Test and trust

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

I am always fascinated by words and their meaning. Especially for Bible study, I pay attention to the meaning behind the words, because that’s how we interpret the passage we are studying. In today’s Gospel reading, some Bibles say Jesus was tempted, while others say he was tested.

What’s the difference? We may be tempted, while others put a test before us to see if we will pass it. In Scripture, a famous test was set up in Job. One day, some heavenly beings approached God and said, “Job is so perfect, you must have done something to protect him.” One of them, the accuser, called ha-satan the satan, says, “I think I can make him curse you.” And for 40 chapters, the accuser tries to make Job curse God. Job loses everything – family, house, livestock, everything, and he never curses God. The accuser sets up the test, to see if Job is tempted.

… We can read this passage in Luke, and in Matthew and Mark, the same way. The accuser sets up a test to see if Jesus will be tempted to choose the easy way, to self-gratification, or if he will follow God’s plan. By now, the satan in Job’s story is called the devil. The devil’s identity and role has shifted. He is no longer a heavenly being offering a challenge, but an evil being trying to get its own way.  

However, Jesus is not alone. Jesus has just been baptized, filled with the Holy Spirit and the Spirit goes with him into the wilderness. I imagine that the Spirit is a presence in the wilderness, but that Jesus, in his human form, must pass this test on his own. Otherwise, God’s experiment of becoming human fails as badly as an exploding SpaceX rocket.

Jesus is God, but he must live his life on earth as a human would. He feels pain and hunger and anger and joy just as any human does. Here in the wilderness, God allows the devil to put Jesus to the test. Can he resist the temptation to use his divine power to feed himself when he is hungry? Can he resist the temptation to claim all the power for himself, and abandon his connection to the divine? Can he resist the temptation to put his own life at risk, to prove he has divine powers?

In my opinion, this test wasn’t a one-off event where Jesus fasts for a week and then has to pass the hunger test; then in a couple weeks, he has to pass the power test; and after 35 days he has to pass the risky adventure test. No, I think this was a group of tests put before him every day, maybe all of them at once, or only one or two at a time. The devil kept at Jesus, time after time after time, to see if he would remain faithful to God’s purpose.

And I imagine that at times, in moments of weakness, Jesus was indeed tempted to give in. His human body needed food; his human ego wanted satisfaction. But, each time he was tempted, he recalled a passage from Scripture to resist the temptation.  In the end, after 40 days, the devil’s tests ended. But the devil would return, again and again. 

… We, too, can face tests, or are they temptations?! that are hard to resist. Last Wednesday, we named many of the ways in which we fail to live up to being perfect. We are sinners. Mostly, I think it can be hard to identify our sins. It’s Sunday and we are here in church. We try to not say God’s name in wrong ways. We don’t steal, or even think about it. We are faithful in our marriages. We tell the truth to our families, or as much truth as we think our families need to know. If we notice something our neighbor has and decide we want it, too, we go out and buy our own.

It’s the trickier stuff that catches us up. It’s the commandment about telling the truth and not telling lies about our neighbors that catches us most often these days. In this time of political divisiveness, it’s hard to think kind thoughts about some people. And it’s tempting to think and say bad stuff about THOSE folks. It’s even harder to pray for them.

This, perhaps, is the devil’s test for us today. How much hatred and disconnection can be caused by this divisiveness in the US, and around the world?

We are scared about the future, about our country, the economy, the world, our near and distant neighbors. We want a better world for ourselves and for those we love, and we disagree with each other on how best to make that happen.

It seems at times that we are so busy shouting answers and accusations at each other that there is no way to listen to what they have to say, much less what God might have to say about it. Let’s listen: What is God saying to the leaders and citizens of our nation? To the leaders and citizens of nations around the world? What is God saying to our local leaders about local concerns? 

Jesus has an answer for all these worries and concerns. Love God. Love others. “Oh, Jesus,” we want to say, “Do we have to?!”   

When conditions are such a muddle as we have today, it’s tempting to think we need to resolve the problems ourselves. We forget that God has been in the business of resolving problems for thousands of years. And the way to resolve them is to step back and trust God.

… There is evil in the world, and we all add to it with our response to it. When we think and say unkind things about others, it adds to the evil. Jesus called on God’s Holy Spirit to help him resist the tests the devil put before him:  Depend on God. Trust God and God’s plan.

My article in the Glorion, the church newsletter, suggested that we consider fasting from anxiety as one of our Lenten disciplines. What if we looked for positive ways to make necessary changes to combat evil? What if we spent more time looking for good news and sharing it than we spend denigrating each other and the other’s ideas? What if we passed along God’s love instead of the latest news about what some political leader or next door neighbor said or did to annoy us today? What if we looked every day for ways to trust God and love like Jesus? Amen