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LENT 1 – Resist the Temptation to Hopelessness.A sermon for February 25, 2007 1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." 4 Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'" 5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." 8 Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" 9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' 11 and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" 12 Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. Luke 4:1-13 Today is the beginning of Lent. Lent is a time when we prepare for Easter – it’s the 40 days that precede Easter (The Sunday’s never count in LENT because Sundays are always a remembrance of the triumph of the resurrection). During Lent we remember Jesus temptation in the desert. And we remember that we are tempted still. But God is bigger than those temptations, and Jesus has conquered even death on our behalf. Today we are going to start our Lent series. During this series we are going to be using some of the stories from the book, The Robe and we will be meeting on Wednesday evenings at 7pm to share some soup and to talk about the book. If you don’t already have a copy it’s available at the library or at most book stores. And if you need a recorded copy you can get one at the back of church after the service. We are reading this book during Lent because the author did a great job of reading the scripture and knowing the story of Jesus. He also did a wonderful job of researching the history of the Jesus time so the picture that you get is pretty historically accurate. And we are reading this book, along with scripture, so that we can get ourselves into the story. Today we are going to talk about Jesus’ temptations in the desert. And the temptations we all face in today’s world. Before we get started…Let’s Pray In this morning’s scripture we hear the famous Jesus being tempted in the desert story. This is an amazing story really. The Spirit drives Jesus out into the desert (right after he’s baptized) where Jesus doesn’t eat for 40 days and then is tempted by the devil. Now it would be relatively easy at this point for Jesus to give into temptation. First the devil tempts Jesus to trust in the material. “You must be hungry” the devil reasons – just change these stones into break then everything will be okay. Haven’t material things also tempted us? How often do you find yourself saying, “if only I could win the lottery everything would be all right?” Every time our thoughts turn that way we are actually giving into temptation. Every time we turn to food for comfort we are giving in to temptation – in a spectacular parallel to what Jesus is facing in this morning’s scriptures. We, like Jesus, are also tempted by material things. And then the scripture goes on. The devil says – “this is the way things are, just accept them and then we’ll be fine.” Actually what the devil says is, “if you worship me then I’ll give you all this…” What the devil is saying is that the way things are now is what is real. Go ahead and accept them and I will give you a way to get ahead now. This is an easy temptation to fall into. We fall into this all the time when we watch the news to the point of being immobilized. “This is just the way the world is,” we say. And I can’t do anything about it so I might as well just go shopping – or watch football – or whatever we do when we want to worship something other than God. The final temptation is really a drastic one. The final temptation is to hopelessness. If you think everything here that I’m offering you is no good, says the devil, then trust that God will save you as you throw yourself off the top of this pinnacle – after all, scripture says that God will save you. We run into this one a lot. We look around and see the pain of the world and think that maybe we should just wait around for heaven because this is a mess. This world is a mess. But then – it is into this mess that God the Father sent the only Son, Jesus. It is into this mess that we see so vividly in our lives – that God came to show us that there was indeed a hope. That there was no mess beyond God’s potential for redemption – that we are not alone. It’s not just in our time that folks have been tempted to hopelessness. That’s a temptation that touches all times. In the book The Robe there are some main characters. Over the course of Lent they will become our friends and so I feel like I should introduce them. One is Marcellus. He is a young man who is a Roman citizen. His father is a distinguished Senator in Rome who is none to happy with the current Caesar. And while he makes his objections known, when the Senator’s son, Demetrius, makes fun of the Emperor’s nephew – who is likely to be the next in line to be Emperor – Marcellus gets a very unhappy assignment to a backwater area of the Roman empire known as Palestine. He is assign to the Fort at Minoa and is eventually called, along with the men he leads, to Jerusalem to help make the city safe during Passover when the Roman’s worry about the potential for a revolution. Demetrius is a slave. A Greek by birth his family was captures when the Romans conquered his hometown his father