February 10, 2008
| Lent 1 , 2007 | Matthew 4:1-11 |
“PROMISES TO KEEP”
In his play “Green Pastures” – Marc Connelly has written a very moving scene where the Lord is looking over the parapets of heaven trying to decide what to do with the people on earth,
with all their selfishness and adultery,
wars and greed, killings and stealing,
lying, jealousies and pettinesses.
The angel Gabriel keeps asking the Lord WHOM He plans to send this time – after having sent so many prophets over so many centuries – to save the people on earth.
Without breaking his distant gaze, the Lord replies to Gabriel,
“I am not going to send anyone. This time I am going myself!”
Before God’s Son left heaven, I am sure there were planning sessions - - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - - discussing just how to go about it; how to rescue, redeem humanity.
And then, there was a leave-taking – a Bethlehem Birth for the Son of God beginning his life on earth. And 30 years later – there was a Baptism at the River Jordan - - the beginning of his mission to become our Savior.
And right at the start of that mission, the Devil comes after Jesus - - seeking to derail the Son of God.
And so - - on this First Sunday in Lent - - the Christian Church always turns to this Gospel Lesson telling of the Temptation of Jesus.
Jesus was tempted by the Devil himself - - and WON! Can we learn HOW we also can be VICTORS and NOT VICTIMS?
Now this story may be so familiar that it takes energy just to pay attention - - let alone find new meanings in it. But it is not just familiarity, that leaves one less than intrigued. It is that the whole setting is so far removed from your life and mine . . .
- - stones to bread! - - the Pinnacle of the Temple - - Devil and the Kingdoms of the world!
This is NOT the language of our time, and the images are NOT common on the street where I live.
Temptation is common enough, but these are NOT the images we use to describe our temptation experiences. WHY . . . SEX . . . is absent entirely from these Temptations!
Although the images of a horse and a snowy woods are NOT a whole lot better, I would like to share with you a poem by Robert Frost, as a different way of understanding this OH-SO-FAMILIAR story of Jesus’ temptations.
Many of you will remember it:
“Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
When we look beyond, or through, the imagery of stones to bread, the Pinnacle of the Temple,
the Devil and great kingdoms, it’s possible to see the temptations of Jesus as having to do, ultimately, with
- - PROMISES TO KEEP, and MILES TO GO BEFORE WE SLEEP.
- - Promises to Keep . . . that’s FAITHFULNESS!
- - Miles to Go before I Sleep . . . that’s DISCIPLESHIP!
I would like to remind you this morning that the coming of Jesus into our world was the RESULT of a PROMISE made centuries before - -
- - a PROMISE made by God to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden - -
- - repeated and enlarged to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - -
- - repeated and clarified still more to the children of Israel through one prophet
after another, generation after generation - -
. . . God speaking His PROMISES that He would send a Messiah
- to redeem Israel from all their sins,
- and to make of them a holy nation, the People of God.
According to the Angel’s announcement to the startled shepherds at Bethlehem,
Jesus came that night as the fulfillment of that PROMISE!
Now the scene shifts to the wilderness. The issue is whether Jesus will KEEP THE PROMISE.
If this drama is to have the ring of truth, there must be a choice: there must be alternatives to the keeping of the PROMISE, and that’s where the stones to bread, the Pinnacle of the Temple,
as well as the Kingdoms of the world, come in.
There were OTHER possibilities.
The FIRST TEMPTATION seems rather trivial, but that’s because most of us had breakfast this morning. If you had not eaten for 40 days - - the Biblical symbol for a long time, and a reminder of the 40 years wandering in the wilderness by the Israelites - - then the PROMISE of bread is not so trivial.
But you can’t keep both PROMISES.
You can’t keep your PROMISE to God - - and eat supper with the Devil.
S0 – there was a CHOICE to be made.
Jesus made that choice and stayed with the promise He had given His Father in heaven.
And so, His reply to Satan: “One does not live by bread alone” reaffirmed the spiritual mission He had come to earth to pursue - - to seek and to save those who were lost.
