Truth Times Three

Three half-truths crack open three whole truths.

Note: audio is missing the first few lines... sorry!

Lent 1c 2013 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.

As is the case on the first Sunday in Lent every year, our gospel passage tells of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. This is a very dramatic episode; in fact, screenwriters have found it to be among the easiest episodes from the life of Christ to portray on film. The script practically writes itself: Saint Luke in particular sets the time and the scene the way any screenwriter or storyteller would do, right at the top of the page. It is after the baptism of Jesus, and the spirit has led him into the wilderness. There he has spent forty days, being tempted by the devil. We are only presented with the last three temptations, but Luke says this has been going on for forty days, during which time Jesus has eaten nothing — and if you want to get a sense of what that might have been like I suggest you try going for forty hours and see how it feels.

So the scene is set and the dialogue very quickly ensues. In fact the dialogue happens so quickly that I fear we are likely to lose the impact and the import of these three temptations; so I would like to take a little time this morning to look at each of them in greater detail. These three temptations point to three half-truths. Jesus transforms these halves, doubling them into three full truths: truth times three.

The first temptation is a natural: Jesus is famished and so the devil tempts him with food, in particular with bread — but note that he does not simply present him with a nice freshly baked loaf of bread; he urges him to make it himself by transforming a stone into bread. Jesus responds by quoting the Scripture, Deuteronomy 8:3, “One does not live by bread alone.” You know there is more to that citation, that verse; but Jesus, quoting the Scripture in this way, is doing something that the rabbis of his time often did — that is, they relied on the scriptural literacy of their students, and at the same time tested that literacy, by only giving half the verse, to see if they would come up with the second half on their own; to test the understanding of the hearer. They would know the rest, as I’m sure you do — after all, that’s why the rabbinical students were studying, and as far as the devil goes, there’s an old saying that the devil can quote scripture to his purpose — which we will see in a moment. So in this case, you all remember the other half of this verse: “but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

To those who know that Scripture, this unspoken half of the verse should resonate with great power: for not just what but who is the word that comes from the mouth of the Lord? It is not just the Law that comes from God, the written word given on Mount Sinai; but it is also the Son of God himself — Jesus — the living word of God, spoken from before time and forever; the one who comes forth from the Father, the Only-Begotten Word of God. Moreover, he is also, as we will see later in the gospel, the one who gives himself as bread, for the life of the world. So the half-truth that the devil presents is that the son of God can transform stone into bread; but just as at the wedding in Cana of Galilee Jesus showed that there was a far more to his mission than a mere magic act, so too here he shows the whole truth: that life itself is not merely something that comes from eating earthly bread but from heavenly bread and from the word of God, living and true.

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The devil’s next temptation involves a change of scene and a vision of all the world’s kingdoms. With this comes the half-truth that the devil can arrange for Jesus to come to power in these earthly lands if he will devote himself to the devil’s agenda. Anyone who reads the newspaper or watches CNN can see the stories of politicians whose rise to power was built on betraying the very principles they were called upon to defend. Dare I mention using campaign funds to buy yourself a watch that’s worth more than what most people make in a whole year?

Jesus once again responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:13, substituting one word, “worship” for “fear.” And if in the first response Jesus gave part of a quote to imply the rest of it, here he alters one word, picking up on the devil’s offer that if Jesus will worship him the devil will give him authority over the nations of the world. This altering of a single word is another rabbinic tool: bending a text by substituting a close synonym to make a point, as Jesus does here to show a greater truth: there is no cause either to worship or to fear the devil. God alone is the source of all right judgment and truth. To rely upon the devil to come to power is to build on a very shaky foundation indeed — as we have seen when countless tyrants, liars and hypocrites, and politicians, topple from power when they are exposed for their betrayal of the truth and their failure to fear the judgment of God — for we are all answerable to that power.

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Finally there is one more change of scene, and also a change in tactics. Perhaps a bit annoyed at having had Scripture quoted at him, the devil decides to quote Scripture himself, offering not just one but two quotations from it — in this case both from Psalm 91. Once more Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. Obviously there is some truth in the devil’s challenge; after all it comes from Scripture: God does indeed protect his own. But Jesus wisely points out the whole truth: that God’s protection does not mean we are to test or challenge God by putting ourselves at risk just to show that God is God. God doesn’t need us to prove that God is God. God is God whether we prove it or not!

