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The Readings
Romans 10.8b-13
But what does it say?
‘The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart’
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because 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. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Luke 4.1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in 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 him 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.
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Scripture quotations are from: New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
The Sermon
Prepared by The Revd Canon Dr Alan Billings.
Today, the first Sunday in Lent, we recall how Jesus went into the Judean wilderness for forty days and nights.
At one time, I used to take parties to the Holy Land to follow in Christ’s footsteps and go to the places we read about in the gospels: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jericho, the lakeside, Jerusalem. On one of the days, we would go in our coach into the Judean wilderness. We’d get out and imagine what it would have been like for Jesus to spend days and nights there.
We compared it with remote places in this country - like the moors of Derbyshire or Yorkshire. Where our moors can be green, the Judean wilderness is brown. Where our moors have vegetation, the wilderness is stony. The moors have rain. The wilderness is parched.
As the hymn puts it: Sunbeams scorching all the day, chilly dewdrops nightly shed, prowling beasts about thy way, stones thy pillow, earth thy bed.
This is where Jesus was for forty days and nights.
But as we stood there, we realised that this was not the only wilderness Jesus experienced. He goes into not one, but two. The one I have just described – the physical environment that surrounds him. We could call that the external wilderness.
But he also enters another, an internal wilderness. In this remote and inhospitable place where there is no one to talk to, no one to interact with, Jesus is alone with his thoughts and feelings. He goes inward. This is a different sort of wilderness, an inner wilderness.
It’s vital for him to do this because this is how he sorts out in his heart and his head how he is to live out his vocation as God’s promised messiah.
Each of the temptations is about a possible way of being messiah to his people. The devil is the devil within, the inner voice tempting him to take a particular path, a path that would bring popularity and worldly success, but a distraction from what he should really be doing.
So, give people bread. Give them marvels. Give them political leadership. Make Israel Great Again. Do any of these things and you will be a success.
These temptations to want worldly success, and the attraction of them, have to be understood by Jesus and put firmly to one side. His ministry is to show in word and action what God is like and what God wants, whether popular or not.
Yet this inner wilderness is something we also may experience. There are times when we too find ourselves alone with our thoughts. We don’t have to go into a deserted place. We can be surrounded by people, yet still find ourselves frighteningly alone.
Things happen in life and drive us inwards, to dark places. They can be triggered at any time. The journey from teenage to adult can sometimes seem very lonely. Why does no one understand me? In our working lives we can lose a job or have a career disrupted. Relationships can go sour. Illness or old age can get us down. Why is this happening to me? Why me?
In all these and other circumstances we may find ourselves in a lonely place and have to wrestle with dark thoughts.
And we often describe those experiences in words that echo today’s gospel. We say we have our demons.
Our demons. The devil within. The inner wilderness.
There is one other temptation at work in the wilderness. It’s the most pernicious temptation of all, lying behind all the others. And it’s a temptation we may face as well. It’s the temptation to doubt God and doubt yourself. For Jesus that’s the doubt that he may have got everything wrong, that he is not the Son of God. That’s the doubt the devil sows in his first words, ‘If you are the son of God….’ If. If. Can you be sure?
At the end of today’s gospel, Luke says that the devil departed from Jesus ‘until an opportune time’.
And the opportune time for self doubt and for doubting God comes on Good Friday. As Jesus hangs bleeding on the cross, there is a moment where the temptation to doubt comes back. ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
In our own lesser ways, there can be times when we too can feel the force of that temptation to doubt – to doubt ourselves and to doubt God.
Lent gives us opportunity to build our resources of faith so that, like Jesus, we can see off the devil within, whenever he might strike.
The Prayers
Prepared by Joe, Reader at St Mary's.
Common Worship: Times and Seasons, material from which is used here is copyright (c) 2010 The Archbishops' Council