Luke 4: 1-13
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
First Sunday in Lent, February 21, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
Whenever I hear the story of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, the American spiritual, “Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley” always comes to mind. It arose out of poor rural white communities in the South, where people worked hard in the fields. You can almost hear them singing, as they plowed and picked,
“Jesus walked this lonesome valley, He had to walk it by Himself;
O, nobody else could walk it for Him, He had to walk it by Himself.”
I imagine those folks in the field found comfort when they considered Jesus being tempted and tried, just as they were. It fit well with what they read in Hebrews 4: 15, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” It made it easier to believe Jesus knew what they were going through, as they encountered hardships and loss, as all of us do.
Since Jesus went ahead of them, it made it easier to sing that second verse,
“We must walk this lonesome valley; we have to walk it by ourselves;
O, nobody else can walk it for us, we have to walk it by ourselves.
We can believe Jesus knows our lonesome valley, because he’s been there before us, and come out the other side, to save us and strengthen us for all of life’s trials.
You see, Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness were not new. They were not unique to him. They were as old as the Garden of Eden, where the serpent tempted our first parents, with the promise to be like God. They are an ordinary as the temptations you and I encounter everyday.
The Spirit led Jesus to the wilderness for forty days. The wilderness is where God’s people always go to wrestle with who they are and who God calls them to be. Moses and Elijah, the greatest prophets Israel ever knew, did wilderness time. The entire people of Israel spent forty years in the wilderness, working out who and whose they were. From the waters of the Jordan, with the voice of God still ringing in his ears, Jesus came to the wilderness to figure out what God meant, when God said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” I wonder whether Jesus ever wondered what God meant, as he walked his lonesome valley, without food for forty days.
Now, we may not see how Jesus’ temptations relate to ours, but I believe they do. In his book on Christian leadership, In the Name of Jesus, the late Henri Nouwen called Jesus’ first temptation to turn bread into stones, “the temptation to be relevant.” You see, the devil not only tempted Jesus to fill his hunger, it would have been way too easy. Instead, the devil offered Jesus the quick fix to being the Messiah by meeting the real needs people have, by giving them what they really want. How often have we thought that everything would be alright, if we could just give people what they wanted? Yet, isn’t there a difference between what people want and what they need? Besides, only God can provide us what we really need.
As I said, Jesus faced a temptation as old as Eden and ordinary as everyday. He countered the devil with Deuteronomy 8:3, wilderness words, “One does not live by bread alone.” Only God gives life! Nouwen says for you and me the answer to this temptation lies in prayer, but not prayer where we tell God what we want. Instead, we resist this temptation, as Jesus did, by listening long and hard to what God desires for us, as God’s beloved. We need to contemplate who and whose we are.
Nouwen calls the next temptation, to accept authority over all kingdoms of the world, “the temptation to be powerful.” The devil held out to Jesus’ another quick fix for his mission. If he ruled over all people, he could govern with peace and justice, if he’d just bend the knee and bow the head. We may not think we face this temptation, but we do. Whenever we think, “If only I could control this situation… If only I could make her see, make him do…” the devil whispers in our ears, offering to make us like God.
Yet, Jesus knew the answer, Deuteronomy 6: 13. Moses told his people in the wilderness, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” Earlier, in the same chapter, Moses called them to prayer, as Jews continue to be called to worship to this day, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
Nouwen suggests that theological reflection serves as the tool for resisting this temptation. Now, lest you think theology is only for those who has been to seminary, God calls all of us to reflect upon our relationship with God, which is the basic meaning of theology. Nouwen means that we need to stop and think about the God to whom we belong in life and in death, the God whom we love with our whole being, before we do or say anything, which may cause us to settle for something less than God.
By now, I imagine some of you may wonder whether I believe in the devil. Well, to borrow from C.S. Lewis, I’m not particular about the hoofs and horns and red cape, but yes, I believe the devil is real. Now, even if you don’t, you need to believe me when I tell you, there is a force at work within our lives, in our world, that is against God. It comes to us, like the devil came to Jesus, and attempts to make us prove how much we love God. You see, I believe the devil has a Ph.D., maybe even from Princeton, because he knows the Bible. When he tempted Jesus to throw himself down from the temple heights, he quoted Psalm 91: 11-12, “He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”
I think this temptation may be one that we wrestle the most nowadays. Nouwen calls it, “the temptation to be spectacular,” and churches and individual Christians fall prey to it in many subtle and not so subtle ways. I know people who refused medical treatment, because they believed God would heal them. I know people who worked themselves to death, serving God or so they thought, because they believed God would bless them. I know preachers who preach that if we name it, we can claim it. Yet, Jesus looked the devil in the eye and he shouted, “No! Do not put the Lord your God to the test!”
Nouwen’s antidote for this temptation may be hard for us to swallow: Confession and forgiveness. It means that we need to admit to God and one other person, how we have failed, how life has broken us, how we are not fine, unless fine stands for “Freaked out… Insecure… Neurotic… and Emotional,” as I once heard. When we confess to God and other person, we can accept forgiveness, which means we are loved by God, no matter what, which means we can be fully human, like our brother, Jesus.
Jesus knows our lonesome valley, maybe even better than we ever knew. He walked it long before we did, all the way to the cross, and came out the other side, up from the grave. Because he did, we can live with confidence that nothing in life and in death can separate us from the one who knows us through and through, and loves us still and all. He did it all to save us and strengthen us, so we can finish the song,
“You must go and stand your trial, you have to stand it by yourself,
O, nobody else can stand it for you, you have to stand it by yourself.”
Yet, since Jesus walked this lonesome valley, we are never alone, when we face our trials. He stands alongside of us, stands in our place, and supports us every step of the way.
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
