Our Three Temptations - And Christ's

The THREE TEMPTATIONS OF CHRIST - AND US

I am visiting dear friends in Prince George. Yesterday was the first Sunday in Lent and we attended mass at their neighbourhood Catholic church. Without going into detail I am pleased to share that the experience was a good one. I was certainly uplifted in general but then again, I was not challenged.

The main text was the story of Jesus going into the desert after his baptism where he was tempted three times: Firstly, to make bread from rocks; Secondly, to fling himself from the top of the temple wall in Jerusalem in the knowledge that God would save him, and Thirdly, that all the kingdoms of the world would be under his power if he would but worship the Devil.
The priest did a usual ho-hum talk about how we need to lead good lives of moderation and belief. He missed a great chance to proclaim God’s Word for our time.

Here we are, looking forward to the substance and centre of the Christian belief. Lent is the best chance to re-discover and claim for our own the message that has changed the lives of so many. In the hope of entering into the story for ourselves, that we might understand it, let’s take a closer look.

The setting of the text couldn’t be more clear. Jesus has just been baptized, making the first hard choice toward faithfulness. He has declared publically what he was leaving and to what he was going. Baptism then was a sign and symbol of repentance, of the decision to lead a new life that was directed to and by God’s challenging love and justice.

After this decision came a time of testing. This is always the way. The hardest steps are the first ones. The greatest temptations are met at the start of any journey. One never realizes the challenges of change until the first steps are taken. As it still is today, choosing to follow the way of God for Jesus went against the things and assumptions that popular knowledge held to be true. The three temptations of Christ were symbolized these three precisely.

What are the three things we wish for? Ask anyone, now or then. The answers are the same: wealth, fame and power. Isn’t this what we assume will make us happy? Isn’t that what the commercials tells us? Isn’t that the basis of our decisions regarding our vocations and future, our savings and career choices? Aren’t these three the objects of most of what rules our present society? There is no doubt. Although these three objectives may not have the same power in Jesus’ time, they were as real in their coercive tempting then as they are now.

Books could be written about each one, about how we rationalize our daily surrender to these temptations, as a culture, nation, church and as individuals. What could be wrong with wealth? Couldn’t we then use it for the cause of GOOD? Couldn’t my loved ones use some more stuff? And why not be famous? Wouldn’t that enable us to be more affective for GOOD? And of course we could use a little more power! We would be more affective in doing good for everybody/family/church/country/ (add what ever you want). What seductive arguments, each with just enough truth to seduce.

Jesus certainly became famous in his small place. He even had influence and power. But there is absolutely no doubt that he did not seek any of the three for their own sakes. They may have been granted him by others. But he always gave them away, the same as he gave wealth away. He reserved his harshest criticism for his followers who tried to increase their popularity and/or power.

He was not only spiritually wise, he was smart. He knew and tried to tell/show his followers how destructive, unhealthy and unloving a life would be if based on any of these desires. To be part of God, to claim ‘heirship’ as a child of God, to seek for growth, to become healthy, wise or happy, how ever we think of things, we must react to the temptations as did Jesus of Nazareth. We simply cannot change, cannot grow, cannot be happy, cannot help the world or others, unless we categorically reject wealth, fame and power.

And thereby, paradoxically, we will find true wealth, recognition and true power. This is not just pie-in-the-sky stuff, but real, identifiable, measurable and an irrefutable fact. But you have to ask the questions. You (we) have to recognize the dozens of ways we are tempted by assumptions and systems that surround us. Wouldn’t it be great if it were as easy for us as in the gospel story, to be led into the desert and to have the Devil tempt us, to have it over in a mere fourty days?. All we would have to do is say NO three times and that would be that. But no such luck. We have been blessed/cursed by living in a culture that has been so ruled by the forces of POWER, WEALTH AND FAME that we don’t even recognize them as temptations. For us they are merely the facts of life. We will always be tempted. We have to say NO many times.

In the Christian traditions we have six weeks to choose our baptisms as our own, again, to choose again to be faithful to God’s Call, to see clearly enough to recognize the tempting forces that will stop us right where we are if we let them. What a temptation, to continue as we are, seeking wealth, fame and power, and still believe in our spare time. We can root for Jesus and cheer him as he goes into his ministry. We can vote for him and urge him to go on to Jerusalem. We might even accompany him from time to time. But go in with him? No Way! We’ll be quite all right believing in Him and living in the “real” world.

If we don’t believe in any faith, we can do the same, remaining in the mainstream of our society but believing that there really is a better way, but not caring enough about ourself or anything else to stop long enough to take a better way seriously.

But in the doing, we’ll not grow, not learn, not risk, remain as unhappy and dissatisfied with life as ever. The world and all around us will get worse and so will we and our loved ones.
Don’t put it off another year. Let this Lent become a time you will never forget, the time you chose to take seriously what you have theoretically agreed with for so long. If you don’t care about Lent, think of it as a good thing to do as Spring approaches. A step toward new life. For just once, allow what you really know and believe to dictate what you do, how you live, how you spend, who you talk to, what you see and what you say. Start to live in love and not fear.