A little more talk about the devil and temptation...

Dear GP family,
This past Sunday I titled my sermon, Lent: An Opportunity For Holiness. Our scripture text was Mark's account of the temptation of Christ in the wilderness (Mark 1:9-15). For centuries the Christian Church has used this event from the life of Jesus as inspiration for our forty days of preparation prior to Easter.

In the sermon, I spent some time focusing on the specific temptations posed by the devil to Jesus, and how this sensational story might apply to our lives. What I didn't mention but think is also helpful to remind ourselves of, is a very important truism regarding the nature of temptation in general. And that is that temptation generally comes by stealth and disguise; it is seldom obvious. I think we are misled when we see this encounter in the Judean wilderness in Hollywood form, with Jesus and a yellow-eyed, sulfurous breathed Satan in a cartoonish clash of the Titans.

It is highly more likely that this wrestling match was an invisible, yet no less real or devilish, struggle within Christ's mind. Jesus was, for forty days, wrestling with the will of God, repeatedly facing three alternative paths which all seemed to lead to good destinations. There was immense room for rationalization, room for Jesus to convince Himself that these three options were justifiable, even desirable. And yet, In His deepest parts, He knew these avenues were not the Father's plan. So, wrestle with evil He did, in the form of three apparently excellent offers.

When looked at this way, Christ's forty day struggle in the desert is much more applicable to our lives. If evil came to us in the visible form of a ghoulish fiend we would all have the sense to run. But it doesn't. Life's most pivotal moments of decision come clandestine, so benign that they often slip past our defenses. Generally, temptation doesn't involve abject immorality as it's bait, rather it focuses on good results achieved in damaging ways. Christ's most formidable temptation was to take shortcuts to good ends. Most of our temptations are the same.

Turn stones to bread. In a world filled with desperately hungry people, why not? Jump from the parapet of the temple and be caught by angels. In a world longing to believe in a caring God, why not display that care in a dramatic way? Immediately assume the rule of all the kingdoms of men. In a world full of genocide, oppression, slavery and war, WHY NOT? The answer(s) to those three ''why nots'' required committed soul work. And that's just what Jesus did.
Jesus temptations, though, did not end in the wilderness. Later his well-intentioned disciples would implore Him to ''avoid the cross.'' And then there was Gethsemane where He wrestled with the reality that He possessed the ability to opt out of the Father's plan at any time. And yet He knew the painful, human process was the only way. He refused to use the ''power of the Spirit,'' choosing instead the path of service.

To arrive at that place, Jesus had to meet and faithfully process deep temptation on multiple occasions. To live successful, healthy lives we must follow His example, recognizing the subtle ways darkness presents itself, realizing, as did He, that the battle is within us. Justification, rationalization, slight compromises, hedging, white lies, convenient deafness - all of these are the temptor's weapons.

Sometimes I think it would be a lot easier if the battle were more blatant, but the fact that it's not is half the strategy. The battleground is in our minds. Don't be fooled into looking for the gross and sensational. Instead be wary of the nuanced and subtle ways evil lures us. And finally, don't be afraid... our hope of victory rests in Christ's strength and example. I hope we will all spend this Lenten season opening our lives, possibly as never before, to that strength and to that example.
Peace,

Stan

Lent: An Opportunity Holiness - Introduction

Since the first of the year, in our worship services we have been following Jesus from His infancy through the early stages of His earthly/bodily ministry.  We heard the wise men from the east ask the question so many before and after them have offered, ''Where is He?''  We followed Jesus from His hometown, Nazareth of Galilee, down to Judea where He was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. We watched as He moved northward back to Galilee where He would do the bulk of His teaching and miracles, assimilating along the way an inner core of twelve disciples as well as a large grass-roots following that unsettled the authorities, both religious and civil.

We saw his predecessor, the greatest prophet, John, imprisoned and ultimately executed for preaching the Kingdom of God.  With John behind bars, Jesus assumed his message and his followers, proclaiming everywhere He went the Good News of the Kingdom.  The lame walked, the blind saw and the dead were raised to life again - the crowds could only grow.  And grow and grow they did until He could no longer enter cities for the throng.  So He recessed to the rural places where the masses filled the open fields and seashores to be near Him. 

At the height of His popularity and in the midst of His busyness we followed Him, in the early hours of the morning, to a ''lonely place'' where He spent precious time in prayer.  We saw the disciples find Him there, reminding Him of the neediness of the people looking for Him.  He conceded, following them out of that devotional solitude into an encounter with a leprous man whom He miraculously healed, setting the Mosaic Law on its ear in the process.

Last week we moved ahead to the end of His Galilean ministry and observed Him take James, John and Peter up a mountain where He was transfigured before their eyes.  As if that weren't enough, they also saw Moses and Elijah appear from the netherworld to converse with Jesus about the implications of His impending death.  Upon descending the mountain, Luke said, ''He (Jesus) steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.''  We used that text to prepare our hearts for the Season of Lent, the season the Christian church annually sets aside for the purpose of refocusing, reflecting and realigning our lives with the purposes of the Kingdom of God.  I have high hopes that our GP community will take this time very seriously and in a few weeks find ourselves celebrating Resurrection Sunday with a renewed vigor and deepened commitment.

This Sunday we will do some good backtracking, chronologically speaking, in the life of Christ.  Immediately following His baptism and just prior to launching His Galilean ministry, Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell us that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where, for forty days, He was tempted by Satan.  As far as I'm concerned, those are forty of the most intriguing days of Christ's life.  So intriguing are they, that we as a church have lifted the number of those days, imposing it upon the time we call Lent. 

The gospel writers say that Jesus fasted the entirety of those forty days and was ministered to by angels.  Furthermore, they say that Jesus went into the wilderness ''full of the Holy Spirit'' yet came forth ''in the power of the Spirit.''  While I'm sure I haven't fully wrapped my mind around the differences between those two phrases, I am sure that there are differences.  And I am also confident that the supremacy of Christ's latter relationship to the Holy Spirit was directly related to the forty days of special devotion He committed Himself to in the wilderness.

This confidence translates for me to a deep conviction that if we follow Christ's example we will enjoy the fullness of His life.  Come Sunday, and let's process this incredible text and story from the life of Jesus together.  It's one of my favorites, and I think you'll see why, not only as we study it together but even more as we LIVE it together.

See you Sunday,
Stan