Steve Lindsley
Selected Verses: Luke 4: 1-13
He is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, into the desert. He’s led there at the very beginning of his ministry. How’s that for diving right in? He heads into the desert, a place of absence, of nothingness, of scarcity. No one there to keep him company. No shade from the blistering sun. No food for forty days. I’ve been doing intermittent fasting for a little over a year now, sixteen hours at a time; and on occasion I’ve had to go a whole day without eating in advance of a medical procedure. A whole day. Jesus did forty.
Everything about the situation Jesus finds himself in here is about absence. About nothingness. About scarcity.
This stands in sharp contrast to the three temptations he faces in the wilderness, which I guess is why they are tempting. They are temptations of power, of control, and dominion, all driven by a common theme: and that is excess. I mean, these temptations are like temptations on steroids.
For it is not merely the temptation of a scrumptious loaf of bread in the middle of a 40-day fast, but the temptation to suddenly have the power to magically turn any rock into bread – rocks being one of the very few things in the desert in abundance.
And it is not merely the temptation of having dominion over a small group of people or a city or even a whole nation, but the temptation to rule over every single nation on the planet.
And it is not merely the temptation to be able to determine the course of one’s life, but the temptation to be able to control life itself.
These three temptations of excess are laid at the feet of a man who is fasting for weeks on end, a man utterly alone in the desert. They are designed to take advantage of his weakened state. They play to his very faith, in one instance even twisting scripture to serve as justification.
And yet in all three instances, Jesus stands firm. He shoots these temptations down with surgical precision, one by one. And while we have this image in our minds of Jesus doing this with relative ease, like he’s shooing away a pesky fly, I have to figure there is more to the story than Luke lets on, a little more nuance to things. This man hasn’t eaten for weeks! But in the end, the result is the same: Jesus resists the temptations. He passes the test.
The questions are: is that really what’s happening here – a simple test that Jesus must pass? Is that really how God operated with Jesus? Is it how God operates with us?
It’s a question that came up last Sunday evening at TheoPizza. If you’re not familiar with TheoPizza, it’s something our youth do from time to time for their Sunday night gatherings, meeting with a pastor to do two things: eat pizza and talk theology. Which ends up being more like grilling the pastor with questions! And let me tell you something, Trinity – there are no softballs here! Our youth are some serious theologians.
One of the questions we delved into was whether God tests us or not. And while we didn’t come to a definitive conclusion, we did acknowledge that this idea of God testing us is a very prevalent mindset in our culture today. We go through hard times, some manner of brokenness or evil; and in an attempt to rationalize or explain why it happened, we assume it must be because we’re being tested. What else could it be?
Noted American writer Joseph Campbell has done a good bit of work on what he calls the “testing stage” in the hero motif found throughout literature. This is the stage, Campbell suggests, where the hero-or-heroine-to-be faces some hard task or situation. A test. This test prepares them for the greater ordeals yet to come by helping them learn more about who they are, who they can trust and who they cannot trust. It is here where our hero is able to test out their skills and powers and prove themselves worthy to face whatever is coming.
It’s not hard to see this testing motif woven through our cultural stories. Especially in coming-of-age books and movies. There’s Luke Skywalker in the Dagobah cave, Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets, Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games arena. There is a sense that these heroes would not be heroes had they not “passed the test.”
And so, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this story of Jesus is often seen in a similar light. There he is, our hero Jesus tested in the desert, tempted at his most vulnerable by ho diabolos – that’s the Greek here, what we typically refer to as “devil,” it literally means, “The Diabolic or Evil One.” Which I actually like better; it kind of does away with the stereotypical image of a horned creature with a tail. The Evil One. All of this, we are told, so Jesus can prove his worthiness as the son of God for the road ahead of him. This temptation story, which is accounted for in two other gospels, seemingly has “test” written all over it.
But I ask again: is that really what’s happening here? Is Jesus’ purpose on earth – and by extension, ours – simply about passing a test and casting out evil and proving our worthiness? Because if that’s the case, friends, that is a test that we would routinely struggle to pass ourselves. And our God is not a God who desires to “set us up for failure.”
Which is why I’m inclined to think there’s more going on here. More behind Jesus going into the desert in the first place. And the reason I wonder this is because of a small little detail we get at the beginning of this story; one that’s easy to miss. We’re told that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit. Led by the Spirit. And for some reason Luke wants us to know this; to know that Jesus didn’t just show up in the wilderness one day. We are told, very specifically, that the Spirit led him there.
Now the Spirit is mentioned in all four gospels, of course, but it takes center stage in Luke, even continuing into its sequel, the book of Acts, where the Spirit makes her presence fully known on Pentecost. But it begins here – or, more accurately, the chapter before where, at Jesus’ baptism, we are told, “the Spirit descended on him like a dove” and that Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit.” The very next verse takes us to chapter four and the Spirit leading Jesus into the desert.
Now why in the world would the Spirit do that? Go from the high of Jesus baptism to dragging him deep into the wilderness?
