Diving Into Our Temptation

Luke 4:1-13

'Christ in the Wilderness-The Scorpian' by Stanley Spencer

The Rolling Stone’s 1968 album Beggar’s Banquet contains what, I would argue, is the magnum opus of all the Stone’s work. 

A song that has fascinated and horrified critics for decades.

A song that made the Rolling Stones one of the most notorious musical acts of the late 60’s.

The song was only spared further controversy with the release of Street Fighting Man a few months later which further antagonized critics of the Rolling Stones. 

Released in 1968, "Sympathy For the Devil" was listed at #32 in Rolling Stone Magazine’s December 2004 listing of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Beggars Banquet-1968
Original Cover Art

The lyrics of that song trace brutal historical events beginning with what could very well be today's Gospel. 

"Please allow me to introduce myself

I'm a man of wealth and taste

I've been around for a long, long year

Stole many a man's soul and faith

And I was 'round when Jesus Christ

Had his moment of doubt and pain

Pleased to meet you, I hope you guessed my name." 

Of course, this could also be alluding to the crucifixion but the song unveils an interesting theological perspective in light of today's Gospel. 

The song is a first hand narrative that recounts everything from Christ’s crucifixion, to wars, to assassinations. 

And the only name given for the narrator, at any point, is Lucifer once towards the conclusion of the song. 

and even when that name is given, it is implied as if it stands as just a nickname. 

There are two characters present in Luke’s Gospel for today; the devil and Jesus.

Luke portrays both Jesus and the devil as two distinct characters. 

Jesus has just been baptized in the Jordan with John where he receives a title in Luke chapter 3 when the heaven opens and a voice comes from the heaven announcing, "Jesus is MY Son, THE Son, THE Beloved." 

When we hear of this title being announced we usually consider it to be more of a pat on the back or a term of endearment, but this title announces the ROLE of Jesus in God’s mission. 

Jesus is to serve as the means by which God will be revealed to the entire world. 

And while Jesus is given the task, the method in which that task is to be accomplished has not yet been decided. 

In today's Gospel, though, Jesus will make that decision with the devil’s counsel at hand. 

Spooky, isn’t it?

Make no mistake, there is a great deal at risk in this story. 

God made flesh in the form of Jesus the Christ is fully human and fully divine, not only making the man, Jesus exceptionally special, but making God exceptionally vulnerable. 

If Jesus succumbs to the power of temptation, becoming infected by sin, so too, will God become infected by sin. 

The fate of the entire Gospel and God’s will for the world is to be decided by Jesus, led into the wilderness by the Spirit while being tested by the devil.

It is a pretty big task right out of the starting gate, but we find Jesus wandering off into the desert in complete confidence. 

What may be the most striking feature of this story is that the confidence that Jesus finds is in the very thing that makes him unique from every other human being. 

He is just as susceptible to temptation as any of us, but his unapologetic reliance on the Divine is what sets him apart. 

This isn’t the first appearance of the devil, the serpent, the tempter, the adversary, the Satan. 

There are whole theological and biblical dissertations written on the nature and character of these figures. 

There is even evidence that they may be different characters, but they all play a continuous role in scripture. 

Each is tasked or takes up the task of testing individuals and groups the Adam, Job, David, and Israel to name but a few, all considered to be sons of God in their own right.

And each of the accounts of their testings reveal their failures. 

So what is Jesus but just another son of God to be tested and found wanting?

~

On Thursday we were given a respite from the normal headlines that revolve around terrorism and presidential primary politics. 

It felt incredibly refreshing and the news was fascinating. 

A team of scientists announced that they had recorded and identified the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away. 

This event is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, which create ripples in the fabric of space and time, confirming Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity from a century ago. 

While confirming Einstein’s theory, it also enriches our perspective on black holes, the bottomless pits of gravitational pull where even light cannot escape. 

Math and science may not be my particular strong suit, but I couldn’t help become a bit obsessed with the topic, reading articles, watching press conferences, and even cartoon crash course physics classes on YouTube. 

Two black holes merging

What most drew my attention was the image of the two black holes, circling one another in a counterclockwise motion, distorting the stars and light around them, like a spoon stirring in a cup of coffee. 

As I watched this image, these two amoeba-like objects merged into one, causing one final ripple of energy. 

Black holes can easily capture not only matter and light but our fascination because of their inescapability. 

Today’s gospel depicts God’s exploration of another kind of black hole. 

The black hole of our brokenness, our temptation. 

A void that no one has yet escaped, and yes, Jesus is born into this brokenness, but this story accounts for his first immersion into it. 

