The Jesus way through

Matthew 4: 1-11
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
March 5, 2017

            No sooner had the Spirit of God descended like a dove and alighted on Jesus, and the voice from heaven declaring that he was God’s son, the Beloved, that same Spirit led Jesus out into the desert to be tested. We tend to think the test comes first, the proving of oneself, and then comes the affirmation, the conferral of the degree, the graduation event. And yet God always seems to be doing things backwards: offering grace before it is deserved, forgiving us before we’ve even acknowledged the wrong, loving us wholeheartedly without condition. Before he had performed one miracle or healed one person or preached one word, Jesus is given the whole truth about himself: he is God’s son, he is beloved, and God is pleased with him—no qualifiers, no expectations, and nothing to prove.

            Jesus begins his ministry on a foundation and ministers from within a grounding of grace.  He knows who he is, God’s child, and yet he doesn’t take that for granted.  And so the same Spirit that lavished that grace leads Jesus out into the desert to test that grace, that beloved identity.  Like a shaman or a medicine man, Jesus goes on a vision quest.  Like the Israelites who wandered in the desert for 40 years, he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights.  In the Jewish tradition, the number 40 signifies a time of purification, transition, change, renewal, transformation.  Jesus will not be the same person walking out of the desert as he was walking in.

Temptation of Christ, Eric Armusik

            In the desert he encounters the devil, the tempter, Satan—in the Jewish tradition, the Satan or the Accuser who puts him to the test.  The Satan is the challenger or prosecutor—the embodiment of human difficulties.  The Satan is a servant of God who provokes, disturbs, and afflicts human beings so that our choice for what is righteous and good is a meaningful choice.

            It has been suggested that Jesus, and perhaps his cousin John, might have been an Essene—a desert Jewish sect that rejected temple Judaism.  Or maybe there was some home-grown Pharisee who took Jesus under his wing in Nazareth.  So I imagine this accuser, this prosecutor as a wizened old rabbi.  With crooked, arthritic hands, wild hair, a mischievous smile, and piercing eyes.  Jesus was his star pupil and was ready to go into the world to prepare the way of God’s kingdom, the Beloved Community.

But not so fast.  First he must be tested.  Being famished, Jesus might’ve been ready to think with his stomach.  The old rabbi tries to goad and hook Jesus’ ego with the words, “If you are the Son of God…”.   Jesus keeps the focus not on himself but on the One who sent him.  He answers in true rabbinical fashion by quoting from scripture, his foundation, from whence came his grounding in grace, or in Hebrew, chesed, lovingkindness, covenantal love.  That scene at his baptism was a reminder of what was true, what he had known from the very beginning.

This accuser asks Jesus three times if he wants the easy way out—the easy way to end his hunger, the easy way to prove he is the Son of God, the easy way to have the world at his feet.  He makes it personal.  He prosecutes Jesus’ ability to withstand, trying to make it look as though he is more merciful than the God who sent Jesus.  Because God does not offer us a way out but a way through.  

Lent is the soul’s version of spring cleaning: to find what we’ve been hiding, get rid of things we’ve been holding onto, and look at those times we have chosen the easy way out; how we think with our hunger and make choices based on our emptiness; how we distract ourselves and moderate our fear of the fact that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  And it is this accuser, this prosecutor—the embodiment of human difficulties—who challenges us in these forty days—minus Sundays— so that our choice for what is righteous and good would be a meaningful choice; so we would leave the desert not the same person as when we entered.

Why?  Because Jesus wants disciples, not sycophants.  Because even more is being asked of us.  Because in our privilege we still have a safe place to lay our head at night.  Because at some point we will come face to face with evil or we already have and we need to know not only how to keep living but how to keep loving.    Because the world needs people who know what it means to be faithful, not for survival’s sake, but so that others will know what love looks like through us. Because we are food for worms and we are wasting our joy.  Because we are beloved, we are a child of God, a child of this universe, and with us too God is pleased.  Before the test.  Before the mess.  Before any of it.

This is the Jesus way through.

Amen.