The Temptations

This is the message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Wednesday, February 17, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Luke 4:1-13.

            One of the most remarkable things about the story of Jesus’ death is the number of times he could’ve avoided it.  I think that’s something we know, but we don’t really think about very often.  We talk about Jesus dying to save us from the consequences of our sins, and that’s true, but I don’t know if we really talk about how Jesus, over and over again, had to choose to be killed.  Jesus was not arrested against his will.  He was not tried against his will.  He was not killed against his will.  There will all kinds of times and all kinds of ways in which Jesus could’ve stopped the whole thing, but he did not do so.

            The reason he did not, of course, is that dying to save us from the consequences of our sins was the main point of Jesus’ coming to earth in the first place.  That was God’s plan all along.  God did that out of love for us.  God did not want us to have to take the consequences for our sins, so Jesus came here to do that for us.  It’s an incredibly loving thing for God to do.

Still, there had to be times, when Jesus was on earth, when he was tempted not to go through with it.  And that’s what our Wednesday Lent messages are going to be about.  We’re going to look at some of the times when Jesus could have gone a different way, could have taken a different path, could have chosen not to do what he was sent here to do, could have avoided all the suffering and all the pain, but instead chose to go through with it, to accept the plan for his life and for his death. 

We’re starting tonight with one of the first times that Jesus could have chosen differently, the time when he was tempted by the devil.  And when we look at these temptations and the way the devil presented them, I think we can learn a lot about how temptation affects us, too.

The first temptation was for Jesus to turn a stone into bread.  Now, think about this.  Jesus was hungry.  He’d been fasting for forty days.  “Hungry” is probably not really a good-enough word to say what Jesus felt.  He was starving.  And the devil comes along and says, hey, you can do something about this.  Just turn that stone into bread.

Think of how tempting that had to be.  It’d just be a little bread.  No big deal.  Just a little something to eat.  Who would it hurt?  Besides, who’d know anyway?  Jesus was out in the wilderness.  There was no one else around.  Yeah, it might be a little selfish, but so what?  You deserve it.  It’s not like Jesus would be taking food away from anyone.  It’d make things better for Jesus, it would hurt no one, and nobody would even find out.  Why not do it?

Any of those things sound familiar to you?  They do to me.  I don’t know how many times I’ve been tempted in those ways.  Go ahead, cheat a little.  Take a short-cut.  Do something just for you.  You deserve it.  It won’t hurt anyone.  No one will even know.  Really, when you think about it, there’s no good reason not to.  So go ahead.  Do it.  It’ll be okay.

Jesus did not do it.  At least a part of him had to want to.  But he did not.  He knew he was not supposed to use his powers to benefit himself.  And he knew that somebody would know.  Two somebodies, really. 

One of them was God the Father, and I’m sure Jesus did not want to let his father down.  But the other one was the devil.  The devil would know.  Because, you see, that’s another thing about temptation.  If we give in to it once, it becomes that much easier to give in to it again.

I’ll give you an example.  Have you ever been on a diet?  I have.  I’m on one now.  And you know how we get off of them, right?  Most of the time, we don’t make a conscious decision to go off the diet, at least not right away.  No, what happens is we cheat a little.  We have just a little piece of chocolate, or just a small cookie.  And we tell ourselves, “I’m just going to do this once.  Then I’ll go right back on my diet again.”

But it’s never just once, is it?  Because a few days later, we get tempted again, and we cheat again.  This time it’s a bigger piece of chocolate, or a bigger cookie, or maybe a piece of pie.  And we say, “Well, I can’t be rude and not eat this when someone offered it to me.  But after this, I’ll get right back on the diet again.”

And then, a couple days later, we’re tempted again, and we cheat again.  And then it happens again, and again, and pretty soon we’ve forgotten all about the diet.  We did not make a decision to go off it.  But every time we give in to temptation, it’s that much easier to give in to it again.  And pretty soon we’re not even thinking about what we’re doing any more, we’re just doing it.  And this does not just apply to food.  Think of any vice you can think of.  And it’s not just physical things like food or alcohol or things like that.  It can be anger, envy, greed, arrogance, or anything else.  Once we give in to temptation once, it’s that much easier to give in to it again.

