Some of you will be familiar in person, and others of course by reading books and seeing television, of the famous Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem, often called euphemistically, the Wailing Wall. It is a magnificent place! It is magnificent because it is the last vestige of the great Temple that was destroyed by the Romans in 17 AD. This very day is the last remaining part of what was the great legacy of the people of Israel. Here it is now, simply a wall, a big wall, surrounded with various archways and entranceways and steps. It is a place where to this day people take their prayers and place them in the cracks. For those who have been, it is often a memorable event. I even have had family members who have gone who have said that their life was forever changed after they had visited the Western Wall.
I think back to the time when I was there and, as a clergy person, I was able to go into not quite an inner sanctum, but into a covered place on the left of the wall, and in that covered place the rabbis and the scholars of The Torah would sit and they would pray. They would be reading The Talmud and they would be reading The Torah, and they would of course be bowing their heads and they would be moving with a meaning of the Scriptures. Some of them are involved even in translations to this day, and for hundreds of years, rabbis have sat next to the wall as a living reminder that God will someday do something great for them.
It is a fascinating place to be. You treat it with reverence. But then to my great surprise when I came out to the entrance way and into the great marketplace or court that you line up in to go to the wall, you see these very same rabbis now no longer being quiet and simply reflecting philosophically on The Torah, you see them gesticulating and arguing and debating and making gestures to one another, and getting quite steamed up over a passage. They are so excited that you get caught up and you wonder what it is that they could possibly be so excited about in the Scriptures. Somehow, I don’t think our congregation gets quite that animated about a passage of Scripture as these rabbis did. And my, did they argue and debate it!
It was part of who they are. It was part of their traditions. Its roots go right back to the Haggadic idea of debating passages of Scripture, and from that debate trying to discern what is the proper interpretation. There are so many interpretations, so many texts within The Torah that in fact there seems to be one for almost every rabbi that exists. It is great. You see the passion for it, and the back and forward, and the Scriptures live in the middle of this debate: They come alive, because they are important.
I think that the passage today from the Gospel of Matthew is very much like that rabbinic debate. It is a debate based on scripture: both the abuse of scripture and the right usage of scripture. It is almost as if Jesus is in an encounter that like a rabbinic argument is a back and forwards about what is the true meaning of Scripture, and in the light of that, the true meaning of his ministry.
The moment of the temptations is a powerful and an intimate moment for Jesus. We are not told by any of the Gospels precisely what went on. We do know how it began: it was initiated by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus was led out into the wilderness. There, in the wilderness he was tempted, but we don’t know any more in terms of what actually transpired, except Jesus’ own account of the event. The account is that Satan, the evil one, the tempter, whatever phrase you want to use, was enticing him to give up what would have been the very power of his ministry. He is being enticed and tempted to forfeit everything that would follow.
It is a seminal moment in Jesus’ life. Most of the Gospels record it between the baptism and the beginning of his ministry, between the moment when it was declared that he was the Son of God and then the moment that he gave the Sermon on the Mount. In this interregnum, in this period in-between, Jesus is tested. Everything is on the line. This is of great significance, so much so that Jesus had repeated it, and one of the sources had lent it out to other writers of the Gospels. What was at stake here for Jesus? Why was he being tempted?
There were three things that were tempting here, the first of which was material comfort. We read that Jesus had been in the wilderness for forty days, and that he was “famished” – that is the word that is used. He had been fasting. This is of course an allusion to Exodus 34 and the people wandering in the wilderness for forty years. Well, this is forty days that Jesus is in the wilderness and he is hungry and he is weak and he is tired. The Tempter comes up to him, as would I think anyone who would feign some sense of concern, and says, “If you are the Son of God, why don’t you just turn these stones here into bread and have it done with?” Do something to save yourself! Surely, that is the least you can do if you are the Son of God.
What does Jesus do? He responds from The Torah, from Deuteronomy. He turns to Chapter 8, verse 3: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus uses scripture to be able to challenge the temptation that is brought upon him, for Jesus knew that if he succumbed at this point that he would no longer be dependent on God. He would no longer have truly fasted as he wanted to do. It would have been a demonstration of ridiculous power just so he could have material comfort, and this was not the way Jesus’ ministry was going to be. He was not going to derail what he had to do by a demonstration of magic: of turning stones into bread.
I loved this morning when Katherine at the 9:15 am service had the children around, and she asks them a question: “What are you planning on giving up for Lent? You know, we fast and we give something up for Lent. The first answer by one of the boys was this: “Salad dressing!” Now, I don’t know about you, but salad dressing has never been high on the seduction list for me, and I doubt I am going to be giving that up this Lent. But, I just thought it was precious! His brother, who is a bit more pious, said “Chocolate.” But, by that time, we were already basically gone! Salad dressing!
