Forty Days

This sermon was heard on the First Sunday in Lent, February 10, 2008, at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas.

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

I love anniversaries. By the liturgical calendar, three years ago today I preached in Eureka Springs for the Pastor Nominating Committee. Marie was a member of that committee. Mark and Judy Mallett hosted Marie and me as we began to learn about the county, the community, and the church. The tour of the church took us here, right here. I remember the first time that I saw this wonderful fresco behind me, this beautiful pastoral image of “Jesus as the Good Shepherd” and one thought went through my mind, “This looks nothing like the Jesus we read about this Sunday.”

As I read this passage, a different image of Jesus came to mind, an image of Jesus like the one found in the 1999 movie known in the U.S. as “Jesus.”[1] You might remember it. It was shown on CBS in the summer of 2000. This movie’s representation of today’s gospel reading sticks in my mind.

One of the traditional ways this piece is interpreted has a smarmy devil offering Jesus fabulous temptations. And Jesus stands confidently against a cowering Satan. There is a glow around him with a light wind to blow Jesus’ silky hair gently. Satan is blinded by the light of Jesus, shining brighter than the sun, a brightness like we read about last week in the Transfiguration, and the accuser is sent away without his prize.

Matthew’s gospel says that after Jesus was baptized he fasted in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. Imagine forty days in the Judean wilderness. The heat of the day comes with no protection from the sun; and at night, chilling breezes blow across the plain. In a desert climate forty and fifty degree temperature swings are not uncommon. High temperatures can be well over 100, and low temperatures below 60. Day time winds blow like a convection oven and at night the wind is bone chilling. If you have ever spent any time on the high plains or in the Texas panhandle in the summer you know what this is like.

So instead of the immaculate Jesus, the movie imagines something completely different. Jesus looks absolutely haggard. He looks like he has fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. He is disheveled; his hair is wild and sun-bleached; dusty and gray. His clothes are torn and tattered and wind-blown. Most striking is his skin; parched and chapped; sun and wind burned. There are pieces of dead, peeling flesh hanging from his face and arms; just like viciously sunburned skin does. Jesus is obviously in physical agony from his time in the wilderness.

Jesus is distressed. He is in pain. He is thirsty. And as scripture says, he is famished. This is the man the tempter finds just forty days after his baptism.

As with any tempter, the devil attacks at the greatest weakness. Jesus’ first and most obvious weak point is his hunger, so this becomes the first temptation. “If you are the Son of God command these stones to become bread.” This would surely end his physical hunger, but hunger is more than just physical.[2] There is a spiritual hunger which also must be fed. So when Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus shows that he knows that the bread of life is spiritual more than it is physical.

In the second temptation, Jesus is asked to test the word and the will of God and see if it is true. “He will command his angels concerning you,” Satan uses Psalm 91 to tempt Jesus. Test God, you will not be injured. “The angels will lift you up by their own hands.” But Jesus answers with Deuteronomy 6:16, “do not put the Lord to test.” After all, what is faith if it is not based in trust? While this test would easily confirm the faithfulness of God, it betrays faith in God.

The final temptation, the one which is the most attractive, follows immediately. The splendor of our world is presented to Jesus. Satan, the prince of this world,[3] offers dominion over this principality to Jesus, if only he worship him. But with Deuteronomy 6:13, Jesus sends Satan away, “worship the Lord your God and serve God alone.” What is gained if Jesus were to have the world, but have to worship the one who seeks to destroy the world’s relationship with its creator?

If we want to take the immaculate view of Jesus, the Jesus with clear supple skin and perfectly coiffed hair, then we can simply say that Jesus knew better. There would never be any doubt, that Jesus would not be tempted. After all, Jesus had heard just forty days ago “this is my son, whom I love.” Jesus is God, there is no way he could be tempted.

