Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
Today is our first Sunday in this season of Lent. So welcome to that—welcome into the midst of another season of reflection and listening and learning to trust. Lent always has a way of slowing us down, encouraging us all to reflect a little more, to engage life more prayerfully. Lent also runs alongside winter turning into spring. Just as we look forward to the melting of snow and the revealing of tender shoots and bulbs, Lent calls our attention forward to a celebration of resurrection.
During World War II, some European cities were bombed so heavily, there wasn’t much left of some buildings that was recognizable. Homes, shops, and cathedrals that had been standing for decades fell, leaving communities with enormous piles of rubble. But something amazing happened in the midst of that destruction. In some places where a wall might have fallen over, or where a foundation might have been blown apart, seeds had been lying in the soil, dormant for ages. And so after the war, people began to find various plants growing through the cracks in the destruction. And here’s the interesting part: some of them they’d never seen before—beautiful flowers and heirloom varieties of vegetables and herbs. (1)
I love that image of unknown seeds patiently waiting under layers of human construction. Just waiting for the right time and the right conditions—some warmth, a little rain, a crack in the rock above. It makes me wonder what seeds might be lying dormant in my own life—seeds of possibility that are just waiting for my own life to present them with a chance to grow. That’s part of life’s fun and mystery, I think. All of you—all of us—no matter how old we are and no matter how predictable we may think we’ve become, contain within us seeds of potential and promise that no one has yet considered. And when the conditions are right, they’ll grow in us and grace our lives with something new.
I say all this because it’s something of what I see happening with Jesus in our story from Luke’s gospel. At the very beginning of his ministry, life makes some demands of Jesus—perhaps some demands that he wasn’t expecting at the time.
I know that we don’t say this outright, but I think we often picture Jesus as somebody who’s always got things under control, always got his act together, and always knows what to do and what to say in any given situation. That’s pretty much how we tend to picture Jesus, isn’t it? Cool, calm, collected. We forget sometimes that Jesus was human—that Jesus really, really was human. We forget from time to time that Jesus was a real guy—that he got tired, that he might have gotten crabby, that he found some things annoying… We forget that Jesus cried—wept, even—and we forget that Jesus felt pain, feared pain.
Our story in Luke begins, “was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” The language here is worth paying attention to. Some translations say that Jesus was “led by the Spirit.” Others suggest that he was “driven by the Spirit.” Calvin wrote that Jesus was “carried away by the Spirit.” The point is this: Jesus didn’t wake up one day and say to himself, “You know what? I think I’m going to go camping for a few weeks.” He didn’t pack, he didn’t prepare. He was led, driven, carried away. Jesus begins his public ministry as one who is not in charge, but rather as one who’s been dramatically moved by the Spirit against his will—into the wilderness. And we have to keep in mind here that “the wilderness” wasn’t a state park. “Wilderness” was a place beyond the city’s safety where one was subject to the elements and to robbers and thieves. No water, no food, no safe haven—this is where Jesus was taken.
Writer Barbara Brown Taylor’s got a great description of what “the wilderness” might look like in our own lives. “Maybe it just looked like a hospital waiting room to you,” she writes, “or the sheets on a cheap motel bed after you got kicked out of your house, or maybe it looked like the parking lot where you couldn't find your car on the day you lost your job. It may even have been a kind of desert in the middle of your own chest, where you begged for a word from God and heard nothing but the wheezing bellows of your own breath.”
Have you been to the wilderness? The wilderness of the moments after she stopped breathing. The wilderness of too much debt. The wilderness of believing—really believing—that others judge you just as harshly as you judge yourself… Have you been to the blinding wilderness of anger? And if you’ve been to the wilderness, or if you are in the wilderness, a question to consider is this: What tempts you there? How are you tempted in the wilderness of your own life?
The gospel writers understood the devil as the source of temptation. You may or may not think of the devil as literally as they did, and that’s fine. Our problem usually isn’t that we don’t know what to believe about the devil. Our problem is that regardless of our theology, we often fail to take temptation seriously. We often fail to acknowledge and grapple with the powerful, seductive forces of temptation in our lives. So I’ll ask it again: What tempts you in the wilderness?
