Luke 4:1-13
Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was lead by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
Then the devil led him up and showed up in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
I read a story in the desert of Phoenix last week about the Buddha, which made me think differently about the story of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness – or desert, as some versions tell it. Their stories sound similar in some ways, actually, and I love it when the world’s religions share some common ground.
Before he became the enlightened teacher and Buddha, of Buddhism, he was Prince Siddhartha. He wanted to see more of the world, but had never stepped out of the protection and opulence of his own city’s limits, because his father, the King, wanted to protect him from the world’s suffering. One day, though, when he was about 30 years old, I believe – the prince asked his chariot driver to take him as far out and far away from the city gates as possible. And when he did, the story goes, he encountered – not so much temptation, like the story of Jesus goes, necessarily – but the prince encountered the four realities of life: old age, sickness, death, and renunciation.
Ultimately, the prince came to see that an enlightened life is, in fact, a form of suffering, lived between the extremes of his former life of opulence and self-indulgence and the life of self-denial he experienced and practiced in his own wilderness wandering. Enlightenment lies somewhere between the extremes of indulgence and self-denial.
Hold on to that story for a moment, if you could, I’ll come back to it. Because I also came across a poem this week that was written by Michael Coffey, a Lutheran pastor, probably many years ago. I’m not sure exactly when I first read it. But I saved it in a file because it’s all about the beginning of Lent – these wilderness days for us as Christian-flavored people in the world. It’s called “Ash Thursday.”
Ash Thursday
He did the yearly, black, solemn ritual
and got smeared and humbled, though he
didn’t like it much, with the flecks falling down
in his eyelashes and the soul’s grief exposed, so
he got home and stared at his conundrummed face
for five minutes, give or take, in the bathroom mirror.
It wrecked him to be so humiliated, so mortified,
he washed away the ashen cross and dreamed of dying.
He woke up Thursday and after peeing and scratching
looked in the mirror and there it was, like a Mardi Gras drunken tattoo,
his forehead graffitied, black, sooty,
haunting him. He wore it all day like an unbandaged wound.
At bedtime that night, he washed and slept like a storm-tossed boat,
woke up to his sunrise reflection, his sleet eyes squinted again.
It was back – his skin tagged with midnight streaks – and he walked the day,
mortal through to his marrow.
After that first Ash Thursday, and Ash Friday,
and Ash Tomorrow, Ash Next Week,
Ash March, Ash Autumn, Ash Solstices,
never a day went by when he didn’t see it, let it have its way.
Never a day went by, thereafter, that he didn’t
rise to bless himself with Wednesday’s words:
remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,
and every day then on he was his free earthy self until he died.
“…every day then on he was his free earthly self until he died.”
I think this is something like what Jesus was up to during his own wilderness wandering back in the day – and something like what the Buddha learned, too. And I think it’s what we’re called to, still, so many centuries later as we begin another season of Lent, making our way through these days of repentance and reflection, remembering Jesus’ journey to and through the Cross at Calvary – and our invitation to something similar.
And when I read this Gospel again this time around – with that story of the Buddha in my head – I was reminded about the fact that, unlike the Buddha’s dad, the King, God the Father, by way of the Holy Spirit, was the one who moved Jesus into that wilderness. All of this wilderness wandering was God’s idea – it was the very notion and inspiration of the divine, in the first place.
Day after day, Jesus was tried and tested. Day after day, for a significant chunk of time, he fasted and he fought; he struggled, he suffered, he sacrificed. And it was the Holy Spirit – he was full of it, we’re told, right from the start – and it was the Spirit of God that sent Jesus out of town. It was the Spirit of God that opened him up to this time of trial. It was the Spirit of God that pushed Jesus to embrace and to engage this dealing with the dark side of life in this world – to spend some time being tempted by opulence, glory, and power; living in the midst of that and his denial of it, too.
But, so often, we’re inclined to believe that any encounter with the “darkness,” whatever that might be for us, is to be avoided, to be escaped, to be run from, to be feared at all costs. But as we begin another Lenten journey, I can’t help but see Jesus, led by God’s Holy Spirit, into the wilderness of darkness and danger, and wonder why and where God might be leading you and me this time around, too.
Now, I don’t want to suggest we put ourselves in harm’s way. None of us is the Messiah, after all, as far as I can tell. So I’m not suggesting that, if you’re a recovering alcoholic you spend your weekends at the bar, just to see if you can resist. If you struggle against internet pornography, I’m not proposing you go buy a new computer. If the darkness of depression is a struggle for you, please follow your doctor’s orders and keep taking your meds.
But I am suggesting that, like Buddha, and Jesus, and the guy in that poem show us, we not be afraid to look our struggles and our sin, our greatest temptations and the world’s suffering full in the face – and that we use these days before Easter to see all of that in the light of God’s power, instead of continuing to see it only through the fog of our own brokenness and fear.
See, I’m under the impression that Jesus engaged those 40 days in the wilderness so he could get about the business of who he was, following his baptism, and of what God called him to do and to be for the sake of the world because of that baptism. And I think that’s just exactly what God means for our forgiveness and God’s mercy to be for us every day that we live.
The blessing of being baptized and claimed as children of God – as little Caden Keiffner will remind us soon enough – is that we don’t have to fear our brokenness – or the broken darkness of this world. We don’t have to hold fast to all the reasons we have to be sad or ashamed or embarrassed or full of regret about our sins. We don’t have to be consumed or overcome by the world’s grief and suffering – or our own. Instead, we can let it give us some perspective, we can see it all in light of something more, something better, something different – which God promises us just the same.
Because, this wilderness and temptation business isn’t about our ability to resist and to choose what’s right at every turn. (Remember, again, none of us is Jesus, our even Buddha, as far as I can tell.) Instead, we are enlightened and liberated by the Truth and Good News that even when we don’t resist the temptations; even when we do take the bait; even when our sinfulness wins; even when we choose the darkness; or when the darkness of this life chooses us more often than we’d like – the love, mercy and hope of God, in Jesus, continues to choose us, all the more.
Amen
