Romans 10: 8-13

⁸ But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: ⁹ If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. ¹¹ As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, ¹³ for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

 Luke 4: 1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, ² where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

³ The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

⁴ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

⁵ The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶ And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendour; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. ⁷ If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

⁸ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

⁹ The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. ¹⁰ For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;¹¹ they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

¹² Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

¹³ When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

 Whenever I hear today’s Gospel, my mind goes back to events 27 years ago. Back when Pam and I were ministering in Jakarta we had a visit from our Bishop Moses Tay from Singapore. Our church services were held in a school hall. Before the service the Bishop and I were looking at the large, standing, wooden cross we put up against the wall to remind people that for the coming hour the hall was our church. Bishop Moses pointed to the two portraits hanging on the wall either side of the cross. It was President Suharto and Vice President Sutrisno. As a Singaporean, he had little time for these two corrupt rogues, who even while Indonesia was in dire economic circumstances were still lining their pockets. He smiled, “Look Andrew, Christ crucified between the two thieves!”

By early 1998, Suharto’s popularity had plummeted like the Indonesian rupiah which had dropped to 1/6^th of its value in six months. There was growing unrest of seismic proportions. Soon protests and riots culminated in Suharto’s resignation and the end of the thirty-year dictatorship. What expats like me had found most appalling about Suharto was the nepotism. Nepotism is less frowned upon in a culture like Indonesia where family comes first. However, Suharto had lifted it to obscene proportions. He gave his children numerous monopolies over commodities, shipping, toll-roads etc etc. They had obscenely exorbitant lifestyles. They also had immunity from prosecution when they arranged the murders of judges, activists, journalists and other such annoying people.

So, there I was in Jakarta on preparing a sermon for the first Sunday of Lent 1998, on exactly the same Gospel reading as we have just heard. With Indonesia’s political and economic crisis swirling around I contemplated the temptations of Jesus, and a light suddenly came on! Jesus was confronted with the temptations of power and privilege that only come to someone who is eminently well-connected.

At his baptism Jesus was confirmed as the Son of God, a title for the ancient Kings of Israel starting with David. So, when the Spirit drove him into the wilderness that was the issue he had to struggle with: “What did it mean to be the Son of God?” How he answered that question would determine the shape of his public ministry that he was just about to embark on.

Was being the Beloved Son of God an opportunity to personally enrich himself?  The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Was being the Beloved Son of God a licence to be above the law because he was a protected species? The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully…”.

Was being the Beloved Son of God the opportunity to seize power for himself? The devil showed him the kingdoms of the world and said, “I will give you all their authority and splendour; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Throughout history these three temptations Jesus faced have always confronted the children of the powerful. Human nature doesn’t change. You only have to read the news for stories of the the conflicts within the families of dictators, media magnates and mining billionaires.

Take careful note of how Jesus answers the devil. Each time he quotes from the same book of the Bible, one that Christians seldom read. It’s the Book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Hebrew Scriptures. Why Deuteronomy? Here’s the clue: Deuteronomy is the sermon Moses preached to the Israelites at the end of their Forty Years of Testing in the Wilderness in which he summarises the lessons God taught his people. These were the hard-learned lessons of the forty years in the wilderness after he had brought them through the waters of the Red Sea. (Do you see the parallels?! After passing through the waters of baptism Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness. The Israelites needed forty years because they regularly rebelled and disobeyed God. By contrast Jesus only needed forty days because he submitted and obeyed his Father).

Let’s look at Jesus’s responses to the devil:

To the devil’s temptation to make himself wealthy Jesus replied, “Man does not live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”. In other words, “Real life and satisfaction is not found in acquiring wealth but in obeying God.”

To the devil’s temptation to take advantage of being a protected species, Jesus replied “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  In other words, “You must obey God and not just appeal to him when you mess things up, like he’s a “get of jail free “card”.

To the devil’s temptation of insatiable lust for power at any cost, Jesus replied, “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only…” in other words, “Power must be exercised responsibly recognising it ultimately derives from God to whom we are answerable.”

Two takeaways from this story:

1. Led by the Spirit Jesus set apart a big chunk of time to sort out his values and motivations at the commencement of his hectic couple of years of ministry. Life can get hectic for us too. Sometimes it is by choice like when we embark on a career or parenthood. Let’s take a leaf out of Jesus’ book about being prepared. One way to put it is before we dive into a brand-new situation with lots of unknowns we should set our moral compasses. Another way to put it is before we go into a challenging situation, we need to check our equipment and know the plan. Like Jesus we need to make time for some sober self-examination, especially where we sort out our values and priorities BEFORE we are launched into a hectic time when we might have to react quickly and make on the run judgements. Let me repeat: Like Jesus we need to make time for some sober self-examination, to sort out our values and priorities BEFORE we are launched into a hectic time when we might have to react quickly and make snap judgements.
2. Let’s take on board the guiding principle, Jesus clarified in his forty days of testing. The privilege of being God’s beloved child bestows on us the responsibility to obey our Father. Jesus, our Big Brother, is our role model of what it means to be God’s child. The forty days of Lent are not legislated in the Bible. But they are time honoured as a season that can be helpful in our growth to maturity as God’s children. Remember that church seasons are a servant not a master. Here’s my three-part Lenten challenge:

i. Give up a comfort food or drink just as a message to your appetites that they are not in the driver’s seat,

ii Give up a bad habit (Can’t think of one? Ask your spouse, sibling, child or friend),

iii.  Take up a good habit (something that shows kindness to others).

And in all this don’t lose the purpose of it all which is to grow in maturity as God’s dear child.

Amen