Fasting is not a petty thing; fasting is a serious thing. Fasting is not just giving up something lightly; it is fasting for the sake of increasing your dependence on God. That is why this was serious for Jesus. Magic would have derailed his ministry.
The second thing that came his way was what I like to call religious power or religious influence. The Tempter comes to Jesus and then takes him to the Holy City, and this is of course a reference to Nehemiah and the Holy City is of course where the great Temple is. And, for those of you who know your Old Testament, Ezra and Nehemiah were two of the great prophets of the rebuilding of the Temple. So, the Tempter knew his scripture, and sent Jesus to this Holy City, and within the Holy City to the highest place in the Holy City, which was to the top of the Temple itself, where the Western Wall is now. He challenges him again, and he says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from this place.” And then, the Tempter quotes the Scriptures again: Psalm 91, “.....for He will send his angels to guard you.” In others words, Jesus, if you believe the scriptures, if you are truly the Son of God, why don’t you do what the Word of God says? Jesus goes back to The Torah, he goes back to Deuteronomy 6:16, “Do not tempt the Lord, your God.”
Jesus knew that such a demonstration of idiocy and folly – to throw himself down from the Temple even if he was to be saved – would simply be to mock the importance of his relationship with God. Damon So the excellent theologian at Oxford, says, “This is one of those great Trinitarian moments. The Spirit had led him into the wilderness, Jesus is confronted with the challenge of doing something absolutely silly, but he knows that his relationship with the Father is so important that he doesn’t do it – and he uses scripture to do it.” Of course, this prepared him for something else in life, mainly the Cross, for is it exactly the same sort of thing that Jesus was tempted with on the Cross: “If you are the Son of God, why don’t you just save yourself? Come down. Save yourself! But, Jesus had already gone through the temptations, he was ready. He had been through this one. He was ready for that one. Jesus knew that the shadow of the Cross was over this temptation, and he knew that if he succumbed everything would be over.
Then, the final one: political power. The Tempter tries one last thing. He takes him up to a mountain. We don’t know which mountain: it might have been Sinai, we don’t know. But from that mountain you could probably see many different nations, for it is a flat area and with a high terrain, and you can see for miles and miles – across the Jordan and up to Lebanon and across to Syria and down through Israel and Galilee. You can see a lot out there! This is where he was. Whether he was there metaphorically or actually, we don’t know, but he was offered all the kingdoms of the world – “they are all yours.” He doesn’t ask him this time if he is the Son of God, he just simply says, “If you worship me, you can have them all. They are all there for you.” What does Jesus do? He quotes The Torah, Deuteronomy 6:13, “You must worship the Lord, your God, and him alone.” No other God, but God! So, “No, I will not worship you, and no, I will not bow down, and you might offer me all these lands, but I am not going to succumb. My kingdom is not of this world.” The kingdom of God was to be established not through a short-cut to political power, but through a cross and suffering love. Jesus knew that if he went with this everything would be lost.
The great N. T. Wright, the New Testament scholar wrote this:
The Evangelists (the writers of the Gospel) knew that the battle for Jesus at this point of being successful in view of the witness by the fact that he did not adopt the Messianic styles, the culture and his own religious tradition offered him, but rather in the temptation the Messiah had to be strong. But, it was from the point of view of his mindset still a temptation. He had faced it and defeated it in principle, and had thereby confirmed the direction of the mission that he should undertake.
This was a huge moment. There are within these temptations profound lessons for those who follow. This was a moment for Jesus, by Jesus, about Jesus, that is clear! You and I are not being offered all the kingdoms of the world. We are not being offered and do not have the power of magic to turn stones into bread. You and I are never going to have the religious power to call on angels to save us if we throw ourselves off a building. No, those are Jesus moments!
Importantly, there are moments in here that teach us about the relationship between ourselves and God, and one of them is a profound warning. Whenever I look at these and I look at the Tempter, and I isolate what the Tempter says from everything that follows, the Tempter really seems quite benign. When you think about it, “Look Jesus, you are hungry, why don’t you just turn the stones into bread? I am concerned for you. You know, you are a religious man, you are the Son of God, why don’t you do something spectacular and maybe go on television and get some notoriety and look good and get some fame and fortune? Why not make a name for yourself? And, of course you can have political power; you can rise to the heights. You can become a great name.” It all sounds so benign and so benevolent and so kind. Yet, behind it all was an iron glove! Behind all this there was a profound threat. I sometimes think that the most benign things that we encounter in this life can be profoundly tempting because they seem benign, but in fact they have a seduction which can be dangerous.
