Two pictures of temptation.  One, in the gospel of Matthew.  Jesus, in the wilderness after forty days and forty nights of fasting, has a visit from the devil himself.  Two, in a commercial that aired on Super Bowl Sunday.  A would-be skydiver stands with shaky knees as his instructor throws beer off the aircraft to lure him into taking the plunge.  Two outcomes.  After three consecutive challenges that would surely fell most of us, Jesus decisively wards off the devil and his crafty temptations.  And the commercial—well, you saw it—the skydiver and his trainer stand paralyzed in disbelief as the pilot, who isn’t even the target of temptation, runs out from the cockpit and does a nose-dive right off the plane, leaving all who stay onboard to certain death.  Obeying his thirst, don’t you know?!

Two pictures of temptation.  Two outcomes.  The Jesus picture is like an icon, a model of Christian piety and unshakeable will.  The commercial is more like a caricature, an American John Doe succumbing to his impulses with no thought of consequence or responsibility.  Two pictures on opposite extremes.  Two completely different ways of being.  Our response to temptation usually falls somewhere in-between. 

We probably wouldn’t jump out of a plane to satisfy a craving . . . especially if we were behind the controls.  But silly though it is, the beer ad says something about us, culturally, that we may not like.  We claim that moderation, hard work, and self-control are societal values.  But advertisers who seek to persuade the American psyche know that we are increasingly inclined toward immediate self-satisfaction.  If you haven’t heard the news, delayed gratification is out of style.  We’d rather JUST DO IT than just say no.  We are well-coached in this economy and far too compulsive on the whole to turn away from all of the goods that beg for our attention.    

We on-the-go Westerners have a hard time identifying with Jesus in the wilderness.  He seems too solid, unyielding and unaffected by the things that are tempting to us.  Not to mention that he hasn’t eaten in forty days!  Who does that?!  Give us a picture of Jesus welcoming the children anytime.  We like that.  But fasting in the wilderness?  That makes us squirm in the pews.  Jesus seems more foreign, more removed that way.  More holy, perhaps, than human, though he is still that. 

The devil tests Jesus with the very things that have tempted human-kind throughout time.  This struggle is not just heavenly but fleshy, too.  The first temptation is for Jesus to break his fast, to turn his attention away from God to instant gratification and self-fulfillment.  The devil wants Jesus to do like the pilot and follow his cravings rather than his core.  Next, with Scripture rolling off his tongue, the devil appeals to Jesus to test God’s faithfulness, to grandstand on God’s behalf as the divine son and prove God’s power.  He wants Jesus to cheapen the music of creation by playing God like a violin.  The devil, like many of us, would rather see a display of divine muscle than to wait upon God’s self-revelation in the wisdom of time.  Finally, the devil entices Jesus with an offer of power so comprehensive as to make him the king of the world, if only Jesus will compromise his loyalty, turn away from God, and worship the one who claims to hold the world in his hand.

You may recall that the Israelites faced similar challenges during their wilderness experience.  They whined against Moses and Aaron because of their hunger: “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex. 16:1-3).  Later, when they thirsted after water, they tested God’s faithfulness —just as the devil wanted Jesus to do—asking Moses, “Is the LORD among us or not?” (Ex. 17:1-7).  And finally, turning their backs on the true God who saved them from slavery, they bowed themselves down to a false god, a golden calf built with their own hands, as if it were the source of their salvation (Ex. 32:1-6).  [David E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2001): 39.] 

All that time—forty years!—they had to order their loyalties, to leave Egypt behind and reckon with the God who had rescued them, but they continued instead to choose the familiar.  They were more grounded in the empty promise of slavery than they were in the hope and faithfulness of God.  

The devil tempts Jesus with the very things that felled the people of God in the wilderness before him, things that still tempt us today.  But Jesus triumphed over every test the Israelites failed.  And why is that?  We might race to his divine nature as the answer—Well, it’s because Jesus is himself God!  But isn’t that really an attempt to let ourselves off the hook?  Jesus isn’t immune to temptation so much as he is grounded in another Way of life.  He is led by the Spirit not only into the wilderness, but in the wilderness, during his time of trial, because in these forty days, as also before and after, he gives himself completely to God. 

What if we knew, as Jesus knows, that God is the Source of our life and nourishment?  What if we trusted, beyond any need for proof, that God will always provide for us in our hour of need?  What if we really believed that the world is in God’s hands and not the devil’s, that life with God is truly abundant, that God has infinitely more to give than anyone else could ever offer? 

The temptations are the devil’s shameless attempt to turn Jesus away from this intimacy with God and get him to dance to the devil’s tune instead.  He’ll do whatever it takes—even quote Scripture—to pin Jesus down.  This devilish posture is not one we take as disciples of Jesus, at least not intentionally.  But we areprone to create God in our own image rather than submitting ourselves to God to be formed in the image of Christ.  We are so intent at times on identifying ourselves with God’s team that we can’t imagine ourselves in the role of devil’s advocate.  But it is possible.  Just ask the apostle formerly known as Saul.  It is possible to know the words of the Bible but miss entirely the Word of God.

Texas author and ordained minister Robert Flynn illustrates this point well in his recent book of essays, Growing Up a Sullen Baptist.  Bob laments his classroom experience some forty years ago as a seminary student, where he sought in earnest to taste and understand Scripture.  “My professors,” he says, “were like guards at an art museum who defended treasures they hardly enjoyed.  They knew names, dates, prices but the glory escaped them.  Their eyes were on us.  Don’t touch.  Don’t stand so close.  Don’t examine the brush strokes.  Don’t study how the artist envisioned and constructed the painting.  Don’t try to replicate the work.  Just accept how valuable it is.”

“I was being trained as equipment for the church,” he continues, “as uniform and replaceable as the office typewriter.  I tried to explain to my professors that I wanted to examine the treasure, to explore it, to immerse myself in its poetry, to dance to its song.  To discover the mind behind the words.  The overworked professors listened with benign impatience.  Just do like everyone else.  Humble yourself and worship The Treasure. . . .”  [Robert Flynn, “A Baptist Looks Askance,” chap. in Growing Up a Sullen Baptist: And Other Lies (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2001): 31.]

Theirs was a way of reading the Bible that pretended to be faithful but was, in reality, idolatrous.  Questions and creative thinking were dismissed outright in favor of a strict intellectual assent that took the life right out of the Bible.  It is a treatment of Scripture that is all too prevalent among churches today, where the spirit of the Book is lost in a scrutiny of individual words and verses.  And herein lies the difference between how Jesus and the devil call upon Scripture.  Jesus is led by the spirit of its author, while the devil can only appeal to words.  The devil uses Scripture for his own purposes in a vain display of biblical knowledge, while Jesus gives himself to its master and lives its message.    

With Jesus, it’s not like the devil is on one shoulder, throwing out temptations, and God is on the other, whispering good comebacks in his ear.  The Spirit of God is within him, and not just because Jesus is divine.  The Spirit is in his make-up, inseparable from him, because he has made himself a home for God.  This is not something only Jesus can do.  It’s something God beckons us to do also. 

You may know that the 40-day season of Lent began this past week on Ash Wednesday.  Culturally, we are better at Fat Tuesday—stocking up on food and drink—than we are at Lent, a time set aside for fasting and refocusing, like Jesus in the wilderness.  But Lent has a lot to offer us as Christian disciples, and interest in it is growing among Baptists.  Lent is a season of preparation before the great Easter Feast.  It is a purposeful invitation to experience the weight of Jesus’ death before we celebrate his resurrection.  It is a time to consider what in our lives might need to die. . . and what needs to be reborn . . . a time to focus on forgiveness, repentance, and conversion, as we continue on the road of Christian formation.

During Lent, some Christians give up certain luxuries—a fasting, of sorts—or take up certain disciplines or practices in order to identify more deeply with Jesus.  We might consider something as simple as skipping a meal per day or even per week in order to spend some time alone with God.  Or maybe something a little more heretical (culturally speaking) like fasting from television in order to do some fruitful reading in Christian classics or Scripture.  The point is not simply to give something up, but in so doing, to give ourselves to God, so that we will be molded ever more into the image of Christ.  It is an invitation to redeem our time and redirect our lives to God.  A time to pray, differently, perhaps, to pray for love, for understanding, to pray not simply for answers to our questions but for transformation. 

In one of his adventures in New Testament Greek, our poet-friend Scott Cairns speaks of metanoia, this conversion or repentance which is the aim of the Lenten season.  “The heart’s metanoia/. . . ,” he says, “turns/ without regret, turns not/ so much away, as toward,/ as if the slow pilgrim/ has been surprised to find/ that sin is not so bad/ as it is a waste of time.”  [Scott Cairns, “Adventures in New Testament Greek: Metanoia,” in philokalia: new and selected poems (Lincoln: Zoo Press, 2002): 15.]

When we offer ourselves to God in a Lenten sort of way, we begin to see Jesus in the wilderness a little more clearly.  We begin to understand.  It isn’t so much that Jesus turned away from temptation as it is that he turned toward God.  It was a way of life, cultivated in those forty days, which sustained him even through the cross.  It is a way of life to which Jesus calls us even now.  Don’t resist.  Give in.  Let the Spirit of God be your guide.  Amen.