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Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11;
What would you do if you were God for a day? Would you produce a cure for cancer? Would you help our planet avoid climate change? Would you make sure that no one was hungry or homeless? And maybe, if you had the time, you might give the White Sox a little boost as well? It is tempting to imagine what you could do if you had divine power. The key word there is “tempting,” because that is exactly what this first Sunday of Lent is all about – temptation. Jesus was explicitly tempted to act like God for a day. “If you are the Son of God ….” the Devil said to him. He who by right could claim to act as God was tempted to do so. This was, in fact, a repeat of the first temptation, that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Eat this apple, the serpent says, and “you will be like gods.” The devil has no imagination. All his temptations are a repeat of the first. You will be like gods: you can do what you want, you can satisfy yourself, you can become the star of your own drama, you can get other people to kowtow to you, you can act without consequences, you can succeed without effort, you can ignore what other people are going through. When you act like God it’s my way or the highway so get out of the way.
Jesus resisted the temptation to act like God and instead fully embraced his identity as a human being. He resisted taking care of himself and his needs. He resisted needing everyone to praise him, look up to him. He resisted the call to be in control, to take charge, to be the main man. Instead, he was born to a poor family with no standing or status. He needed to learn, to grow. He shared his life with ordinary people going through all of the trials which characterize human existence. He wept with grief and loss. He faced opposition and misunderstanding from those in authority. He was willing to throw himself into the plan of God wherever it would lead. He faced suffering and death which is the common lot of every person. Jesus resisted the temptation to insist on his prerogative as Son of God and instead lived with all of the weakness, vulnerability, insecurity, and uncertainty which characterizes human life in this world. Jesus is truly our brother, like us in all things but sin.
The famous wit, Oscar Wilde, once wrote: “I can resist anything but temptation.” Jesus shows us that it is possible to resist temptation, even the basic temptation we all face that God created an ugly world, that creation needs an upgrade. There was a movie fifty or so years ago called “Oh, God.” The God character, played by George Burns, appears on the witness stand in court and is asked if he made any mistakes. Avocado pits, he says, made them too big. But, in actuality, the avocado pits are perfectly adapted to the needs of the plant. The pit has to be large in order to provide the necessary nutrients and energy for the seedling to grow tall enough to reach sunlight in dense, shaded, subtropical jungles. We might imagine all kinds of ways we could improve the world that we live in if we were God for a day. The example of Jesus says that is a temptation. Creation is the way it is, with all of the things we think of as flaws and imperfections, because God made it a fit home for human beings. Jesus immersed himself fully, he emptied himself completely, into the human experience, not “grasping” after divinity, as St. Paul puts it. We don’t need to change anything to have a full and happy life no what challenges are thrown at us.
What about heart attacks? What about war and poverty? What about racism? We have to live with grief and loss, with hatred and malice, with cruelty and heartlessness. We experience sadness and depression and doubt and worry and despair and misery and diminishment. And there is always the reality that death lies in wait for us at a time to be named later. Yes, that is the human condition – and that is the condition that Jesus chose to be part of, resisting the temptation to escape into some heavenly plain above all the troubles of this world. Aha, you say, but what about the miracles? What about the times when Jesus used divine power? Did you ever notice that when Jesus worked a miracle he frequently says, “Your faith has made you well.” He doesn’t say “thank me for using divine power.” Instead, he points toward the faith that the individual has in what God can do in their lives. It is not the miracle that produces faith. It is faith that produces the miracle. Even those glimpses of the divinity of Jesus are understood in human terms.
The Church tells the story of the temptation of Jesus at the beginning of Lent as a introduction to the season. We are challenged to look at our lives in light of the love of God that has shaped us and formed us from the first moment of our existence and which will welcome us after we breathe our last. Whatever practice you are doing for Lent, your prayer, fasting and almsgiving, is designed to connect you more intimately with God. We are to strip away all of those things we ordinarily rely upon to satisfy ourselves and instead find that, human beings that we are, God is blessing us. While these set of temptations ended, Jesus constantly in his life needed to trust that God was with him. His story is ours. We are tempted, tested, throughout life to go our own way. Lent provides the impetus for us to trust in the way that God has for us for it is the way of love, the way of hope, the way of joy.
