Tempted!

Reading: Matthew 4.1-11
You have just been hard at work (or at play). As you come into the house, you can smell it! Someone has been cooking! Your nose leads you into the kitchen. The cook has vanished, but there - yes, very much there! - neatly turned out on a cloth on the table are some freshly baked biscuits - your favourites, in fact!

They have been done just right and the smell beckons you. Your taste buds are already overworked and your salivary glands are at it too. The thought pops into your mind - the cook's out of the kitchen, and nobody is going to miss just one!

At this point we would all agree that you are being tempted - not in the good sense that you want something that is yours, that is good, that is appropriate just now, that you have the right to use or do… You are being tempted to do something forbidden - to "jump the gun", to have more than your fair share, to disobey a family rule…

Now - is it wicked to be tempted? Not in itself. It all depends what we do with that temptation. Of course, we sometimes put ourselves (or stay) in the place where we know we will be tempted - as if we really want to give in! But that isn't our present picture! What would you do? Well, think about these two possible conclusions to the story.

You reach out your hand and take the biscuit, moving one or two others to hide the empty space. Then you quietly move into your own room, holding your hand so that the biscuit can't be seen, yet not so tightly that it looks as if you are hiding something. In the quietness and peace of your room you eat the biscuit.

Or… You restrain yourself and head out of the kitchen, looking for the cook. When you find her, you say, "I see you have been cooking my favourite biscuits again today. Can I have just one? There's a broken one perhaps." What happens next depends on the cook.

What would you do? What do you do with temptation?

There was an old song that said,

Reason and Circumstance

We read in Hebrews 4.15 that Jesus was "tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin." That verse makes it clear that sin consists in yielding to temptation. If we think that Jesus had it easy, that he was only tempted on one occasion and only in three very specific and limited areas of his life, we are wrong. Luke's account adds this significant comment, "When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time" (4.13). These words suggest two things: (1) in some way the three temptations are typical of the kinds of temptations we all face; and (2) there were other times throughout the earthly ministry of Jesus when he was tempted - as we read carefully we can see some of them.

When we are tempted by freshly-baked biscuits, there is a reason and a circumstance for the temptation. The reason is the fact that they are our favourites, that they have just been baked, that the smell is right throughout the house… The circumstance is that we are alone in the kitchen. One three-year-old's explanation for being in the kitchen atop a chair, eating cookies: "I just climbed up to smell them, and my tooth got caught." Can I tempt you with some lovely juicy snails fried in butter? or some tender octopus, perhaps? No? Even supposing they were freshly cooked, with the aroma reaching you, why wouldn't you be tempted? Because you have never tried them, or you don't like them, or the thought revolts you… There is no reason for you to be tempted. Or you visit the Tower of London and see the Crown Jewels on display - carefully protected and heavily guarded. Are you tempted by what you see? Probably not. In those circumstances, you probably don't even feel a twinge of temptation.

What were the reason and circumstance behind Jesus' temptations?

Jesus, born as a baby in Bethlehem, grew up as a very normal boy in Nazareth. How can we say that? The Gospels don't tell us. That period has been called the "silent or hidden years". But what Matthew does tell us is that, when Jesus returned to Nazareth after a good deal of preaching, teaching and healing the sick in Galilee, he went into the synagogue and began teaching the people. They said to one another, "This is our Jesus! Always so wise! Always visiting us and healing the sick people! Couldn't keep him secret in Nazareth for ever! Good to see him back!" No! It wasn't like that at all. Jesus grew up as a very normal boy, an uneventful young man, and at the age of thirty, hearing him for themselves, they said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Isn't this the carpenter's son?…" (Mt. 13.54-55) And they rejected him.

Luke gives us just a little flash into those silent years with the picture of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple saying to an anxious Joseph and Mary, "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" (Lk. 2.49) I believe that, underlying a personal relationship with God his Father, there was a growing awareness of his own identity as the Son of God and his mission to be the Messiah. These things were in the Scriptures which were faithfully and regularly read in the synagogues.

When he was thirty, he heard that John had come out of the desert calling on people to repent of their sins and to be baptised. Now is the time! he thought, and left the carpenter's shop to go and be baptised by John. As he came out of the water, he saw heaven opened and "the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him," then heard the voice of the Father, "This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased" (Mt. 3.16-17). He didn't become the Son at that point, or receive the Spirit at that point. This was a visible witness of what was already true - visible to Jesus, visible also to John the Baptist (Jn 1.32-34) and perhaps to some others as well.

"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil" (Mt. 4.1). The truth about Jesus was now out. The secret was revealed - and even the Devil knew! Up to this point Jesus had faced the temptations of any normal boy or growing youth. But now the heat was on. The Spirit was leading him into real confrontation with evil. And he would now be tempted in areas that would have to do with who he was and why he had come.

Three Temptations

We aren't told what Jesus did during those first forty days and nights except that he fasted. Most likely he spent much of the time in prayer - that was certainly the pattern of his life. Surely he would also have been "walking through" the next three years, thinking through the implications of the mission to which he was committed.

