“Reclaiming Fallen Ground”
Rev. Jeff Long-Middletoton
Bradford Congregational Church-UCC
Luke 4:1-13
March 10, 2019

First Sunday of Lent

When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. – Luke 4:13ⁱ

The stakes are very high this morning. It’s not just Jesus who is being tempted. It’s us.

Now let me be clear. The stakes are not as high for us as they were for Jesus. Satan put before him three tests and while it may not be immediately transparent, Satan was attempting to make Jesus decide between Jesus’ human and divine natures. It is my contention that either Jesus is fully human and fully divine or Jesus saves no one. If Satan can break this human/divine bond, Satan will have defeated God’s plan of salvation. Let me explain.

It’s simple, really. Either Jesus knows through being human what it means to be broken, beaten, betrayed, rejected and cast out onto the garbage heap of Jerusalem, or Jesus has little say to us. His death has no more salvific power than the death of Socrates who was poisoned by the good folks of Athens. Only if our brokenness is born by Jesus can His resurrection speak with power of the ultimate triumph of God. Jesus must be fully human if His history – His life, death and resurrection – are to speak to me with transforming power. Only if Jesus is broken as you and I are broken can Jesus make me whole. I believe in Jesus because my belief is more than intellectual acceptance of facts. My belief is what I stake my life on.

One cannot do this with a mythical figure like Superman. He’s impressive. He’s powerful. He is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. But he has nothing to do with me. I cannot stop a bullet with my hand. I know nothing of flying in the vacuum of space. In the end, Superman is not a man at all. His history, his lived experience, will never be mine. So I can go to the theater and marvel at his strength, but I cannot give him my belief. Jurgen Moltmann has this to say about the need for a human Jesus:

“Finally, a God who is only omnipotent is in himself an incomplete being, for he cannot experience helplessness and powerlessness. Omnipotence can indeed be longed for and worshiped by helpless men, but omnipotence is never loved; it is only feared. What sort of a being, then, would be a God who was only ‘almighty’? He would be a being without experience, a being without destiny and a being who is loved by no one.”¹

My friends, we find in Jesus a bruised and kindred soul.

So when Satan sets a stone before the feet of Jesus that Jesus might produce bread, Satan is asking our savior to forsake His humanity. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become a loaf of bread.” “You need not suffer hunger. Stride the earth and display Your powers.” Had He done it, Jesus would have nothing to do with you or with me. He would be as distant from our lives as Superman.

I have always thought, however, that what Satan offers next might be the most attractive to a man like Jesus.

⁵ Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶And 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. ⁷If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’

Think of it. No more prayers for justice or for peace, no more inequity between rich and poor, no more prejudice or hate or death by famine. Jesus rules. Oh, how Jesus could have changed the sad pages of human history. No Stalin. No holocaust. The Righteous Son of God rules the kingdoms of this world. And isn’t it true that when we recite our church covenant we say that we are praying for the Kingdom of God to come? Here it is, laid before Jesus.

We lament the state of the world. Don’t we on Sunday speak of setting our souls aright and championing the cause of the poor. Oh, how we long from the reign of Jesus.

But wait. Is not this longing for what ought to be part of what it means to be human? Take the folly of men and women away. Lift from us the burden of not being able to do what is pure in any complete sense. Do this, and you rob humanity of our freedom. And mark my words, you remove even your ability to love God – for love is never forced. It is freely offered. And one other thing. There would be no need for soaring souls who will not let the message of this world crush human hope. No need to sing of liberty. No need the march for freedom or stand before a tank in Tiananmen square. No need for the courage of the human soul. Oh, I do not like the sordid mess that is loose in our world, but save me from a god who would bring peace at the cost of freedom.

There is one final temptation.

⁹ 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, ¹⁰for it is written,

“He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you”,

¹¹and

“On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’

So here it is. The final temptation. The one that is perhaps the most dangerous of them all. Here, with the tongue of an angel, Satan cites scripture.

And He Will Raise You Up

Perhaps the divinity of Jesus would have saved Him had he leapt. Maybe he would have been lifted up on eagles wings. Perhaps. But you, me? God will not suspend the laws of physics to save me from my foolishness. God will not send the universe into chaos. Should I jump, I fall.

The question this temptation raises is whether Jesus has anything to fear. Leap and not die. Had Jesus jumped He would have shown the power of God, but He would cast aside His finitude. Jesus had to be mortal or He could not speak to mortal men and women. Jesus, like you and me, had to live in a world of moral ambiguity where God’s power, at times, seems distant or altogether nonexistent. I watched as a family grieved the unexplained death of their 18 month-old child. This is the world we live in where the love of God must be sought beyond the tragedy of the moment. Jump Jesus, and you have no true faith. You will have decided to live into tomorrow claiming the protective hand of God. “He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you…On their hands they will bear you up, so that you not dash your foot against a stone.”

Are we not tempted by the same lures? We, like Jesus, must live with two realities within ourselves. The one is tempted to seek comfort rather than commitment while our other self knows that the trade off leads to spiritual death. We pass through each day having to decide to follow the will of God or make bread from stones.

Legend has it that one day…

“An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

 He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

 

Jesus was shown all the kingdoms of this world. Like Him we must reclaim the centrality of your faith. Know that there is no perfect system of government, no pure act of goodness that does not have, in some form or fashion, a consequence you will regret. Live in the faith that God has the world in God’s hands and that all things will work to the good. Strive to do the right and decent thing but in the end, know that God’s providential care abides.

Lastly, Satan tempted Jesus to let go of His faith and put God to the test. I know too many religious folks who fall victim to this lure. One need not test one’s spouse if you have faith in your spouse. To test is to doubt and it seeks a clarity that life cannot give us. I do not know why I had to stand in a room with grieving parents. I had no truly satisfying answer as to why a loving God would allow such a tragedy. But both the parents and I had faith that God had not abandoned them, that God, like them, wept too.

We are told that Satan departed from Him until an opportune time. So it is with us. Every day is a struggle to live as fully human as Jesus. None of us will walk this path perfectly. But walk it we must. Always remember, that God has passed this way before us. Let us pray….