I was talking to a ministerial colleague of mine this last week about the Olympics and how much we enjoyed them and that now we were into the Paralympics, notwithstanding all the politics around it. Of course, we were reminiscing about the gold medal men’s hockey game, although the women’s hockey game was much more interesting. There you go – I have said it publicly! Women’s hockey is better than men’s hockey in many ways! But, there was a moment, and it hadn’t really registered with me maybe because I was half watching it on my computer upstairs before worship here. It was the beginning of the game and Ron MacLean said something really interesting. And I’ll tell you this has got the buzz of ministers in the city, believe-you-me! Ron MacLean said: “I want to give our condolences to all the priests and ministers across the country who have got to go to work today. Oh, there are people meeting in bars, and of course there are people who are following on Twitter, and there are people who are sending texts. Of course, the first text that was ever written was the Bible! One way or the other, no matter where you are, the rink is Church for us!” So much for his condolences!
I thought about this, and I thought about how much those who were here enjoyed it, and how we made the most of it. Jean and I wore our Canada sweaters, and we sang the National Anthem, and we had updates on the score during the 9:15 service, but I thought “Oh my goodness, how many people genuinely believe the rink is the church for us?” Maybe it is a quip, and maybe Ron is a good man and he was just being humorous. But, behind that there is something else: there is the implication that one thing trumps another, no matter what.
I do not want to be a killjoy. Don’t misunderstand me. I enjoyed that day as much as any, but I do think that sometimes benign things come our way and in fact they are not as benign as they seem. We are sometimes tempted as a culture in our materialism and the allure of material things to see something that looks nice, but in fact can be very dangerous. Or, we can look at things in light of family that seem benign and great, but if they replace God and the worship of God then they become the idols that people worship. This is exactly what was offered to Jesus. He was offered those idols; he was offered that materialism; he was offered that power. But every time, he quoted Scripture: he quoted The Torah, “You shall worship the Lord your God alone.” “Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” and “Do not tempt the Lord, your God.”
There is a warning, but it is mainly good news this story. It is mainly a gift: Jesus did this for us. He suffered and was tempted for us. As I said in the passage from Corinthians last week: “He who has no sin took the form of sin for us.” This isn’t about him ultimately, it is about us. Christ took the suffering. Christ bore the cost. Christ gave of himself for us. So, it seems to me that one thing we can do this Lenten period is not give up something trivial and small as a gesture of something so magnanimous as that, but that we ourselves should take on something.
David, in his excellent message to the Xchange Service on Wednesday night, the beginning of Lent, made the point that if we, as Christians, only would take some time to read the Word, we would be inspired and amazed by it. For example, if there are eighty-nine chapters in the New Testament Gospels (eighty-nine chapters in the four Gospels), and you just read two a day throughout the whole of Lent, and then maybe three on a Sunday, between now and Easter you will have read the whole of the Gospel stories of the life of Jesus. Just two chapters a day! I challenge you to do that!
He challenged the Xchange, I challenge you. This is because I think the things that Scripture helps us do is to give us knowledge and an understanding and a relationship with God through God’s Word that enables us to handle the temptations of life. It is a great gift! And, if those rabbis outside The Wailing Wall took it so seriously and debated it so vehemently and loved it so passionately, why shouldn’t we? This is also a great blessing!
The thing I love about this story is how it begins and how it ends. It begins with Jesus being led into the desert by the Holy Spirit and it ends with Jesus being cared for by the angels, by being supported and encouraged. Oftentimes, I think one of the great challenges of life is that we are offered false promises. The thing about Satan and Jesus was that the things that Satan promised him he couldn’t deliver: he never had control of all the nations of the earth, for the earth says the Scriptures belong to the Lord, so who was he to give them away to Jesus in the first place? It was a complete, phoney, empty promise.
So many of the promises that are made to us are empty! I read this, and I think it is just great. It is called The Bonehead E-mail of the Day, and “the bonehead of the day” is part of a website that sends out e-mails about silly things that happen every day, and this is a true story of something that happened, and I think it sums up a lot of life. A U.S. company had an action figure that it called “Invisible Jim.” It was selling this very well to the British, who of course are so gullible. Why is it called Invisible Jim, asked the e-mail, because all you get is the packaging and there is no Jim? On the box it says there is a lack of darting eyes, realistic fake hair as not seen on television, and a camouflage suit sold separately. Here’s the irony: the company that has been selling these boxes with nothing in them have thus far received no complaints from their customers about getting an empty box, because they thought they might be surprised, and because it was a risk. It was $2.80/L1.50. It was worth it! And, there was absolutely nothing there!
You see, so often we are tempted and seduced by things that aren’t. Jesus was comforted by things that are. He went into the wilderness, and then at the end of it all, after he had gone through all of that, the angels ministered to him. The angels embraced him and cared for him. He was in God’s hands all along. When you face temptations in your life, and you will, and when you are seduced by empty things, which you will be, and when you are made false promises, which assuredly you will receive, and when you are consumed with your own desire for pleasure, and when you feel that you want all power and even a particular religious high, and you want all those things, just remember they pale to Jesus, who went through them, and in the end the angels ministered to him. It seems to me that in the end the victory is his. Amen.