But another and more important truth in this last challenge and response lies in the last verse of the passage: Jesus says, “do not put the Lord your God to the test,” and the gospel concludes, “when the devil had finished every test he went away, awaiting an opportune time.” “When the devil had finished every test.” This is Luke’s way of highlighting what in fact has been taking place here in the whole scene: the devil has been testing Jesus, but in doing so he has also been testing God — for Jesus is the Son of God incarnate, and the devil knows that full well, just as he knows his Scripture; but he has gotten so caught up in the coils of his own lies that he has forgotten who it is he is speaking to. He may think he is only preying upon the human weakness that Jesus has embraced in becoming human — the human weaknesses of hunger, ambition, and fear — but the devil has forgotten — as he so often does, poor fool that he is and always has been — that in spite of his human weakness Jesus is the Word of God incarnate, he is the bread of heaven, he is the true power and authority of all creation by whom all things were made, and not someone who can be put to the test by one who lost his legs in the Garden of Eden, condemned to spend the rest of his life belly-squirming in the dust.

So it is no wonder the devil chooses this moment to slither away and bide his time. Jesus’ last response might just as well have been, “Just who do you think you are talking to!” You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. The devil has gotten so tied up with his own charms that he has forgotten just who Jesus is — and that sudden reminder is enough to send him slithering back to his snake-hole. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” For all his talk, the devil is an awful coward.

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And so my friends let us take away these three important whole truths from this short drama: First, Jesus is the word of God and the bread from heaven, and it is by him, in him, and through him that we are called and invited to live. Second, he and he alone is and ought to be the only object of our worship and our service — any power or glory that comes from any other source is to be rejected for the worthless and undependable trash that it is. Third and finally, we are called upon not to test, but to trust, and to bear in mind who it is with whom we will have to deal at the end — the devil will not be our judge. The devil may be our accuser, but our judge, who shared our life as we share his, will also be our advocate, and redeemer, and he will speak on our behalf. What does Saint Paul say? “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.” We have heard this day three precious truths, to support that confession and that faith, my friends, three precious truths from the heart of the wilderness and from the heart of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.+

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Conflict in the Desert

SJF • Lent 1b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.+

When the phrase desert war is mentioned, Iraq or Afghanistan likely to come to mind: the memory of past conflicts or the continued battles we see on the newscasts. Before the current conflicts, we saw war in Kuwait with Stormin’ Norman leading a high-tech war fought largely, and swiftly, from the air — not like the current conflict on the ground, in the streets, and in the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq.

For those of us with a few more years on us, however, desert war might conjure up instead names like Montgomery and Rommel. We might envision not high-tech missiles but the tawny tanks of the Afrika Korps, decorated with palm trees and Balkankreuzen — Greek crosses outlined in white. Fascinating that the instruments of the Nazi war machine in North Africa should be emblazoned not with the swastika but with the sign of the cross — adding blasphemy to their infamy.

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For if we go back much, much further, we find the one whose cross is model for all other crosses — the one who by his cross won the greatest war of all, the war for our souls; the war to save the world. That was a real “world war.” If we go back to the times of our Gospel reading, we will find a desert war of far greater antiquity, and of far greater consequence, than either the campaign in North Africa, the lightning-strike war in Kuwait or the long-drawn-out wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. For in the Gospel we come upon the primeval battle of Good against Evil which is the model and prototype all other struggles. We come upon the opening battle of a war which would not end until it came to the Cross.

Here the protagonist is not a Montgomery or a Schwarzkopf, but God’s beloved Son. And although it is tempting, for the antagonist, to dress up Adolph Hitler or Osama bin Laden in red tights, with horns and a pointed tail, in our Gospel reading today we encounter no counterfeit second-rate would-be devil, no mere villain, but the source of all villainy: the fallen angel Satan, the Adversary of all humanity, the enemy of the Old Adam and the New.

We can read histories and see films of the Second World War, we can watch the video coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan on CNN. But Mark, evangelist-reporter for this gospel battle, gives us few details; it’s a bit like the scrolling headlines at the bottom of the screen. Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t tell us how Satan tempted Jesus, or what the temptations were; only that he tempted him.

But Mark does put his own spin on the account. While Luke and Matthew tell us that the Spirit “led” Jesus into the wilderness, Mark uses stronger language. He tells us the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness; and that doesn’t mean the Spirt was chauffeur! This is not the language of transportation, but the language of compulsion and command, surprising language that tells us surprising things about God, God’s Holy Spirit, and God’s beloved Son. This is no-nonsense language about why God’s Son was born, what he came to do, and how he would go about doing it, as Peter says, “once for all.”