Jesus, THE Son of God, THE Light, intentionally diving into -living into- the black hole we have created, the blackhole of sin and death that we are assured will be converted to a blinding sun because of the RISEN Son. 

But first the light of God, THE Son will enter into the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.

~

The devil challenges Jesus with three temptations all centered on Jesus’ new role and title; Son of God. 

He first challenges Jesus with the most basic need, using Jesus’ hunger against him, the question is asked, “If you are a Son of God, just make a stone into bread.”

What is the harm? What is the pitfall of this challenge?

No one will know, he performs miracles to feed whole crowds later on, and if he starves to death at this point then the mission will have failed anyhow!

But if Jesus gives into this temptation, then the God whose purpose is to create, redeem, and sustain all that has been made, will instead have proven to be a God that serves the self. 

He then challenges Jesus a second time, offering Jesus the throne, not a heavenly throne but an earthly throne that will rule over every kingdom of this world. 

But it is the prize, not the price, that is unworthy. 

God doesn’t come to us through Jesus seeking a political rule over the world through the broken systems, kingdoms, and borders that we draw. 

God comes to us through Jesus in order to break those systems, to raise a new kingdom, and erase the borders that we draw. 

Redeeming a fallen world, not taking the dirty old hand-me-down we have destroyed, but lifting up a new reality, choosing to instead transcend the reality we have created, the created order we have distorted. 

And while the prize being offered by the tempter is undesirable, the price tag already belongs to Jesus. 

This word for worship is only found in Luke’s Gospel three times. 

We heard it twice today, and the third time is in the final sentence of Luke’s Gospel when the disciples fall down and worship Jesus, just before his Ascension. 

And the final temptation is the creation of a spectacle that will pull back the curtains before the audience of the world so that all may see God. 

This plan, too, is flawed, because it will prove the existence of the Divine and the Divinity of Jesus, beyond doubt, beyond question, beyond speculation, but also beyond choice, beyond trust, beyond faith. 

Because it will not longer be a matter left up to faith, choice, or trust. 

And love without choice isn’t really love at all. 

~

This is one of my favorite gospel stories, because it is in this story that I find God's choice to suffer with us revealed clearly. 

And if God can resist temptation in a form as weak as my own, then there is hope that I, too, can be led into the wilderness of the world and face my own temptations.  

Evil at its worst is allowing ourselves to be fooled into believing that the devil doesn’t exist. 

Not because the evidence isn’t there but because we don’t have the courage to face who the devil truly is. 

While the narrator’s name remains mostly unsung throughout The Stone’s "Sympathy for the Devil", as the song descends into the Jagger’s signature falsetto at its conclusion, the listener cannot help but feel mocked as we are asked again and again; 

Painted by Rohann Zulienn

"What’s my name?

Can you guess my name?"

But hidden deeply in the midst of the rhythmic samba drums and a blistering guitar riff from Keith Richards, we hear the narrator clearly announce. 

I’ll tell you one time, you’re to blame!

The devil serves a distinct purpose in our understanding of temptation and sin. 

The devil allows us to name our sin and to face that sin. 

We see sin as a faucet but the Gospel doesn’t see sin in that way. 

In the Gospel things occur in realms and kingdoms, and it is God who comes to us through Jesus into this realm of sin.

God, exposed to our sin, our suffering, our anger, our pain, our temptation through Jesus.

And Jesus is the One pulling us out of it, but we must first recognize that we are even in it to begin with, only in that moment will we take that hand that is reaching out to us. 
~

A friend of mine was watching his child die as I was watching my firstborn come into this world. 

We would talk from time to time about matters of faith and doubt back before I started seminary. 

Shortly after my daughter was born, his daughter died. 

A few weeks after the funeral he came to me and asked to see pictures of my daughter. At one point he even came to my house and asked to hold her when she was still an infant. 

While I felt so much guilt, he reassured me that I had no reason to feel guilty. One day he came to me and offered a stern warning, he told me this; "I would trade every last minute of my remaining breath to revisit even the worst day I ever had with my daughter."

I’ve tried to remember that at 3 AM on my knees in bathroom with sick kids, but sometimes I do forget. 

The hope that we find in this message is that God comes to us through the Son, Jesus the Christ, into the sickness of our sin, exposed and vulnerable, loving us, saving us, and wading into our worst days with us, in spite of the devil that stares back at each of us in the mirror daily. 

Amen

He Ain't Heavy - Gilbert Young

Sources

The Rolling Stones. ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. on Beggars Banquet. n.p.: London Records, December 6, 1968.

Overbye, Dennis. ‘Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory’. Science (The New York Times), February 12, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html?_r=0.