was killed and he was sold into slavery. An educated and refined person Demetrius now lives as a slave. He lives the life of a slave with as much honor as he can but he is still property. He was purchased by the Senator as a gift to Marcellus – a surprise for him the day Marcellus became a Tribune. He goes with his careless master to Palestine and eventually to Jerusalem during the Passover because he has no choice. Slaves have little choice over what they can and can’t do. It turns out that Marcellus and some of his men are literally responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion – they are the Roman legion assigned to that murderous task. And it also turns out that Demetrius gets to see this “lonely man” as he calls Jesus when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem on what we know call Palm Sunday – the week of the Passover. He immediately identifies with Jesus and recognizes an affinity for this lonely man. And so, he is appalled when Jesus is arrested later in the week and then put on trial. He doesn’t understand what this kind, lonely man who clearly has the people’s best interest at heart, has done to deserve death. Demetrius has caught sight of this Jesus on the donkey at Palm Sunday – and noted that he clearly was not seeking the adoration that they were sending his way. Demetrius has heard tell of this same man with the lonely eyes turning the temple upside down and driving out the moneychangers because he is so angry about what has been done in his Father’s house. Demetrius has watched as this same Jesus has been arrested and tried even though he hasn’t really done anything worth death. Demetrius has gotten the low down on the political situation and understands that what Jesus is facing are a group of people that are all concerned about saving their own jobs. They are not concerned about justice or even the good of the masses of people that they represent. Here’s what Demetrius says, “At times his scornful thoughts almost became articulate as he passionately reviled every tribunal and judiciary, every crown and consistory in the whole, wide, wicked world. Patriotism! How the poets and minstrels loved to babble about the high honor of shedding one’s blood. Maybe they, too, had been bought up. Old Horace: maybe Augustus had just sent him a new coat and cask of wine when he was inspired to write, ‘How sweet and glorious to die for one’s country!” Nonsense! Why should any sane man think it pleasant or noble to give up his life to save the world? It wasn’t fit to live in; much less to die for. And it was never going to be any better. Here was this foolhardy Galilean, so thoroughly enraged over the pollution of a holy place that he had impulsively made an ineffective little gesture of protest. Doubtless nineteen out of every twenty men in this barren, beaten, beggared land would inwardly applaud this poor man’s reckless courage; but, when it came to the test, these downtrodden, poverty-cursed nobodies would let this Jesus stand alone – without one friend – before the official representatives of a crooked Temple and a crooked Empire. How’s that for temptation to cynicism? How’s that for hopelessness? I can imagine that at that moment Demetrius was fed up. And in fact, when you read the book you will see evidence that Demetrius was tempted to many things – tempted to bow down to the devil, tempted to throw himself off the temple. Figuratively speaking. Our temptations are similar. We are tempted daily to just worship the devil because worshiping the one true God requires that we keep up hope. Brothers and sisters, there is reason to hope. God chose to come into our world – this messy world – just as it is to bring it the Savior that we need. That Savior endured temptations just like we do. Jesus endured the temptation in the desert when he encountered the devil and he endured the temptation to despair. He did that so that we could see that it is possible to resist temptation – to resist the temptation even to despair and to trust that God will help us wholeness. That God, in the end will put things right. God chose to send the Son into this chaos to promise redemption – to show us what redemption looks like and then to call us into that work of redemption with him until Christ comes again and we feast together at that heavenly banquet. During Lent this is the challenge I am issuing: become a part of our church wide study. Read (or listen to The Robe) and the associated scripture assignments (they are in your bulletin). Join a discussion group – if you can’t make the group discussions on Wednesday night then form your own discussion group. During this season of Lent turn your eye away from temptation and put your focus on God. And, as we travel this road together in preparation for Easter let’s remember that we are not the first to travel this road. Jesus has gone before us to show us the way. Amen. Questions for reflection 1. What things make you feel hopeless? 2. What are your biggest temptations? 3. What is keeping you from joining in with this Church wide reading? Reading for Next Week: The Robe: through Chapter VII. The Bible: Luke Chapters 22-23, Matthew Chapters 26-27, Mark Chapters 14-15, John Chapters 18-19. |