And guess what? Jesus became very hungry! It was an easy point of temptation - hungry, knowing himself to be the Son of God… Jesus, you were about when the rocks and stones were formed. You helped to make them. Right? "If you are The Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."

Jesus never did that kind of miracle! He never paraded his divine Sonship. He was living as a member of the human race. The miracles that he did were done with the same dependence on the Father that you or I are expected to have. They were motivated by love for others, never directed to his own protection or comfort. There was an important principle here. In Deuteronomy Moses reminded the people of Israel how the Lord had tested them in the desert "to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" (Dt. 8.2b-3).

Isn't that a picture of how we are tempted? We feel this deep urge to use what we have and are for our own benefit, to fulfil our own desires (good or bad). It is the first way of projecting my identity and my desires over against the loving care and provision of God. Eve "saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom…" (Gen. 3.6). It seemed so good and legitimate. It would fulfil a real need. Only - it was not what God had said! How important is our relationship with God, really? How often does the fulfilling of our desires come in the way of a deep and strong and positive relationship with God?

So you won't use your powers to protect yourself because you have to depend on your relationship with God? Well, here we are now on the highest point of the Temple in Jerusalem. Now you can prove that you are the Son of God, that you are depending on every word that God speaks. Just jump! Yes, jump off! After all, doesn't the Scripture say, "He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone"?

Those words come from Psalm 91.11-12. They are about the person who "dwells in the shelter of the Most High" (Ps. 91.1) - which hardly seems a description of a person about to jump off the Temple roof! There is actually a phrase omitted - "to guard you in all your ways" - and, as one writer puts it, "The omission in fact destroys the truth of the original, which does not encourage the faithful to tempt God by taking unnecessary risks, but assures him that God will keep him safe wherever his way may lead, provided he is obedient to the divine will… The ways that Jesus was to be called to tread in discharging the obligations of his ministry included the most difficult of all ways, the way of the cross; and we may be very sure that he was sustained in his determination to follow it by the assurance contained in the psalmist's words, which the devil had failed to mention, that his Father would keep him in all his ways, if he remained subservient to his will" (RVG Tasker).

Jesus' answer comes from Deuteronomy 6.16. It is part of Moses' final instructions to the Israelites. In this section, they are being warned against disobedience - "Do not follow other gods… for the Lord your God… is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you… Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah" (vv. 14-16). That incident is recorded in Exodus 17.1-7. This was the time when the people grumbled and complained to Moses, forcing him to ask the Lord for a miraculous supply of water. "And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarrelled and because they tested the Lord saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?' " (v. 7). Jesus had to trust the Father - not ask for miraculous proof of his help - proof, incidentally, which would be visible and public and would undoubtedly attract quite a large following. Jesus trusted the Father and rejected the use of miracles to attract followers.

This too provides another picture of how we can be tempted. We are called to walk a path of faith in God but dearly want visible proof of his love and protection. We want sight not faith. Too easily and too often we demand the miracle, the spectacular. We demand that God be our little message boy. We are pleased with him if he fills our needs and give him the sack if our circumstances fail to come up to expectations. So often we make our circumstances the reason for our faith or our unbelief. "I believe in God because I was terribly sick - or in financial trouble - or with a deep insoluble personal problem - and I prayed and my situation changed for the better." Or "I can't believe in a God of love because…" Our belief or unbelief is related to whether life suits us! Neither is a sufficient reason for believing (or not believing) in God. We ought to believe in God because he is true and because he is there. And he is Lord and we should be laying our lives down before him! He is the one who has the perfect right to ask the question, "Are those people in the Burdekin with me or not?"

In the third temptation the Devil shows his hand. So you have come to earth to establish a kingdom, have you? You want to gain all the kingdoms of this world - isn't that your mission? See them spread out before you in all their greatness! "All this I will give you, if you bow down and worship me."

Repulsive thought? A real temptation! How could the kingdoms of this world become the Kingdom of our God and of his Christ, if he didn't bend the rules a little? If this temptation wasn't real for the truly human Son of God, how come the Church of today feels it so strongly?

Again his reply comes from Deuteronomy 6 - "Fear the Lord your God, serve him only…" (v. 13). "Go away, Satan!" There are Satanists, but, thankfully, not too many of them in the world. Not many come to a blatant and wholehearted commitment to the Devil. Yet all the temptations are about whether or not we are to worship, trust and obey God in our lives. Sometimes we talk about folk who do the right thing for the wrong reasons, yet there are many times where we do the wrong thing with good intentions. We have the idea that, somehow, the end justifies the means. Jesus rejected that temptation!

And the Jesus who rejected the temptations to sin was obedient to death on the cross at the hand of sinners - by the Father's loving will dying on the cross in the place of sinners. When we face temptation, he understands us and offers us the grace to overcome the temptation, to continue to do what we know is right. When we have fallen in the face of temptation, he offers us the grace of forgiveness.


© Peter J. Blackburn, Home Hill & Ayr Uniting Churches, 17 February 2002
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible Society, 1984.

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