But this is not the Jesus who we see after forty days and nights in the wilderness. The Jesus in Matthew’s gospel is one who is worn, and tired, and injured by the ordeal of the fast in the wilderness. The Jesus we are shown is a man, a human being who is physically weakened by this experience. This is the perfect time to tempt anybody, including Jesus. As Jesus is being physically devastated by the fast, the fast spiritually sharpens him. This Jesus is ready for the test that comes and he dispatches his inquisitor. The tempter leaves and the angels came ministering to Jesus.

So, why bring this up? Because Matthew’s presentation of Jesus is far more human than the Jesus we are used to. We testify our Lord Jesus is fully human and fully divine, but we tend to forget what being fully human means. This is a Jesus who faces physical struggle and then temptation just as we do. A super-human Jesus, one that is more divine than human, is not the Jesus Matthew presents.

I bring this up to remind us that on this, the first Sunday of Lent, we too enter the wilderness. Almost forty days ago we celebrated Epiphany and after forty more days we celebrate Holy Week.[4] We have celebrated the Baptism of the Lord, the Annunciation and the Transfiguration. We will mourn the loss of Jesus at the crucifixion, and we will rejoice in the risen Lord at his resurrection. But until then we wait and we prepare, just as Jesus did in the wilderness two thousand years ago. We prepare because even Jesus had to prepare; even God incarnate had to go off and prepare for the work ahead, beginning with these temptations.

Hebrews reminds us that our Lord was tempted just as we are.[5] Ordinarily we blaze past this; going right to the next part of the verse, “yet is without sin” because it is this God without sin whom we know and trust. But let’s stop and remember that Jesus is also fully human and was tempted just as we are. We have a messiah who is not only our Lord who walked upon this earth, but a human being; someone who has fully shared our condition more perfectly than we ever could. The Son of the Almighty was tempted by some of the most powerful things imaginable, the same temptations we face daily.

And still, as Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans, by the obedience of Jesus the humanity will be made righteous. Jesus was tempted, but by his obedience to the Word of God he did not succumb to the temptations of this world. He stayed the course toward life eternal.

So the question remains, if Jesus can be tempted just as we are, how can we overcome these temptations? By relying on our relationship with the fully human and fully divine Jesus Christ and by relying on what and whom he trusted. By the Word and Person of God we will be made righteous through prayer and fast and preparation, the very things Jesus himself did to prepare himself for his ministry.

The scandal of Jesus is not that he was tempted; the scandal of Jesus is the incarnation. God became human and walked among us. Ancient tradition says that the goal of the devil’s activity is our destruction and alienation from God.[6] The purpose of Satan’s temptations is two-fold: to form a chasm between the divinity of Jesus and his father, and between the humanity of Jesus and us.

We are constantly bombarded with temptations which overwhelm our senses and appeal to our baser instincts. Jesus is tested with spiritual and physical enticements. He was tempted to forsake the word and test God. He was offered the world in all its splendor and glory if only he would bow down and worship the one who would give it to him, his enemy.

Jesus could have performed the miracles Satan encouraged; and does perform them in due time. He feeds the multitudes, walks on water, and is given dominion over creation at the right hand of God when it glorifies God, not when it glorifies anyone else. Instead, Jesus relies on the relationship he has with the God he calls Father. He does not engage in miraculous acts for his own benefit. He does what he sees the father doing. He does not form an alliance with the one who taunts him; he relies on his relationship with God.

And in the end, in the glory of the resurrection, Jesus lives forever without spiritual or physical hunger. He is now the subject and the object of our faith. He is the ruler of the world in all its splendor and all its glory. Everything that he was tempted with is now in his hands; freely given by God to him, as it is freely offered by Jesus to us. Again, I get ahead of myself; we celebrate these things in forty days.

[1] Beta Pictures presents, “Jesus.” Directed by Roger Young, written by Suzette Couture, Released 1999.
[2] Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. VI, page 19.
[3] TDNT, Vol. II, page 79.
[4] Epiphany was 35 days ago, Baptism Sunday was 28 days ago, Easter is in 42 days.
[5] Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
[6] TDNT, Vol. II, page 79.