The Spirit of Lent: A Sermon for Lent I
Temptation often seems to come at the worst times. When we are down, when we are weak, when we don’t necessarily feel the presence of God, when we are alone or lonely, when we are in conflict with people to whom we would normally turn to for support, when we are confused about the matters of faith which should see us through the storm, temptation can seem to pounce on us like it’s been waiting. There is an old joke that goes, Living out a Christian life is easy because you only have to deal with one problem: temptation. But the truth is, sin isn’t funny, and when we find ourselves caught in it, we might feel unprepared. This is why Lent is so crucial- this liturgical season puts front and center in our line of sight the fact that we already are dealing with sin. Scripture makes it clear that we are already entrenched in a real battle, in spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Consider this in light of actual warfare. If one side in a conflict simply waits passively for the other to make a move and only reacts to the enemy, that side is guaranteed to lose the conflict. Victorious armies may not make the first strike, but they preempt their enemies by making sure they are ready. So the question Lent invites us to ask is, Are we preparing for the fight? Or are we waiting for the serpent of temptation to strike at us unaware? Our enemy, the Devil, has powerful allies in his cause to ensnare us. One of his allies is worldly ways of thinking which don’t conform to biblical patterns of thinking. Another enemy to your walk with Christ, of course, is you. And me to mine. The sin which wars in my own heart, and in yours, does not have our best interest in mind. 1 John 2:16 says, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” Like a spy for an enemy in wartime, our sin seeks to betray us to the Devil’s schemes. And what are the Devil’s schemes? 1 Peter 5:8 warns us, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” If you have reason to believe that you might be facing a lion as you go about your day, you wouldn’t wait until that lion confronts you to figure out what to do. If you thought a lion attack was a possibility, you would be prepared ahead of time. Well, the lion is already attacking. The truth of the matter is, the sense that temptation strikes at hard times is an illusion created by the fact that we don’t notice small ways in which we aren’t fully running the race when things are easier. We practice complacence in our walk with Christ when everything seems alright, so that when really difficult temptation strikes, whatever it may be, we aren’t on guard. This is the core spirit of Lent – to remind us to be on guard. And today’s Gospel teaches us what to be on guard for and how to be on guard.
Something paradoxical and difficult to understand begins our Gospel lesson. It reads, “THEN was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” Why would the Holy Spirit lead anyone into temptation? After all, Christ commanded us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” If our goal is to model Christ, on the one hand, then we might think that we should be like Christ and so follow the Holy Spirit’s lead. But Christ did not tell us to pray, “Lead us into temptation and through it deliver us from evil.” Furthermore, James 1:13 reads, “For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” If God does not tempt us with evil, how can He lead us into temptation from evil? Again, remembering to take spiritual warfare as a serious reality will help us to understand. A general might lead his troops into difficult and dangerous training and into dangerous and deadly battle, and his troops might take fire there. But of course a general doesn’t want his troops to be hit and he won’t lead them in a way that would endanger them any more than necessary. Insofar as the Holy Spirit leads us into temptation, it is to ensure that we learn and develop the obedience to God’s will that equips us for trials to come. I think one might interpret the prayer of not leading us into temptation as a concession of our weakness, that like soldiers in training we know it might be better to avoid some conflicts altogether. Although God is sovereign over the spiritual battlefield, we should not be licking our chops for the fight. We should have hearts sober with the reality of how hard facing sin is. So we should ask to be spared such trials. But if the Holy Spirit lets temptation into our lives, it may well be to bring to our attention a weakness in sin we have been letting grow within us but had not been paying attention to sufficiently.
Of course in Christ’s case he had no sin, but to be a suitable sacrifice for our atonement Christ had to face the temptations we face. The fact is, sin which goes undealt with does not disappear, and Lent is an opportunity to ask for the Holy Spirit to shed light on what our temptations are that we may not have noticed. I don’t mean that we should seek out temptation, but that we should search our hearts for what temptations are already pulling us. Perhaps if we become arrogant in our moral disposition, the Holy Spirit may let temptation come our way to remind us that without Christ we have no chance at virtuous living. As it was for Christ, this work may be very trying for us. But if we ignore the Holy Spirit’s promptings for repentance, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the spiritual attack. We might think that Satan was smart in tempting Jesus when he was weak with hunger, but to return to the image of soldiers preparing for war, the difficult training they must go through makes them ready for the conflict. By denying himself food, Christ was training his body and so preparing it for spiritual warfare. Likewise, if we can voluntarily give up a little of the good things we like now, we will be firmer in our faith if someone or something takes those things away entirely. Lenten disciplines like fasting or giving up favorite activities help to remind us that when it comes down to it, Christ must come first in our hearts, and Lent gives us a practical opportunity to show and practice it. So perhaps we should pray that the Holy Spirit would lead us, not into temptation, but to see with clearer vision what temptations might be weakening our faith, so that we can train ourselves in body, mind, and soul to lean more thoroughly on God.
