February 18, 2024, The Vocabulary of Jesus: Temptation, Mark 1:12-13 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ February 18, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to the sermon, click the link above. The text is below.

Here we are on the first Sunday in Lent. We have 36 more days of Lent stretching out before us, not counting the 5 Sundays, which are little Easters, little islands of rest for us, as we make our way through this solemn season. For our Lenten teachings this year, I want to focus on some words that are really important for us during Lent – what I want to call “the vocabulary of Jesus.” They’re not going to be big theological terms like “propitiation” or “substitutionary atonement.” These are common words, words we use in church and out of church, but as we meet them in the Lenten gospel readings, I think we are going to find a much deeper understanding of them by reading them through the lens of Jesus’s life.

The first word in the vocabulary of Jesus that I want to look at today is the word “temptation.” That’s not a foreign word to any of us – we all know about temptation. In the gospel today, Mark writes, “Jesus was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” Mark, you may have noticed, is our laconic gospel writer. He tends to be a man of few words, so we have to look at the gospels of Matthew and Luke to find any details about these temptations of Jesus.

Matthew and Luke record the three temptations in a slightly different order, but the temptations are the same. Jesus was fasting; after 40 days his body would have reached the point of starvation, so the Tempter very reasonably began by attacking where Jesus was weak. “If you’re the Son of God,” the Tempter said, “take this rock and make yourself a loaf of bread.” And then the Tempter took him up – in a vision, or in the flesh, we don’t know – but he took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and he said, “If you’re the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, and prove it.” And then again, the Tempter somehow showed Jesus a vision of all the kingdoms of the world, in all their glory, all at once, and he said, “If you’re the Son of God, bow down to me and this is all yours right now – no suffering, no cross, no humiliation.”

We know the story. We know that Jesus withstood each and every temptation. We know that he blocked Satan’s every attack with the words of Scripture, so that in the end Satan beat a hasty retreat, going off somewhere to lick his wounds and nurse his grudges and just wait for a more opportune time to attack Jesus. We know that Jesus was victorious. We know that Jesus was always victorious, even over Satan’s final blow when Jesus was put to death on the Cross – and Jesus rose again.

But what does it mean that Jesus suffered these temptations? The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us this, “we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin.” We know that Jesus was wise, we know that he was compassionate, we know that he was faithful, but do we know that Jesus, who was a human being just like us, was also weak?

So, what were these temptations Jesus suffered? The first temptation – the one the Tempter hammered home, three times! was this, “IF you are the Son of God.” First and foremost, as a man, subject to every human weakness just like us, Jesus was tempted to doubt his relationship with the Father. Jesus was tempted three times to doubt his relationship with the Father. And that is the foundation of every one of these temptations. What if the Father doesn’t acknowledge me? What if I am not the person I think I am?” It’s impossible, really, I think, for us to imagine how painful, how agonizing, these doubts must have been. We know the story of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, how he wept before the Father, how he sweat drops of blood in his agony. But this moment, alone in the desert, faced with the loss of everything that mattered to him, this was preparation for that suffering.

All of the temptations that Jesus suffered were built on that one terrible fear.

If you are the Son of God, you don’t have wait for the Father to provide for you. Take it into your own hands. Turn this stone into bread – look, it even looks like a loaf of bread – and you can stop that gnawing pain in your belly this very moment.

If you are the Son of God, why don’t you make everybody see it, why don’t you force everyone to acknowledge it? Throw yourself down and watch the crowds go wild as his angels come and snatch you up to safety – well, if they really will.

If you are the Son of God, why should you have to wait to claim what is rightly yours? Look, it’s all in my hands; I can give it to you right now, no muss, no fuss – and best of all, no cross. Just kneel at my feet.

Do we really understand, do we really believe that our Lord Jesus, who was and is the eternal Son of God, suffered the agony of temptation and doubt? And if we do believe that, what does it mean for us?

The writer to the Hebrews tells us that that very thing is the basis of our confidence. “We have a great High Priest who has gone into the very presence of God—Jesus, the Son of God.” And she continues: “Our High Priest isn’t somebody who can’t feel sympathy for our weaknesses. Far from it – we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin.”

When we wrestle with temptation, when we are ashamed and horrified by the desires and fears and impulses of our heart and our mind, the experience of Jesus tells us, first of all, that temptation in and of itself is not sin. And more than, we should never forget that our great High Priest is also a man who knows exactly how it feels to be tempted. John wrote, in his gospel, that “Jesus didn’t need anyone to bear witness to him about what was in man, because he knew himself what was in the heart of man.” He often had divine insight, we know, into the thoughts and hearts of the people around him. But it was also true, we know, that as a man himself, he had first hand knowledge, knowledge that came from the depths of his own heart, of the doubts and fears and weaknesses that human beings suffered. He knew, because he himself also suffered them.

But he did not sin. And goodness knows that is not the case with us. Lent is a time for transparency, a time for honesty – a time for us to search our own hearts and to face up to our many failures. We are certainly fully human in our constant struggle with temptation – temptation to doubt the love of God, temptation to protect ourselves with a little falsehood now and then – temptation to overindulge ourselves when we know we shouldn’t – temptation to share a clever story that we know will do harm to someone else. If I listed all the possible temptations we’d be here until the second Sunday in Lent. But the bottom line is, we don’t always end up victorious. We do sin. We do give in to our doubts. We do choose to take matters into our own hands. We do choose to say the mean-spirited thing, or to do whatever it is that gives temptation yet another victory over us in that moment.

But whether we are victorious or whether we fail miserably, in every temptation we can do exactly what Jesus did in his battle with the Tempter in the wilderness; we can hold onto the promises of God. And God’s promise is absolutely clear: “Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great High Priest who stands in the very presence of God—Jesus, the Son of God. Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us have confidence, then, and let us boldly approach God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will always receive mercy, there we will always find grace to help us just when we need it.”

I want to suggest a practice you might find very helpful this Lent – and maybe beyond this Lent. Most of us, I think, begin the day with prayer or reading in a devotional. But it’s so easy for the day to end in a kind of sleepy blur of TV and puttering around to take the dog out and brush teeth and make sure the doors are locked. But a very useful and helpful practice is to set some time apart in the evening to make a review of your day. What struggles did I have with the Tempter today? What were my fears? When did I feel doubt? When did I struggle with some unhelpful desire? And when did I give in to temptation? I encourage you to try examining each day during this Lent, and then to bring it all, your fears and your doubts, your successes and your failures, to the throne of God, where there is always grace and mercy and help for you, because Jesus, your great High Priest, knows exactly what it is like to be weak and to suffer temptation, and he will never condemn or despise you for your weakness. He will always have grace to help you when you need it.