Perhaps there is some truth to the notion that Jesus needed to discover certain things about himself, things that could only be discovered in the wilderness. We learn a lot about ourselves in the wilderness moments of our lives, don’t we? And maybe the Holy Spirit was up to something more here, more than simply teeing up a test. Maybe this journey into the wilderness was less about Jesus discovering who he was and more about discovering how he would live because of it.
Come to think of it, the wilderness has a similar effect on you and me, does it not? We already know who we are – we are children of God; we are followers of Jesus. We might need to be reminded of it from time to time, but we know who we are. And if there’s one thing, we as a society are good at doing these days, it’s identifying ourselves with something outside of ourselves. A religious faith, a political party, a college or university, a sports team. We wear those identities like words on a name tag, we display the banners, we subscribe to the emails, we wear the school or team colors. We know full well who we are.
What we struggle with is knowing how to live in light of that – or maybe we know it but just struggle to do it. We talked a little bit about this last week. In a past editorial to the Charlotte Observer, my fellow Presbyterian pastor Kate Murphy wrote, “It’s interesting how so many Christians believe that following Jesus has nothing to do with our actions, only our words. Many believe that what we do is of no interest to God, only what we believe in our hearts and say with our lips.” In other words, just wearing the team colors.
That’s why the wilderness can be so God-awful, because it will not let us get by with just wearing the team colors. That’s why the temptations are so darn tempting. Because they are not calling into question who and whose we are – they’re daring us to actually live like it.
How are you called to live in the wilderness, I wonder?
I love the story I remember hearing of Liana, a young woman who worked as a baker in a small European town. Liana was known for two things in her community: her fresh bread and her joy-filled laugh. Each morning she rose before dawn to prepare the day’s loaves, her bakery filling the streets with the scent of rising dough and sweet pastries.
One spring, a terrible drought came upon the town. Streams dried up, wells ran low, and even the oldest trees with deep roots turned brown and brittle. Food grew scarce, and Liana noticed more and more children coming to her door, eyes wide with hunger. She couldn’t bear to turn them away, so she began giving out small rolls and bread each morning for free.
Not all were pleased with her doing this. Some neighbors, worried about their own supplies, whispered behind her back, calling her foolish and wasteful. One day, her fellow merchants came to her and said “Liana, if you keep feeding them, they’ll just keep coming back asking for more, and eventually we’ll all run out of food.”
Normally Liana took the advice of those close to her. She certainly never wanted to be a nuisance in the community she loved. But this time was different. The merchants shook their heads, even telling her that if she kept doing it, they would cut off her access to the shared grain they used for their businesses.
But Liana kept baking. Even as her own pantry dwindled, she rose each morning to knead and shape the dough, her hands moving with a steady rhythm of hope. She baked small rolls, simple and hearty, just enough to share.
One evening, as she was closing up shop, a thin, shivering figure appeared in her doorway. It was a child from the village who’d been coming each morning for bread. But tonight, in a bit of a switch-up, he had something for her. It was a small pouch filled with seeds; seeds the boy had found in the woods while looking for firewood. “I don’t know if they’re any good,” the boy said as he gave them to her, “but maybe they can grow into something.”
Liana took the pouch, feeling the promise of life in its weight. She planted the seeds in the small patch of earth behind her bakery, watering them carefully with whatever little water she could spare. And even as the drought continued, small green shoots began to rise from the dry soil. Shoots that eventually grew into large fruit trees – apples, pears, peaches. As she did with her bread, Liana shared the fruit freely with the village – fruit that existed only because a young boy, inspired by Liana’s life in the desert, had picked up some seeds off the ground. Fruit that, while the drought lingered on, ensured that not a single child in the village would go hungry.
The story of Jesus’ temptation is not a story about Jesus being tested. God doesn’t work like that. Our God is not the kind of God who makes a habit of checking to see if we’ve “got it,” not a God that enters into relationship with us with a bunch of conditions, not a God who shares God’s grace and mercy and love once we prove we are worthy of it.
The story of Jesus’ temptation is about the wilderness we find ourselves living in from time to time, a wandering world where the temptation for power, for money, for influence is constantly there. And if Jesus seeks to show us anything in the wilderness, it is this: we cannot control the fact that some choose to give in to these temptations of excess that hold them captive in its clutches.
But what we can control is how we choose to live in this kind of world. How we choose to respond to an abundance that has nothing to do with the kinds of things thrown at Jesus in the desert.
For as those around us seek power, we pursue everlasting grace.
As fear rules the day, we side with hope.
As evil lurks in the shadows, we persist for the sake of righteousness.
The truth of it all, friends, is that even in the desert we can find all we need. More than excess. It is a fuller life we are called to live. The abundance of God’s righteousness for us, like a river flowing through the wilds of a desert, nourishing our drought-filled world with cups running over, connecting us to God and each other; reminding us of who and whose we are in the desert but more than that, showing us how to live in it.
And for that, in the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, thanks be to God – and may all of God’s people say, AMEN!
* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation