Lent 1
By Mark Oakley, Sunday 10th February, 2008
I have always like stories about people´s last words. I love the story, for instance, of Oscar Wilde lying seriously ill in a hotel room in which he absolutely loathed the wallpaper and its garish pattern. When one friend came to see him, Wilde, now near death, was apparently still staring at this dreadful wallpaper. Well, he said to his friend, looking at the wall, one of us had to go.
There is also the famous story of the French philosopher Voltaire who, on his deathbed, was visited by a priest concerned for his soul. Monsieur, you must renounce the devil and all his works! he said. Voltaire looked at him. Mon pere, this is not the time to start making enemies.
Now, one of the many fascinating things about the story of Jesus being tempted in the desert is that the devil and he are in conversation and seem to know one another quite well. I´m not sure how you visualise the devil in this story, pitchfork tale and horns, the voice of different folk passing by taunting Jesus, an inner voice in Jesus´s head, a man learning about the shadows, a wrestle with conscience? However you find yourself interpreting this story and how Jesus was tempted, what is clear is that Jesus was entering into our condition, our humanity, our wrestle.
I don´t know if you have given something up for Lent, abstinence makes the heart grow fonder as I am discovering…This practice of giving something up is exactly that – practice. We are practicing resistance, usually to something that has no great moral significance (like sugar or pint pots of Haagen Daas ice-cream), things we need to struggle a bit to give up. However hard this might feel, it´s really a symbol of something much deeper: a symbol of the day by day, minute by minute decisions we make which do have moral significance and which bear on our relationships. These forty days of trying to resist something attractive but relatively trivial are forty days in which we dare to go into a desert place and think about some of the things that really attract us and which are not trivial at all. The temptations of Jesus unveil what these might be. The Apostle´s creed speaks of Jesus´ descent into hell. This descent was not just a death experience but it accompanies him along his entire journey, beginning here in the desert. He enters into our human life so that we might enter into the divine life.
Jesus was probably undergoing an inner struggle over his own particular mission and, as such struggles can do, it reveals what really matters. At the heart of all temptations is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary if not just annoying or silly in comparison to all the urgent important matters that make up our lives.
Later today we will explore what the Bible is. One of the things that emerges from that exploration is the recognising of the artistry of many of the biblical writers. Matthew, for instance here, links this begining of his Gospel with the end of his gospel and by doing so reveals the priorities of human beings as being askew.
If you are the Son of God turn these stones to bread – we hear those words again, if you are the son of God, from the mocking bystanders at the cross – if you are, come down. Later in the gospel Jesus does not turn stones into bread, but himself. He does not feed himself but his body, like bread, is broken and shared. Do this to remember me. His life shows God to us, shows that human beings cannot build a world by our own lights, on our own foundations, but that the love of God which is the source of creation, of life, is the place, the only place, where we can rest and replenish and learn to live. Man cannot live by bread, by houses, cars, jewellery, cheating, holidays, work, competition, stress, expensive dinners, alone. We live in God and his reality sets us free.
The second temptation is to throw himself down, the psalm the devil quotes refers to the safety of the Temple to the righteous person. But at the end of Matthew´s gospel we find Jesus not throwing himself down to prove his goodness but being raised up on pieces of wood as a criminal, then later raised up as the true child of God in resurrection. Jesus will not test God like some product, submiting God to conditions we say are necessary if we are to be certain of him. He learns in the desert to trust no matter what comes, rejecting the lure to jump and instead emptying himself of self so that he is lighter in soul and can be raised, on a cross rejected by crowds in new life as loved by his Father
The final temptation sees the devil take Jesus up to a high mountain, showing him all the kingdoms and saying they are his if he wants them. In Matthew´s gospel a little later we find Jesus on a mountain again teaching a sermon that has very different perspectives. At the end of the gospel we find Jesus on a mountain with his followers. Now he says that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him and instead of it being a jealous paranoid grasping of the kingdoms of the world, Jesus sends out his followers to serve the world by their words and ministry, to proclaim the love of God and to pour the water of that love over their heads.
One final thing to note about the end of Matthew´s gospel. We find if you remember the prisoner Barabbas and the choice being offered to the people for him or Jesus to be released. Up until the 3rd century many manuscripts of the gospels refered to this man as Jesus Barabbas. Barabbas means means son of the Father. In other words this man was called Jesus, son of the Father. This man is a sort of alter ego, making the same claims as Jesus in name. But this man tried to be a messiah to the crowd by leading an armed struggle against the Romans, promising freedom and a kingdom of one´s own. The other Jesus, bound up in chains, proclaims that losing oneself, loving, emptying, is the way to life. Which Jesus are you tempted to follow, which to reject?
The devil tries to make power and prosperity divine, to lure by wealth and success and by setting God aside. Jesus responds with the fact that God is God, that God is our true Good. Once this was established in his heart for good, the angels came and looked after him.
