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St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Preached by
Stuart Pike
Rector
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Lent 1 A - Temptation in the Wilderness
Genesis 2: 15-17, 3: 1-7
Matthew 4: 1-11
St. Andrew's Church, Grimsby
10 February 2008
One of the most amazing things about today's Gospel lesson of Jesus fasting and temptation in the wilderness, is that it takes place immediately following his baptism in the Jordan river.
You remember the story: John the Baptist dunks Jesus under the waters of baptism prefiguring his own death, and then he bursts back up through the surface of the water and gulps down a great breath of air. The heavens open the Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove and there is the voice of God: "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
I would say this would be a perfect time for a lovely party like we do at a baptism, but Jesus doesn't get a party - instead he is driven by the same holy spirit into the desert where he fasts for forty days and nights and is famished. And then, in his hunger, he is tempted by the Devil.
And so our lessons in today's readings are about temptation. What a good subject to start off the first Sunday of Lent. Temptation - every person feels it at times. And every person, usually after a battle, will give in occasionally to temptation.
In both the Old Testament Lesson and the Gospel, there is a figure who is the tempter. The serpent, in Genesis, associated with Satan, and, in the Gospel Lesson, the Devil, who tempts Jesus.
It is very appropriate that in Genesis and the Gospel, the temptations initially involve food. A fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis and bread in the Gospel. Food is, I think, the main focus of many people's temptation.
Whenever I think of food temptations I always remember a parishioner of this parish (you know who you are) who, at a parish event, walked into the Parish Hall to face a dessert table laden with the most delectable and mouth watering assortment of confections you could ever see. She paused, gasped slightly, and then said, "Get thee behind me Satan ... and push."
Imagine what the devil's temptation to Jesus must have felt like when he was completely famished.
Hunger: not many of us have felt physical hunger like Jesus did at that time. Not many of us in this Church today feel physical hunger like so many do in other parts of the world. Many of us don't realize how many people in our own neighborhoods feel physical hunger.
But all of us do understand hunger though. We might be well fed right enough, but it is part of the human condition to feel an emptiness inside. To feel the lack of something. Something so essential that it is at the core of our being. This emptiness presents itself to people differently, but, when we get right down to it, all temptations draw their power from this gnawing emptiness inside.
Barbara Brown Taylor thinks that all of us are fighting some kind of addiction. It is "anything we use to fill the empty place inside of us that belongs to God alone. That hollowness we sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of holies inside of us, the uncluttered room of the Lord our God. Nothing on earth can fill it, but that does not stop us from trying."
The Holy of holies was the deepest and most sacred part of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. In many senses it was the place where people thought God was. It was hidden behind a curtain and it was a vast emptiness in the middle of that temple.
Could it be that the emptiness which we feel at our core is something which is sacred? It seems like most people will do just about anything to not have to deal with this emptiness. We always want more in our lives, and the backbone of our materialistic society absolutely depends on it. We are brainwashed to want bigger, better, and newer. And, if we ever find ourselves in a quiet moment of introspection, our knee-jerk reaction is to fill the quiet with noise. We are indoctrinated into thinking of ourselves as primarily consumers. And we fail to be offended by that.
Perhaps it is not so surprising then, that Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, responds by turning away from the noise and material possessions and wanders into the silent and empty wilderness. It is there that he will find his way forward. It is there that he will discover his true self, and his calling.
Lent is our invitation to follow Jesus into the silence and emptiness. Like Jesus' sojourn it is forty days, representing a period of introspection, discipline, cleansing and growth - just like the forty years of the Israelites wandering in wilderness, until they are spiritually mature enough to enter into the promised land.
How can you enter into your wilderness this Lent? Take some time every day when you turn off the radio and the TV and anything else that is noisy and enter into silence. Start to practice a meditative discipline like Centering Prayer each day. If you need to know more about it, join our book study on Thursday mornings or talk to me about it.
Curtail your spending on yourself and find ways to simplify your life. Jesus' first temptation was to use his miraculous powers simply to satisfy his own need: to turn the stones into bread. We know that he would indeed use his power to make bread, but he used it to feed the hungry multitude.
Choose a fast of some sort. Give up something which you regularly do. Something more significant than chocolate. Something which will make you feel its lack every day. Use that sense of lack to approach that great empty place inside which is your holy of holies.
Go into your discipline knowing that you will be afflicted with temptations to break your discipline. The temptations will try to harness the power of your inner emptiness. But remember that this emptiness isn't something which is broken in you, but which is sacred.
May you have the will and the courage to follow Jesus this Lent into the wilderness. Amen.