Are you tempted to believe you can do it all alone? Are you tempted to think you’ve got all the answers? Or are you tempted to believe that life will never be as good as it once was?
See, understanding temptation isn’t always easy. Maybe if the devil himself were the one doing the tempting, we might stand a chance, but so often we’re the ones creating those subtle undercurrents of temptation in our own lives.
Are you tempted to say nothing—because if they knew you, they wouldn’t love you? Are you tempted not to try, because somewhere along the line, a fear of failure took a hold of your life? Are you tempted to expect less of yourself, because it’s easier that way? Are you tempted to trust less, because that way you won’t be disappointed? Are you tempted to never cry again, to never let your guard down?
Temptation isn’t always obvious. But sometimes it is. Are you tempted to keep drinking? Are you tempted to cheat? Are you tempted to lie or steal? Are you tempted to finally blow up? Are you tempted to think too much of yourself? Or are you tempted to doubt yourself? Are you tempted to believe that your worth can be measured by the things you’ve done right? Are you tempted to believe that your lack of worth can be measured by the things you’ve done wrong?
Writer and humorist Sam Levenson once said, “Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.” That’s true, I think. We have a way of finding temptations in our lives—temptations to exaggerate our worst fears and to give credence to our baser instincts.
Here’s the good news. And it’s strange news, too, but it’s good news. Jesus was tempted. And maybe that’s hard for us to believe. Maybe we want to think that somehow Jesus couldn’t have known what it’s really like to lose hope, to fear, to be tempted to give up. But Jesus was tempted. If Jesus wasn’t tempted, then what are we to say? That Jesus looked human, but really it was all a façade? That in reality, Jesus was just God parading around the countryside pretending to feel pain, pretending to struggle with life, pretending to fear?
The Lenten season draws us more deeply into an understanding of incarnation—that in Jesus Christ, God was really human, and that it wasn’t an act. Jesus’ temptation was real temptation. Jesus’ tears were real tears. Jesus’ “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” was real fear of death by crucifixion. This is good news because it reminds us that in Jesus Christ, God entered into the true depth of human existence, which can be a nightmare.
One more thing about the wilderness. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being lost too much. The novelty of being lost wears off quickly for me, especially when I’m late. Now that I’ve got my iPhone, of course, I’ve got instant access to a global positioning system that will tell me where I am on the map at any time. I like that. And it’s not that I like the prospect of never having to stop to ask for directions. I like the security of knowing that I can’t get lost with this device at my side!
Sometimes in this life, though, we get so lost—lost among the temptations we face to believe the lies we tell ourselves—lost among temptations to trust less, believe less, expect less… We get lost in the wildernesses of this world where no gadget can save us—where we’ve got nothing going for us except, perhaps, to trust God.
And the biggest temptation we face, I think, is the temptation to trust ourselves and ourselves alone. When you stop and think about it, this is where most temptations end up—a trust in one’s self at the expense of trust in others. Trusting yourself to stay in control. Trusting yourself to always be right. Trusting yourself to know your limits. Trusting you and you alone to get yourself out of this mess. Now there’s nothing wrong with a good, healthy dose of self-confidence. But when your confidence prevents you from expanding your circle of trust to include others—to include God, you’re in trouble.
The way out of temptation is not avoidance. The way out of temptation is trust.
Shannon, a single mom, lost her job when her kids were four and nine. Work had been steady, but not steady enough, so there wasn’t much in the bank. Rent, groceries, doctor visits, clothes for school. Something had to give, finally. She had family but they were far away, so she and her kids stayed with a friend on the pull-out sofa. “The hardest thing wasn’t making myself believe that I could make it,” she said. “The hardest thing was realizing that I couldn’t make it alone.”
Trust—real trust—is scary because in trusting, we place our lives in another’s hands, sometimes entirely. And friends, we are always tempted to not do that—to keep our lives in our own hands. But this Lenten season, in whatever wilderness you find yourself, could you be led to trust?
(1) I'm grateful to my good friend Allen Brimer, who shared this image of post-WWII seeds during a call to worship back in our seminary days. It was during Lent when he shared this, and seldom has a call to worship enlivened my sense of place and purpose more.
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