Today is the first Sunday of Lent and so, as always, our Gospel reading today is the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. And, as people who preach on this story usually do, I’m going to speak today about temptation, about how we can be faced with the same or similar temptations Christ was, and about how, unlike him, we can succumb to temptation and be led astray from the right path of life. But I’m going to try to look at these things in a slightly different way than perhaps we usually do.
The first temptation Jesus faced was to turn stones into bread. Of course that’s something we can’t do, we don’t have the power, but Jesus did. His answer to this temptation though was to say,
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”
And that calls to mind the full scripture quotation, written in the Book of Deuteronomy,
‘…man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.’
But as Christians we believe that Jesus is both word and bread. He is the ‘Word made flesh’, the incarnate Son of God. And he is the ‘Bread of Life’. Or, to put it in Jesus’ own words,
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
So in Jesus we have both bread and word. But what do we do with this wonderful gift from heaven? Do we see it as the means of life for the world, or do we use it for our own selfish purposes? Sadly, I think it’s far too often the latter. As we break the bread of life in church, we say,
“We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.
Though we are many we are one body, because we all share in one bread.”
We say this but we know that we’re not one. And what’s worse, we use both word and bread as weapons in our petty internecine arguments. We argue about the word and say that those who don’t agree with our version of the word are not part of the body.
We argue about holy orders, about whose ordination has been done properly and whose hasn’t. And if people don’t do it our way, we say that their bread isn’t the true bread, that it isn’t the body of Christ.
I hear these kinds of statements so often. Not too long ago an ex-Anglican I know who’s now been received into the Roman Catholic Church told me that his parish priest told him that he’d been wasting his time all the years he was an Anglican. Why? Do we proclaim a different Gospel to the Roman Catholic Church? Do we believe that someone other that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour?
We might not have the power to turn stones into bread, but we certainly do seem to have the power to turn bread into stones. We’re often tempted to do that, and we very often give in to that temptation. We turn bread into stones and then we pick up those stones and throw them at one another.
The second temptation Jesus faced was to turn his back on God and worship the devil in return for earthly power and glory.
That’s a temptation we know only too well because we’re surrounded by people who’ve done that. We live in an age when our society in general seems to have turned its back on God in favour or earthly riches, power and glory. A very selfish society in which the motto to live by seems to have become ‘What’s in it for me?’ We might like to think that we’re not like that. And to some extent at least, that’s true. At least we’re here in church worshipping the Lord and giving thanks for the good things he’s blessed us with, both the spiritual and the worldly. But still, if we’re honest, isn’t it true that we live in a kind of halfway house in which we follow Christ as long as that doesn’t become too hard for us in worldly terms? How many of us are really prepared to suffer any kind of economic or physical hardship for the sake of the Church, or our neighbour, let alone for an enemy? And yet we proclaim Jesus Christ,
‘… who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.’
not only as our Lord and Saviour but as the way, the truth and the life, and as our example.
Jesus was taken up to see all the kingdoms of the world and their power and glory, but we don’t have to be, we’re surrounded by it in our daily lives. We can see the world’s glory at home on our televisions, and wherever we are through the wonders of modern technology, through laptops, smart phones and the internet. Perhaps part of the problem is that, in being able to see so much so easily, we end up not being able to really see any further than the end of our noses. In the film Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee’s character is trying to explain something to his student and says,
“It’s like a finger pointing away to the Moon.”
The student looks at the finger, Lee slaps him on the head and says,
“Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory”
I think we can be so tempted by the finger, by what’s right in front of us that we can lose sight of all the heavenly glory that God has in store for us.
The final temptation Jesus faced was to put God to the test by throwing himself from the top of the temple, forcing God into acting to save him.
I don’t think any of us would be so stupid as to test God in this kind of way. I’m sure some of you will have seen the photographs of John Barber and myself on the scaffolding at the top of St Mark’s Bell tower. I certainly didn’t think to throw myself down in an attempt to prove to the people of Chadderton and Middleton Junction that God loves us, and they should all be in church on a Sunday. I’m pretty sure John didn’t either. I’m also pretty sure that if I had done, I would have landed with an almighty splat! And you’d now be looking for a new vicar. But we can and do put God to the test in other ways, and we do put him to the test, often.
On your way into church this morning, you may have noticed a picture of a man leaning on a shovel. The words on the picture say,
God is in control, but he doesn’t expect you to lean on a shovel and pray for a hole to appear. He asks you to dig a hole and trust that he’s shown you where to dig it.
And this is one way we put God to the test. We pray for something and expect God to give us what we want. Perhaps what we’d be far better doing in many cases is praying to God to show us how to deal with the problem we’re praying about. Rather than praying,
Father, please let someone leave us some money (or let us win the lottery) so we can keep this church open,
our prayer should be more along the lines of,
Father, help us to see how we can proclaim the Gospel in ways that will bring people to faith.
So we can put God to the test in the way we pray. But perhaps we put God to the test most often is in our attitude towards sin.
We are all sinners. But how many of us sin, know that we’re doing wrong at the time, but do it anyway and then think it’s OK, and that God will forgive us because it’s only a little sin and it’s not as bad as some things other people do? Perhaps we think that we’ll be forgiven because we come to church whereas so many other sinners don’t. But isn’t that just like throwing yourself off the top of the temple, or a bell tower trusting God to save us? Isn’t it the same as doing something stupidly dangerous thinking no harm will come to us because we believe in God? And thinking we can commit sins quite deliberately and get away with it is stupidly dangerous because when we do that we’re not just taking chances with our mortal lives but with our prospects of immortal life. We might believe that our sins are forgiven through the Cross of Christ, but Jesus said that only those who do the will of the Father will be saved and the Father’s will is not that we should put him to the test by expecting forgiveness and eternal life from him whilst being serial, unrepentant sinners.
There are so many ways we can be tempted to sin, and so many ways we can succumb to the temptation. We should always be aware of this, but Lent above any other is the time of the Church’s year when we’re called to think about these things. So let’s use these 40 days wisely, as a time to think about how we’re tempted, about what tempts us, and about how and why we succumb to temptation. And as a time for prayer too. Not simply for forgiveness and salvation, but for guidance so that we might have the wisdom and the strength to find sin less of a temptation and to be able to follow Christ’s example of resistance a little more closely.
Amen.
Propers for the 1st Sunday of Lent, 9th March 2025
Entrance Antiphon
When he calls on me, I will answer him;
I will deliver him and give him glory,
I will grant him length of days.
The Collect
Grant, almighty God,
through the yearly observances of holy Lent,
that we may grow in understanding of the riches hidden in Christ,
and by worthy conduct pursue their effects.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever
Amen.
The Readings
Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Psalm 91:1-2, 10-15
Romans 10:8-13
Luke 4:1-13
Prayer after communion
Renewed now with heavenly bread,
by which faith is nourished, hope increased,
and charity strengthened,
we pray, O Lord,
that we may learn to hunger for Christ,
the true and living Bread,
and strive to live by every word which proceeds from your mouth.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 