(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Power in The Wilderness”, originally shared on March 3, 2022. It was the 195th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Our power went out the other day. It was out
just briefly, but it meant that clocks and timers needed to be reset. The power
of the Holy Spirit never fails us. But it does lead us to know that we need a
reset. Today, we’re going to find out how.
I heard a Ukrainian soldier being
interviewed the other day on TV. He said that morale is high among the Ukrainian
forces because they know what they are fighting for. Morale is low among
Russian forces, however, because they don’t know what they are fighting for.
The importance of morale in life, as in
warfare, cannot be underestimated.
That’s why, as it’s been said, the first
casualty in war is the truth. Sowing seeds of doubt, the big lie, and
disinformation are staples in all kinds of struggle. They are designed to undermine
an opponent’s will to resist.
They are at the center of the temptation of
Jesus by the devil in the wilderness at the beginning of his public ministry,
the Gospel text for the First Sunday in Lent.
The text this year is from Luke, in Luke
4:1-13. We’ll begin with the first two verses.
4 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.
Where was Jesus returning from? His baptism.
He had been baptized by John in the Jordan River and the Holy Spirit had
descended upon him. It had filled him and then led Jesus in the wilderness. Matthew
describes what is happening from a slightly different angle in Matthew 4:1,
4 Then Jesus was
led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Either way, whether Jesus was led by
the Spirit in the wilderness or led in the Spirit in the wilderness,
Jesus does not find himself in the wilderness because of the devil. He’s there
in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. God is in control.
The devil begins with psychological warfare,
sowing the seeds of doubt, continuing in verse three.
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.’”
The devil tries to promote uncertainty, sowing
seeds of doubt. “If you are the Son of God…” and he tries to tempt Jesus at a
point of physical weakness. Jesus has been fasting for 40 days, just like Moses
and Elijah had, representatives of the Law and the Prophets last week in the
Sunday of the Transfiguration Gospel lesson, and he was famished. I once fasted
for 3-days and by the second day, I was dreaming about food. Food would have
been a huge temptation. Any physical need is a huge temptation.
We are sometimes tempted when we have messed
up and the devil says, “What a hypocrite! You aren’t a Christian. Why pretend?”
That’s not the Word of God, that’s the word of the devil. That’s the word of
the forces that defy God. The Word of God says, “I died for you. I overcame
temptation, sin, death, and the power of the devil, for you.
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, quotes
scripture, Deuteronomy 8:3.
We continue with the devil’s big lie,
starting in verse five.
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.’”
The devil promises to
give what does not belong to him. The devil is lying. The kingdoms of the world
are Jesus’ for the asking. Jesus responds with another quote from scripture, Deuteronomy
6:13.
The devil is tired of being shut down with scripture, so he quotes some
himself, to use plausible disinformation, continuing with verse nine.
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.’”
The devil’s words sound plausible, and he is
quoting scripture, from Psalm 91:11-12. But he is quoting it to serve his own
purpose and not the purpose of God. Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16
I think of this section when people say that
they are not wearing masks, or getting vaccinated, or washing their hands or
anything else because they trust in God to protect them.
It seems to me that they are putting God to
the test.
I believe that God does act in our best interests,
but in what form and by what means are not always clear to us. God is God and
we’re not. We cannot use God for our purposes.
I’m reminded of the guy who was sitting in
his home one day when a Red Cross worker pounded on his door, yelling “The dam
has broken. Get out! Get out now! We’ll help you.”
He replied, “Oh, thank you very much but I’m
a Christian. I know that God will take care of me. I’ll be fine.” And the Red
cross worker finally left and went on to the next house.
The waters came and flooded the first floor
of his house, so that he had to move up to the second floor. A guy in a rowboat
came by and said, “Hop in, buddy. I’ll get you out of here.”
“Oh, thank you,” the man said. “But I’m a
Christian. I know that God won’t let anything harm me.” The man in the rowboat
finally went on to other houses.
The waters continued to rise, and the man
had to crawl onto his roof. A helicopter flew over and the crew spotted the man
on his roof. They dropped a rope ladder and shouted, “Climb up and we’ll get
you out of here. The waters are rising. This is your last chance!”.
“Thanks for coming, but I’ll be fine. My
faith is strong. I know God will take care of me,” the man shouted.
The water kept rising and pretty soon the
rose over the house and over the man, and he drowned.
When he arrived at the gates of heaven,
dripping wet, he immediately demanded to be taken to the throne of Grace.
“That’s kind of an unusual request but, OK.” St. Peter said.
The man stomped through the throne room into
God’s presence and whined, “You promised me! You said that you’d always be with
me, no matter what. What happened?”
“What
do you mean,” God said. “I sent you a Red Cross worker, a rowboat and a
helicopter.”
The passage concludes with verse thirteen,
13 When the devil had finished every
test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Notice that the passage doesn’t end with a
surrender. The devil just goes away, “until an opportune time.” The devil will
be looking for an opportunity, an opening, a way to defeat us.
Nothing can take us away from God, but the
forces that defy God, plus the world, and our sinful selves can deceive us to tempt
us to go away from God.
And if we do, if we yield to temptation, God
calls us back.
We can be tempted, but the same Holy Spirit
that filled Jesus fills us and strengthens us to resist temptation.
I heard of a woman who said, “I know that
Jesus said that he wouldn’t allow us to experience any more than we could
handle. I just wish he didn’t think so highly of me.”
Oscar
Wilde once said, “I can resist anything except temptation.” The good news about
the temptation of Jesus is that Jesus has overcome it everywhere, for us, even
when we have not.
The victory over failure has already been
won by Jesus on the cross, and we are filled with the Holy Spirit here and now.
The Holy Spirit guides us to be
better people in response to what God has done for us.
Martin Luther, the 16th century
Church reformer, once said, “You
cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from
building a nest in your hair.”
Lent is a time for reflection on that, for
turning away from those things in our lives that grieve God, and for living in
the power of the Holy Spirit, which wells up from within us, and opens our
hearts and minds to the presence and power of God in the Bible, in our selves,
and everywhere around us, empowering us to be the people of God. Especially in
the wilderness.
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