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In today’s epistle Peter gets right to the point, doesn’t he? And it’s the same point Mark is making in his Gospel. Jesus came to save us, to suffer for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit. What Mark recounts is the first sortie, the first battle in a war that would end only with a death upon a green hill far away, outside a city wall, a death that signified not a loss, but the final victory over death. This scene of temptation is the beginning of the greatest war of all, the war in which all of humankind is at stake, and Mark is setting the stage to tell that greatest story ever told.

The Spirit of God, having descended upon Jesus in the River Jordan and equipped him with power and grace, clothing him in righteousness, sends him forth into battle like a general commanding his army. The Spirit drives Jesus out into the wilderness to face his enemy and ours, the old serpent, Satan.

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Think a bit about this Satan character for a moment — he appears so rarely in the story of salvation, and Mark just barely mentions him in this passage. And yet his role is pivotal — for he is the saboteur who tries to win by stealth — the spy or the terrorist who works on the sly. But don’t let his techniques fool you into thinking he is just a minor character. Satan is the Adversary, the Obstacle, the stumbling-block. Satan has no life in himself; he can’t create anything or accomplish anything; he is powerless to do so since he has cut himself off from the source of all light and life. He cannot create. But he can get in the way.

While the Spirit of God is the source of light and life, the one who gets things going, Satan is the one who tries to bring them to a halt. If the Spirit is the engine, then Satan is the roadblock. Satan is the one who gets in the way, the stumbling-block, the dead weight that opposes and drags down.

Satan is the blocked-up spiritual sink that overflows and makes a mess of your life. Satan is the inner voice that says to a hopeful young person planning for college, “You’ll never make it.” Satan whispers to the woman who’s raised a family and now wants to realize her dreams for a career, “Who do you think you are?” Satan says, “You can’t do it!”

But thanks be to God, the Spirit answers, “With God all things are possible!” Satan may get in the way. But Jesus, driven by the Spirit, compelled by the Spirit of God, can and will plow through Satan’s obstacles, conquer that ancient adversary, and remove the stumbling block on our behalf.

But it isn’t easy. This is a Desert War, not a Desert Picnic. And this first battle in the desert is just the start of a war that will last three years, a war that in fact is still played out in human hearts and souls when we forget that the war was won; the war is over — it ended almost two thousand years ago — Christ was victorious and all we need to do when Satan gets in our way is to remind ourselves of Christ’s victory on our behalf.

Satan has been defeated. He is still alive, if you can call it living But though he may fume and spit and try to spread his poison, his weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed by the one who had the power to conquer him. Satan can have no ultimate power over us, for his greatest weapon, death, has been disarmed: death no longer has its sting, grave has no victory, since we have been assured in Christ of life eternal. Death may hold us for a while, but only for a while, and then we will be set free by the one who conquered sin and death for ever.

And it isn’t just bodily death I’m talking of here — but all those little deaths: those little denials and negativities; the things that put you down and make you feel like less than you are; the powers that diminish and diss you. I recall something C S Lewis said back during the cold war, when everyone was afraid of nuclear war. An interviewer asked him what he thought of the atomic bomb. He said, “If I should happen to meet an atom bomb, I would say, ‘I’m not afraid of you. I am an immortal soul. You are only a bomb!” So too, we are empowered to say to Satan, and all his kin — all his little devils of diminishment and negativity — “Don’t you realize that you were defeated by Christ? That’s what you are, Losers!”

God’s Holy Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, and Jesus overcame that obstacle in the power of that Holy Spirit. He overcame the opposition of small-minded folk who thought he was claiming too much for himself. He overcame the religious leaders who thought they had God in their pocket. He overcame the Roman Empire that thought it ruled the world but couldn’t even govern itself.

But there is more. Jesus did not simply defeat those who strove with him on earth; he defeated the ancient enemy who rebelled against God in heaven, who fell from heaven — and great was his fall — to squirm and hiss his poison and falsehood into the ears of our first parents — to do harm, yes, but ultimately to see all his harm undone, all his obstacles removed, including his greatest weapon, death.

Jesus overcame Satan in the wilderness and on the cross. He overcame death and the grave, and he gave us the power to overcome sin and death in him and through him. Christ fought for us victoriously on earth, and he rules for us in majesty in heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him, having put all things under his feet, including the last enemy, death. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory in Christ Jesus our Lord.+

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