The second temptation was to take power.  The devil says, here Jesus.  You can have authority over everyone and everything on earth.  All you have to do is worship me.

Think about how tempting that one had to be.  Think about this, Jesus.  Think about all the good you could do with that kind of power.  You could heal everyone.  You could end war.  You could make end poverty.  Just imagine it.  Imagine no possessions.  I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger.  A brotherhood of man.  Imagine all the people sharing all the world.  And all you have to do, Jesus, is worship me.  You don’t have to do it in public.  Nobody needs to know.  We could have heaven right here on earth.  It’d just be making the world like it was supposed to be in the first place.  Why not do it?

Does that sound familiar to you?  It does to me.  I’ve been tempted that way, too.  Go ahead, do this.  It’ll be okay.  In fact, it’ll help a lot of people.  Sure, you’ll have to break the rules, you’ll have to do something you know you’re not supposed to do, but so what?  It’ll be for the best, really.  Besides, no one will ever know.

Jesus did not do it.  Again, at least a part of him had to want to.  But he did not.  He knew that, no matter how good his intentions might be, taking power in this way would not work out.  It would be a betrayal of God.  It would also be a betrayal of humans.  No matter how good it might seem at first, the devil was going to demand to be paid someday.  The devil always does.  And that temporary good was going to turn bad somehow.

The third temptation was for Jesus to demonstrate his greatness.  The devil takes him up to the highest point of the temple.  He says, jump.  Jump off here.  You won’t get hurt.  Go ahead.  Do it.

And that had to be tempting, too.  Think what would’ve happened.  There’s Jesus, on the top of the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem.  He jumps.  He lands, unharmed.  Instant fame, right?  He’d have been a celebrity.  Everyone would’ve listened to him.  And everyone would’ve believed him.  Everyone would’ve known Jesus was the Son of God.  No having to travel around.  No having to gather a bunch of disciples.  He could take a short-cut.  All the disciples he needed would be right there.  And they’d worship him.  Simple.

That one sounds familiar to me, too.  We all want people to see how great we are.  And besides, it’s always tempting to take the easy way out.  But Jesus did not do it.  Again, at least a part of him had to want to.  But he did not.  He knew he had to let things happen in God’s way and in God’s time.  Showing off might be tempting, but it would’ve made Jesus’ ministry all about himself.  It would’ve made his ministry a cult of celebrity.  That might’ve worked, for a while, but Jesus’ message—God’s message—would’ve been lost.

Jesus was tempted to do things the easy way.  If he had, he might not have been hung on a cross to die.  He could have saved himself a lot of trouble.  He might have made things a lot easier for himself.  But he would not have followed God’s plan.  And he would not have saved us from our sins.

We’re tempted to do things the easy way, too.  If we do, we might save ourselves a lot of trouble.  We might make things a lot easier for ourselves.  But we won’t be following God’s plan, either.

Notice one more thing about this.  Jesus resisted these temptations, but that was not the end of the story.  It was just the end of one episode.  And at the end, we’re told that the devil “left him until a more opportune time.”

Jesus was subject to temptation all his life on earth.  And so are we.  Just because we’ve resisted once does not mean we’ll resist the next time.  We always need to be aware of the temptations around us.  They look good at first.  They seem to be for the best in the short-term.  That’s why they’re so tempting.  But in the long term, they’ll come back to hurt us.

All the things the devil tempted Jesus with seemed like they’d be for the best in the short-term.  But Jesus knew they would come back to hurt him and us in the long-term.  And he resisted.

We can resist, too.  If we stay close to God and do our best, things will happen in God’s way and at God’s time.  And we can be sure that God’s way and God’s time is always the best.