The SECOND TEMPTATION seems a bit amateurish on the part of the Devil with His invitation to Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the Temple . . . to TEST God. Would God intervene and save His only Son from broken bones and death on the Temple steps far below?
I think what the Devil is suggesting here to Jesus is that He see just how serious God is about His PROMISE to see Jesus through on His mission of saving the people of the world.
You know, we do that all the time. We say:
“If I come to Church, worship God, and pray my prayers, and give my offerings - -
and am good, . . . THEN my dreams will come true - - God’s Blessings will come to me - - health and wealth - - success!
So the Devil suggests that Jesus ask God for assurance.
“You have turned down a loaf of bread because, you say, you prefer to live by the PROMISES of God.
But how serious is God? Check Him out! Jump! WIN the People of Jerusalem by a JUMP, not by a CROSS.
But as everyone knows - - or at least those who have been in love know - - such testing of a relationship is destructive of love.
Think of all the girls who have been PROPOSITIONED by some eager fellow:
“Aw - - Come on! If you love me, you’ll DO IT!
But it is SHE primarily who has to live with the consequences . . . IF!
Therefore, the Son, the beloved Son, who has PROMISES TO KEEP, refuses.
Jesus’ answer: “Again it is written, ‘Do NOT put the Lord your God to the test.’”
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have PROMISES TO KEEP,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
The THIRD TEMPTATION - - very grand and very gross. The Devil lays it out:
- - Jesus, you have been promised a central place in the Kingdom of God - -
- - promised eternity and unimaginable glory,
- - all of heaven’s light and song, the fellowship and admiration of the angels as well as the saints.
But I offer you a CHOICE! I promise you . . . NOT glory in the sky “bye-and-bye.”
I promise you the good life RIGHT NOW - - everything that you can see and taste and touch and enjoy on earth: slaves, ships, gold, silver, palaces, legions of soldiers, wine, women, and song.
I make you an offer you can’t turn down. I promise you the whole earth.
Again, Jesus refuses to be de-railed from his mission of saving the world. He had made a promise. He had chosen a course to run. He would stay on it!
The eternal destiny of millions of us was hanging on His rejection of Satan’s temptation, and so Jesus quoted from the Old Testament:
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
Among the many promises we have made to God, which shall we keep? Promises we have
passionately made in the prayers that we have prayed - - especially those prayers we prayed when our
backs were against the wall, and we pleaded with God to hear us.
- promises we made on our Confirmation Day.
- promises we made at the Communion Altar rail - - or, PROMISES to a Bride . . a Groom.
- promises we made when we, perhaps, were very sick or down and almost defeated in life.
On this First Sunday in Lent, we, who have been raised in an age of relativism, are perhaps rather jolted by Jesus’ refusal to fudge, or compromise, or waver. This reminds me of the Bible’s “all-or-nothing” claim.
The FIRST COMMANDMENT is an illustration of this, as it comes across to us as an ABSOLUTE: “I am the Lord your God. You shall have NO other gods!”
And Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount holds to this “all-or-nothing” claim – as He insists:
“Strive FIRST for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.”
If we keep faith with God, all else will be added to us.
If we do NOT keep faith with God, the MESSAGE of this text is: nothing else really matters.
Remember what Jesus said,
What will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”
So - - the “all-or-nothing” claim of Biblical Christianity is before us, as we start the Season
of Lent - - and that is, that there is ONE PROMISE supremely worth keeping. It is the PROMISE that binds us to God for now and forever - - just as God’s son – our Savior – in the throes of temptation in that wilderness of long ago kept His PROMISE to God that He would be true - - stay on His course to become the Savior of the world . . . your Savior and mine!
And the Angel Gabriel inquired,
“Lord, whom are you going to send this time to save the people on earth?”
Without breaking His distant gaze, the Lord replied,
“I am not going to send anyone.
This time I am going myself!”
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.” AMEN!
PRAYER: O Lord, our God, where we have drifted into a
compromise with the world,
- loving its gods,
- admiring its ways,
- wanting its rewards:
take us into the solitude of some wilderness of your own making,
and there let us speak our YES to you!
For your glory – and the good of our eternal souls!
In the Name of Jesus who struggled and WON for us! AMEN!