Now, let us look more closely at the temptations and how Christ answered them, and how this helps us to wage the spiritual warfare as it emerges on the frontlines of our own lives. The first temptation involved hunger: “And when the tempter came to him, he said, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Notice that this first temptation mirrors the temptation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. Like all effective liars, Satan knew how much truth to include to make his deception effective. He appealed to Eve’s ego in order to ask the most fundamental question in history: Should God really be sovereign over our lives? And he asked it in regards to one of the most fundamental needs of the body: the need for food. So notice that with Christ, Satan calls into question the certainty of Christ’s relationship with his Father: “If you be the son of God, turn these stones into bread.” The same hissing lie: will you see the nourishment of the soul as something God really knows better? What about nourishing the body? It is your body after all, isn’t it? You control what goes into it, don’t you? But the lie here is simple to refute: because ultimately neither the body in which your life dwells, nor the food which sustains it, belong to you. Our existence is a gift from the Creator, and to govern our place in Creation properly, in the most basic ways our behavior must be marked by gratitude for that gift. This is why Lent is associated with fasting – it is a practical, real life way of experiencing the fact that we cannot live by bread alone, but must live by the word which proceeded out of the mouth of God. Notice how Christ answers him: he says it is written, and then he quotes the authority of Deuteronomy 8:3, quoting the words which he himself inspired. To the temptation of self-rule, Christ answers with the scriptural understanding that the food which feeds the body is a living symbol of the soul’s need for God’s truth: Job 12:11 reads, “Does not the ear test words as the palate tastes food?” Of course, I am not recommending that we fast to the extent that we hurt ourselves or cause medical problems, but simply that if we only say that God’s word feeds us more essentially than physical food does, then our words are shown cheap by the lack of action to back them up. The second temptation reads, “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” Notice that Satan changes his tactics here, and instead of appealing to Christ’s body, he now appeals to the same authority by citing Psalm 91:11, 12. Never forget that Satan can quote Scripture too, and so can the world. Our own flesh will likewise try to read into Scripture justifications for sin which simply isn’t there. Satan is here asking another fundamental question the same he asked of Job: what really motivates this worship of God? Is it because we know God is holy, all powerful, and worthy to be praised? Or is it because we want something out of God? If you notice that you only pray when the chips are down, when tragedy strikes, when you need guidance – if you never offer a word of thanks for a sunny sky or a job promotion – then you have been practicing treating God as your heavenly butler. Here, here – come serve me. After all, that’s why I serve you. This moment of course betrays projection on the part of Satan, who as he was beginning to fall from grace probably began to saw worship of his Creator as a show to get what he wanted. Again, Christ simply quotes Scripture, this time Deuteronomy 6:16. When we think of God as on our beck and call, then we’ll be tempted to think of our prayer requests as tests for Him, to see if He really has the right stuff. And of course it is good to pray to God for what we want. But the core of prayer is not to ask God to fill our order, but to fill our hearts with the godly love He wants to see there. So another good Lenten practice is to focus on doing things because they glorify God, not because we get something out of it. We pray more, we read Scripture more, we devote ourselves to Bible studies more, not primarily so that we can be consoled but so that we can better see that our God is worthy to be praised. Unworthy use of God’s grace becomes selfish and leads to a desire to demand God meet our expectations, and worthy use of God’s grace creates a self-giving desire to meet God’s expectations.
Finally, we see that the Devil tempts Christ with idolatry. The account reads, “Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Now of course all sin is idolatry, but here there is something different. Here Satan is not merely enticing Christ to give into his fleshly desires or to view God with a worldly prosperity Gospel, but to replace God with a demonic love for status. But here is where the mask really comes off, because the fact is that in every act we commit, as Bob Dylan said, we gotta serve somebody. It might be the devil, and it might be the Lord, but the idea that we can exist simply as selfish, self-serving individuals is false. If we choose gluttony, we will have two masters: our stomachs and the people giving us food. If we choose lust, we have two masters: our physical desires and the worldly resources which seek to satisfy them. If we choose fame, we will have a multitude of masters: our own thirst for popularity and all of the people we are seeking to please. And so with any sin – we will be torn apart by the master of sin within and the masters of society and Satan without. Just as Satan begins by appealing to Christ’s ego – don’t you have the authority to do what you want with your own power? And ends with an offer that would make Christ his slave, so the initial feeling of freedom and self-satisfiaction we see in sin at first will ensnare us and make us slaves of masters that do not love us. Again quoting Deuteronomy 13, our Lord shows us how to meet our adversary: “Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” When our Lord is one Lord and our God is one God, then we have a master who does love us and who is worthy of our praise. The spirit of Lent begins with seeking in prayer the Holy Spirit, and in recommitting ourselves to studying the Scriptures. If God in the flesh used Scripture in spiritual warfare, then we as mortals had better be studying our Lord’s word to be ready when the lion comes prowling. We do not observe Lent to make ourselves righteous, because only the blood of Christ does that for us. We enter into the spirit of Lent so that we can experience Christ saying to the temptations in our lives, “Get thee hence – for these are mine whom I call to minister unto me.” When we let the Holy Spirit lead us through the dark cavern of repentance, then the joyful light of reflection on Easter Sunday of Christ’s finished work on the cross will shine so much brighter in our hearts. When we admit and face the ways in which we have not emerged guiltless from the temptations which Christ faced without blemish, then we will see all the more the inestimable treasure of the blood of Christ which alone washes away the intolerable burden of sins. The more loudly we shriek with tears, “I am a sinner,” the more loudly we will proclaim, “He is Risen,” for we will see just what that means for us. The Spirit of Lent is the Holy Spirit leading us through Christ’s victory over temptation, which even if it should make us stumble, we can say, “Get thee hence, Satan, for I have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the Propitiation for my sins.” Amen.