even driven or
thrown about by the Spirit. It could
land you in some sort of desert or wilderness -- or even Haiti. Worse than that, if we're led -- or even
thrown around -- by the Spirit, we give up some sort of control, don't we? That's risky business for folks who like to
think that they at least have some control.
Take
a look and breathe easy. It doesn't
seem to me that we're in any sort of desert or wilderness this morning. But, of course, we're not that far from West
Texas. And besides, desert lands aren't
all that bad. Consider Palm Desert,
California. It's hot and dry and dirty
and dusty all around. But you add some
grass seed and water, and BOOM: it
becomes an oasis. And the sunsets over
the San Jacinto mountain range are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen.
Desert
lands may not be everywhere, but temptations certainly are. It has been said that "Temptations are
like birds: you can't stop them from
flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your
hair."
When
Jesus taught us to pray, he said:
"Lead us not into temptation."
I wonder if He thought of those forty days when He was "led"
by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
We'll
get to the first temptation of Jesus in just a moment. But for you and me, the first temptation we
face is this: the temptation to think
that we can handle temptations on our own.
St. Paul puts an end to such nonsense in his remarks to the
Corinthians. He says: "So, if you think you are standing firm,
be careful that you don't fall. No
temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be
tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted (notice: he doesn't say "if" you
are tempted), he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under
it."
A
second temptation we face is to think that there really aren't any temptations
out there. Instead, there are only
"appropriate" or "inappropriate" choices. Oh really.
Who, then, makes the determination as to what is appropriate or
inappropriate? Who is
"policing" the thoughts and actions?
"Well, that's up to the
individual," someone might reply;
one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." If that logic holds, there are then no
objective standards of right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate. That's all up for you to decide. You make the rules; you call the shots. It's called individual autonomy; you're a law
unto yourself. The calls this, among
other things, idolatry. In this case, it
is the impulse to play God yourself.
That's
a lot to think about, but before I confuse matters further let's look at what
happens with Jesus. He was human, and He
had gone some forty days without basic nourishment. In short, he was hungry. We may not be able to agree on what
constitutes right or wrong, but we know when we're hungry.
The
devil says: "If you are the Son of
God, tell this stone to become bread."
"Would it not be the 'appropriate' thing to do?" the devil
seems to be asking. Satan introduces
that nasty little two-letter word:
"If". Sometimes we face
"iffy" situations. In short,
we're not quite sure what's happening or what will happen. We're presented with choices, but we're not
quite sure which one will work. And so
we're stuck. One national life insurance
company -- I believe it's Metropolitan Life -- sells insurance so that you and
your loved ones can be covered for those "if" moments in life -- if,
for example, your home were destroyed or your ability to provide for your loved
ones came to an end, then Metropolitan has you covered. "Tell the stone to become bread,
Jesus," Satan says in effect; "I've got you covered."
Creating
"if" moments is one of the great tricks of the devil, one of the
great tactics of evil. "If"
tends to create doubt. If you're full of
doubt, you're easy pickings.
"If"
usually introduces what we call a conditional sentence. For example:
"If Uncle Bob gets here before six, then he can have Sunday dinner
with us. If Uncle Bob arrives after
dinner, then he can go to the movies with us." What's uncertain, what's "iffy" is what
time Uncle Bob is going to show up. You
get the idea.
"If
you are the Son of God" , says the devil.
"That's obviously not a sure thing; you're out here in the
wilderness all hungry and such. That's
inappropriate for the Son of God."
Jesus
doesn't come up with a nifty little conditional sentence of His own. He won't play by the devil's rules. Instead, He, hungry as He surely was, makes a declaration, an unconditional
assertion, a statement of fact:
"Man shall not live by bread alone."
But
the devil is a persistent little cuss. He
comes at Jesus from another angle. This
time he uses a bit of show and tell. He
shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in all their splendor. "It's all yours," he says to
Jesus. "There's one condition: worship me; if you worship me, then it's all
yours." For Jesus, there are no
ifs. He says: "Worship the Lord your God and serve Him
only." There's nothing conditional
about that. It sounds unconditional to
me.
Satan
gives it one more shot. He's still hung
up on this "Son of God" thing.
He takes Him up to the highest point in the temple and has Him peer
down. "If you are the Son of God,
then throw yourself down. For it is
written: 'He shall give His angels
charge of you... .'" Here, the
devil sounds like a reasonably good Presbyterian. He quotes Scripture. The devil knows His Bible; he knows it up,
down, sideways, and horizontal. The only
difference between the devil's reading and faithful reading of Scripture is
this: the devil will always twist it to
his own purpose.
Our
Lord, of course, is only too aware of this. He connects with the devil's high
fastball and knocks it out of the park. He
says: "Do not put the Lord your God
to the test."
Satan
went on offense, and he struck out. As
the text says, he would await another opportunity.
Earlier
this morning, we confessed our sin. We
said, in effect, that there have been times when evil has taken the opportunity
-- gone on offense! -- with us, and we
have given in to the temptation; we accepted the conditional logic as gospel
truth; we struck out. Is it too much to
say that there are times when we even welcomed a good temptation? Is it too much to say that we like a little
bit of "high risk/high reward"?
What a mess we are in our sins.
What confusion reigns when we try to twist everything -- our own lives,
the lives of others, God, the Scriptures -- to our own purpose! Is there any hope for us?
Turn
again, finally, the text: "Jesus returned to
Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole
countryside. He was teaching in their
synagogues, and everyone praised him."
Jesus didn't leave; he returned to His people. He would be with them.
He,
through the power of His Spirit, is with us too -- leading, guiding, and
sometimes even driving us. It may be to
Haiti and a mission of relief. It may be
into your next day where you'll meet up with a neighbor, a friend, an
acquaintance, or a nameless face of someone facing temptation. Like Jesus, you can be there for them. You can be there for them unconditionally --
just as Jesus is there for you, for that person, buffeted by temptation, who
stares back at you in the mirror.
For,
as the writer to the Hebrews has unconditionally declared: "We do not have a high priest who is
unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in
every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with
confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time
of need."
Amen.
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