Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent: A Time of Trial.

2 Corinthians 5: 17 - 21

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Matthew 4, 1-11

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting for forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’

4 Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the highest point of the temple. 6 ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written:

‘“He will command his angels concerning you,

    and they will lift you up in their hands,

    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”’

7 Jesus answered him, ‘It is also written: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. 9 ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’

10 Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”’

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

When we read a bible passage we do so with modern understanding and reference points. That's inevitable, but we can do some work to establish what the first readers might have thought. Take today's reading from Matthew 4, the Temptation of Christ.

This is a story loaded with symbolism, the clues that this is so are in the text, and in the resonances they have with previous biblical texts.

Jesus does not eat for forty days, which is humanly impossible. One could say that it is divinely possible, but I don’t think that's what is going on here.

Numbers in the bible are often symbolic, and the number ‘forty’ is one of the key symbolic numbers - it doesn't necessarily denote a numerical value, rather it denotes a period of spiritual testing.

We have the forty day flood in Genesis, and forty years of the Israelites wandering in the desert in Exodus. All times in which the biblical characters are put through a period of testing hardship.

In the story of the Temptation of Christ Matthew gathers up all this symbolism, and uses that weight of meaning to help explain what is going on in the story.

Jesus is the new ark in which we may find salvation, Jesus is the fulfilment of Moses leading the faithful to the promised land, and Jesus is being tested as Noah and Moses, and those with them, were tested.

For Matthew, and the first Christians, the life of Jesus seemed to demonstrate the ultimate iteration of repeating Old Testament patterns showing the hand of God at work.

Did Jesus fast? I would say, 'yes' – as it was his spiritual practice to do so. Was it forty days? It was forty biblical days, which may not be forty calendar days.

Next, this marvellous high place from where all the Kingdoms of the World can be seen, there are many mountain-top Old Testament passages this resonate with this, for example, God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on a mountain. God intervened, and provided a ram for the sacrifice instead.

On this high place, Satan is offering Jesus, who is the Son, a way out of being the sacrifice. He offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, but only if he will fall down and worship him. The mission of Jesus was to establish the Kingdom of God by his sacrifice, not to gain the Kingdom's of this World by avoiding that sacrifice. Jesus was the innocent ram to be sacrificed instead of guilty humanity.

So we come to the devil, the original Greek is ‘diabollos’ meaning ‘slanderer’, or ‘accuser’ or simply ‘liar.’ This is not temptation as we usually think of it, the Devil is not a purveyor of banned sensual delights so much as one who deceives in order to destroy.

This is a contest between Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life, and the devil, who is the slanderer, or liar. The Devil even quotes bible verses, but twists their meaning and context - it is the case that lies mostly show up disguised as truths.

One of Satan’s regular lies is that temptation is a prelude to pleasure, it is not, temptation is the deceptive sugar coating layered onto behaviours destructive both to ourselves, and to others.

Another of Satan's lies is that you are justified in your behaviour, or that the behaviour isn't actually wrong.

As St Jerome pithily put it, "Heretics are rarely celibate", meaning if we are motivated enough – we can justify just about anything to ourselves, if not to others.

When you are tempted, the key question is, 'are you being deceived?’ Is the liar, the diabollos, trying to sell you something shiny but destructive? Are you in danger of selling your soul?

By the way, Satan has no agency other than lies and deceit. The idea Satan directly causes events is a later invention, but neither Medieval superstition, nor Horror movies, count as biblical theology.

So to temptation, the New Testament Greek word is ‘peirasmos’ meaning – a trial, or a time of proving, as metals are proved in fire or truth is proved in a court room.

Imagine a court room, and you are in the dock. The devil is prosecuting, he wants you condemned. Thankfully you have a defence lawyer, the New Testament refers to the Holy Spirit as the ‘paraclete’, the advocate.

God is your judge, but the temptation is to judge yourself, to believe the Devil's lies that you are bad beyond redemption, and so condemn yourself, and turn away from God's mercy.

Hold on to the truth that in Christ there is salvation; he is the ark in which you may sail to dry ground, he is the route through the wilderness to the promised land, he is the sufficient sacrifice for sin, he withstood testing, even the bloody testing of the cross, and in his victory is our redemption.

2 Corinthians 5.17,

“...if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself...”

In story of the Temptation of Christ we may be puzzled by the detail of the symbolism, but we may also be puzzled by the bigger picture because we arrive at the text with a preconceived idea of what temptation and religion is about.

The commonly held idea is that religions issue a list of divine laws to be obeyed, or risk divine retribution, and that temptation is about resisting the urge to break these laws – which may anyway turn out not to be divine, but man-made.

Most religions do this, but not Christianity.

The foundation of Christianity is ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and…’love your neighbour as yourself.’

Doing good out of respect for religious rules is good, doing good out of love is better.

Christ-like love is a higher standard than any laws.

The idea that religions are about rules, and that temptation is about resisting the desire to break those rules, does not hold with Christianity.

Temptation, peirasmos, is a time of trial, a testing – not an enticement, or an allurement.

Be good because you have been forgiven, not because you are afraid.

Romans 8 says this, ‘...there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus…the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.’

In His testing is our salvation.

In Christ's victory we find our victory.

Amen.