TEMPTATION TIMES
Genesis 9: 8-17; Mark 1: 12-15
Every Sunday we pray to God saying:
“And lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil.” Some have translated the last word as “the evil one,”
meaning the one who Jesus encounters in Mark’s gospel today: Satan. Verses 12
and 13 of chapter one tell us that the Spirit
immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty
days, tempted by Satan. Our youth just finished a 30 hour fast yesterday and it was difficult; Jesus was in a wilderness
for forty days of fasting! Forty days
to be tempted with food or power or with worldly thoughts that would have made
a weaker man give in. Jesus spent forty days in the hands of the master of
temptation. And remember, he was no seasoned veteran at the time: he had just
experienced his baptism with water and the Holy Spirit. His time with Satan
became his baptism by fire. What do you suppose Satan would have used as the
tools of his temptation trade? What would he think would seduce Jesus? What has
attracted you to fall of the track of
the straight and narrow over the years? Certainly most of the time you, like I,
have the strength and insight to see temptations for what they are and
lust, gluttony, greed, loth, wrath, envy … or pride?
Temptatation can
start out seeming to be harmless—like taking a second piece of pie—or blaming someone else for something you did. But temptation can escalate into something
out of control. We heard in Genesis and Mark that trials and temptations can
bring us to our knees. When we are tempted, it is God’s chance to see the fiber
of our will and the content of your being. It is God’s chance to see where God
will end up in the order of priorities for life. It will either be that God is
first, or somewhere farther down; and telling
God that Heaven comes in a close second in your life counts less than a hill… of… beans. It counts for nothing. “Thou
shalt have no other gods before me,” God dictated to Moses on
Lest any one of
us be tempted still to disregard those words as we journey in the wilderness of
Lent, never forget the day God was
tempted, the day when God almost gave in to temptation. In
the flood story, God put into place things that were not in place before.
God said to Noah, and as a reminder to himself: “When I bring clouds over the
earth and the rainbow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant which is
between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall
never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” Jesus said “no” to Satan three times; three
times in his physically weakened and famished state. What an example.
Temptation times. They come to everyone: Jesus; me; you;
even God. What you do with those
temptation times is what counts.
Jeffrey A.
Sumner
March 1, 2009