Every year on the first Sunday of Lent, we read one of the accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Either Matthew, Mark, or Luke’s take on how Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. And I totally understand with the people who select our weekly readings chose to do it this way, it makes great sense to start our own forty-day journey through Lent by reflecting on Jesus’ own forty-day journey. I totally understand it, but I don’t really like it. And I don’t like it, because I think connecting Jesus’ forty-days in the wilderness too closely to our own sets us up to misread the story.
My first concern is we read this story out of context. I mentioned this way back in the beginning of January when we read about Jesus baptism, this happened immediately after that. In verse one, the Spirit who led Jesus up into the wilderness? That was the Holy Spirit. If we were story-blocking this, the scene would go: Jesus comes to the Jordan, is baptized by John, comes out of the water, heavens open, Spirit descends like a dove, voice says “you are my Son,” dove-spirit leads Jesus out of the river and into the wilderness. Then, temptation, calling the disciples, Sermon on the Mount, and so on. Out of context this story, and Lent, can seem like some sort of trial Jesus had to go through in order to prove his worth, or punishment for doing something wrong, or an attack by evil. But it’s not the case. Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness was part of the divine plan, it was both a mark of Jesus’ obedience and a show of his power.
If anything, the temptation of Jesus is a demonstration of just how much the powers of evil misunderstand the power of kingdom of God. The third temptation is the clearest description of this. The devil led Jesus up to a high mountain and offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would just worship him. Does the devil really even have that to offer? If, as Psalm 24 tells us, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,” Jesus, the Son of God, already had all the kingdoms of the world. It’s like when my baby cousin Shane tried to convince me to give him a cookie in exchange for my own shoe. It was already my shoe; I didn’t need to give him anything to have it. Shane was not quite two at the time of the shoe incident and didn’t really have an understanding of property yet, so his effort was cute, but not exactly a hard offer to pass over.
My second concern about reading this story as a start to Lent is it opens us up to see the forty-day journey through Lent, a time where we are encouraged to take on a spiritual discipline like fasting or almsgiving or prayer, as a period of struggle marked by horrible temptation. Which can turn fasting, almsgiving, prayer, into a burden of sacrifice rather than a gift to draw us closer to Jesus. When we hear that Jesus fasted forty days in the desert, often the first thought is, oh my, how horrible. Of course the devil came and tempted Jesus forty days into this fast, when Jesus was at his weakest and most vulnerable. But here’s the thing. Yes, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. But Jesus was fully human, just like us, so Jesus had free will. Jesus chose to go into the wilderness, and he chose to spend forty days fasting. So maybe the devil tempting him forty days in was another sign of the devil misunderstanding the power of God. The devil thought, ah ha, this guy’s been without food for a long time, he’s going to be at his weakest. But Jesus had just spent forty days building his relationship with God. He’d just spent forty days in prayer and meditation and fasting. So yes, he was hungry, but spiritually he was in tip-top shape. The so-called temptations by the devil were not tempting at all, because after forty days growing closer to God, Jesus knew exactly who he was and whose he was.
That really is the purpose of Lent. It is not about giving up something you really really love for forty days so you can suffer a lot and therefore earn God’s forgiveness. It is about making space in your life and your mind and your soul for your relationship with God to flourish. The key word in the phrase “spiritual discipline” is not “discipline” but “spiritual.” Spiritual disciplines are for growing strength for the journey. Yes, they can be hard, but it’s a good hard. The kind of hard where you feel good about yourself afterwards, because you know you’ve done something healthy and well and you are the stronger for it. It’s the difference between taking a kick-boxing class and just letting someone pound on you. Both can hurt, but one is a form of exercise, and the other is just abuse. God wants for you the one that is exercise.
This story works well for the first Sunday of Lent when we read it as a model for living in the already and not yet of the kingdom of God. When we read it as solidarity in the struggle and confidence in God’s presence and in God’s eventual triumph. This story appears at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry because it introduces what will be the central conflict of the Gospel, the cosmic battle between God and the powers of the world, a battle which God has already won even as it is still being contested. That Jesus faced the trial in the wilderness, and the various trials and struggles throughout his ministry with Roman authorities, which religious leaders, and even with his own disciples, serves to reassure us that struggle is not antithetical to our story; it is part of our story. It is part of what it means to live in and amidst the glorious unveiling of God’s kingdom. When we struggle, when we hurt, when we are tempted, we can see those times not as a test of our faith or as punishment for our actions, but as a reality of the already and not yet of creation. And that knowledge can give us the confidence to try, and fail, and try again.
You may have noticed a decidedly water theme to our sanctuary, that is because this Lent we are focusing on baptism. Each week we are going to take part of the baptismal liturgy and focus in on what it means. This week, we’re looking at the beginning of the liturgy, what’s call the Three Renunciations. Before each baptism, I ask the person being baptized, or their parents and sponsors if the person is a child, to profess their faith in Jesus. I then ask, “Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God, the powers of this world that rebel against God, and the ways of sin that draw you from God?” The response is then, “I renounce them.” Some of you may remember the story I’ve told a few times at my Godson’s baptism, this was the point where he got restless and when the pastor asked his parents and I if we renounced these things, Karl hollered, “Nooooo” at the top of his lungs, generating a burst of laughter from the audience. I love that memory, one, because I think Karl is a hoot. But two, because it reminds me that baptism is not some magic potion where suddenly we never make a mistake and everything goes great. We make these big promises at baptism and the promise God makes to us is if we fail to live up to those promises, we don’t need to be baptized again. It’s also why I love that our tradition baptizes infants. Because if I’m honest with myself, while I know better than Karl when not to yell no, his childlike trust and wonder is probably better at comprehending the gift of baptism than my analytical adult mind is. I think Karl probably gets God’s unconditional love for him in his soul better than I do, because I have years of practice thinking myself out of it.
These three renunciations directly correspond to the three temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. The devil and all the forces of evil, the powers of this world, and the ways of sin that draw us from God, are directly related to the loaves of bread and material wealth, the miraculous rescue and the desire for glory, and the kingdoms of the world and the thirst for power. And we renounce them before every baptism, and at Trinity we have taken on the practice of having all of us renounce them together, not just the parents, sponsors, and the people being baptized, because this isn’t a once for all time thing. Baptism is the gift that keeps on giving. Every time we need it, we can come to the waters, remember the promises made to us, and find strength for the journey. We can make bold statements because we have a God who walks beside us in the journey, who claimed us as beloved children, and who went to the ends of the earth for us, literally to death and beyond, so that nothing can ever separate us from God.
So, as we enter into this forty-day journey, I welcome you into a holy, a healthy, and a life-giving lent. I invite you to take on a spiritual discipline that focuses on the spiritual. Let whatever you do strengthen you, grow you, and shape you, so that you find yourself living more fully into the words spoken by the one who leads you, you are my child, my beloved, with you I am well pleased. Amen.
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