A Homily given by Fr. Ben Jones,
For St. George’s Anglican Church, Raleigh, NC;
On the First Sunday in Lent; A.D. 2010.
“Tested or Tempted??”
+ In the name of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of God the Holy Ghost, Amen.
St. Matthew 4:1.
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”
The temptation of Christ in the wilderness is a historical and a physical human occurrence and not merely a mental victory over His own thoughts or a dream as some revisionists would have us to believe. Historical evidence places a date and a location on the temptation of Christ. As well, the temptation of Christ was directed against Jesus’ human nature indicating an actual human experience. We learn that Jesus was hungry after fasting forty days and forty nights, again a human experience. At His Baptism, remember the heavens opening, remember the Spirit descending like a dove, and remember His Heavenly Father declaring Jesus to be the Son of God?? Jesus was prepared at His Baptism by His Heavenly Father for His ministry and for all of the temptations that He would face during His ministry, especially at this time in the wilderness. From our gospel lesson this morning, we learn that Jesus overcame the tempter. What does this mean for us??
God prepares us for temptation and for our ministry. Yes, you heard me correct. As Christians, we all have a ministry. God equips us to resist temptation. If we resist and turn away from temptation, we are strengthened in His love and grace. If we give in to temptation and become involved in sin, we find that we need to repent and be more Christ-like in His example set forth for us. Let’s look at temptation just a bit closer.
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”1 I am not sure that there is any other verse of Scripture at first glance that causes me as much confusion as this verse. I will illustrate with two words how my confusion becomes understanding, and subsequently how we can follow Jesus’ example set forth for us when He told Satan, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve”.2
The general Epistle of St. James sets the record straight. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.”3 Being clearly against His character, God is not the author of temptation, nor does God tempt us with evil. Temptations are very subtle. They appeal to our common motivations, our physical drives, our drive for possessions, and our pride; pride, the sin of all sins. Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are, but He did not sin. Jesus represents us before God as a “merciful and faithful High Priest” because He knows through His human nature what it is to endure temptation. Let us follow the two-fold examples of Jesus in His preparation for temptation.
The first example is that He was “physically and mentally prepared”. We are told Christ fasted forty days and forty nights. Being God in the flesh, He didn’t need to fast, but He did because the temptations were against His human nature. Jesus humbled Himself before His Heavenly Father by fasting and by prayer and by meditation. By this preparation of the physical and the mental, He responds to overcome the temptations of Satan with Scripture. By His example we entered our Lenten discipline a few days ago with fasting and with prayer and with meditation. Not only are we strengthening our personal relationship and our worship of the Lord our God and Him only, yet at the same time, we are through this “Penitential Season of Lent” renewing our preparation for temptation.
The second example is that Jesus was Spiritually prepared. Jesus did not willfully thrust Himself upon temptation, He was led up of the Spirit. The Spirit that descended upon Him like a dove made Him humble in the sight of His Heavenly Father and yet made Him bold in His resistance and responses to Satan. As well, we should follow Jesus’ example in being Spiritually prepared and Spiritually observant and not to give into temptation. When we face our trial of temptation, we double our strength. We have the Holy Spirit with us to guide us through any trial and we have the “Sword of Faith, the Word of God” to persevere through any trial. We CAN NOT rely upon ourselves. It just does not work. We can not shut God out. This tempts Satan to tempt us in that we have provoked God to leave us to ourselves. The results are always disastrous. ALWAYS!!
Earlier I mentioned two words that would illustrate how my confusion becomes understanding concerning the verse from our gospel lesson, “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”4 “Test and Tempt.” Are we “tested” or are we “tempted”?? There is an important difference between the concepts of these two words. God will and does “test” us. He places trials before us to keep our Spiritual preparedness in check. He wants to guide us through. He does not tempt us in the sense of enticing us to sin as we learned from St. James. We are “tempted” from our internal inclination or preference, our sinful nature, and from external sources, those forces that meet us in OUR wilderness. As we see in our gospel lesson, Jesus was “tested” by His Heavenly Father and was “tempted” by Satan. We learn from the example Jesus gives to us that we respond to these “tests or trials” by resisting temptation by our physical and mental preparedness and our Spiritual preparedness.
Where do we begin our preparedness in being physically and mentally prepared, and Spiritually prepared?? Right here, right here in God’s house, and right here at God’s Altar. We fill our hearts and souls with the life giving grace through the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ to give us our true desire to be free from sin and to achieve the reality of Everlasting Life. During this Penitential Season of Lent, pray to God for an “Holy Lent” in the disciplines of, but not limited to; self-denial through fasting and abstinence, in special almsgiving through the Lenten Mite Box project, in prayer, in reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word, in self-examination, and reconciliation through the Holy Sacrament of Penance. So what’s the end result??
A relationship. A relationship is the result, a very special life giving relationship with His Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ; that will never, never, never, be broken. St. John tells it best in his gospel account. “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them to me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.”5
AMEN.
+
“AND NOW UNTO GOD THE FATHER,
GOD THE SON, AND GOD THE HOLY GHOST;
BE ASCRIBED ALL MIGHT,
MAJESTY, POWER, AND DOMINION,
MOST JUSTLY DUE THIS DAY,
BOTH NOW, AND FOREVER,
WORLD WITHOUT END,
AMEN.”
1 The Gospel according to St. Matthew 4:1.
2 The Gospel according to St. Matthew 4:10.
3 General Epistle of James 1:13.
4 The Gospel according to St. Matthew 4:1.
5 The Gospel according to St. John 10:28-30.