Speak of the Devil

Luke 4:1-13

February 25, 2007

I. We’ve promised a series of sermons on temptation during lent. This morning’s text connects temptation with the devil. Seems like a good start.

We’ve all had direct experience with temptation. Temptation is what happens when our desire or inclination or preference is at odds with what we think is right, appropriate, or wise.

So if you do not experience temptation that means that your desires, inclinations, or preferences are always in line with what is right appropriate or wise.

That could be because your desires, inclinations, and preferences are always in harmony with what is right, appropriate and wise. Or you have no sense of what is right, appropriate or wise and just do whatever you feel like doing.

To experience temptation is to be in touch with right and wrong. It seems to me that our goal may be to have our desires, inclinations, and preferences lined up with what is right appropriate and wise, but most of us are not exactly there yet.

Paradoxically, the more refined our moral sensibility and self-discipline, the more we may experience temptation.

Mark Twain famously said best way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. If we yield to a temptation, it disappears. But if we resist temptation, it remains. Either you wear the temptation down or the temptation wears you down.

So the saint has the greatest experience of temptation, since the saint resists temptation longest, and experiences it until it goes away. The sinner collapses right away and thereby limits his or her experience of temptation.

So we can imagine that Jesus knew temptation very well. If Jesus was tempted it must have been a very strong temptation indeed, since we can also imagine that Jesus’ preferences were well in line with what is wise, appropriate, or right.

Three times in our passage the devil tempts Jesus. Three times Jesus resists the temptation.

In our story this morning, the devil is the tempter. The devil is not always portrayed in this light as tempter. The devil is originally conceived of as the accuser.

II. Tell you the devil’s story. Not really a Biblical story. Satan has only a minimal role in the Old Testament. Developed in folklore parallel, alongside, the Bible.

New Testament picks up this folklore and experience and incorporates into the Jesus story.

So we don’t know Satan’s story from the Bible, we’re left to our imagination and our reasoning from the little bits of material we do have.

So here’s a theory about the devil that takes the form of a story. A kind of fable or myth that tries to say something about God and something about humanity and something about the ways in which God deals with us.

The devil, Satan, began his career as an angel in the heavenly court. Satan was a very important angel. He was the accuser. A kind of heavenly district attorney. The Hamilton Burger character of heaven, if you remember Perry Mason.

If there was a disagreement or allegation of wrongdoing among the angels Satan was the prosecutor.

Understand. This was not because God needed a trial to know what was going on and who had overstepped the bounds. But for the benefit of the other angels, there was a procedure so that all could witness a process by which God’s fairness was revealed.

Satan was very good at this job. He wanted to be liked and he wanted to impress all the other angels and God. Drove him to try to do his job better and better.

However, there was a problem in all this. The problem for Satan was that angel life was didn’t make for many disagreements or wrongdoing. Not much motivation for crime in heaven – pretty much all the needs and wants one might have were provided for.

Satan began to see that his career was going nowhere. So he began to engineer situations in which there would be disagreements and bad feelings. He would spread gossip. Tell one angel that another angel had spoken against him. He created animosity and suspicion.

But even so, since angels are so close to God, there wasn’t too much he could do.

But just about that time, God decided to create human beings. And that’s when the real trouble started.

Once God created human beings, THEY began to take up more and more of God’s attention. This annoyed Satan a lot! He liked to be the center of attention. He liked to be the star of the show. Satan absolutely could not stand that lower creatures – mere humans – would be so beloved of God.

So Satan decided to prove to God that these creatures were not even worthy of God’s attention, let alone God’s love.

Through temptation, the devil used the weakness of Adam and Eve. He proved to God that they would disobey God’s rules given the right circumstances.

Now this caused God much anguish. But God did not stop loving this man and woman he had created.

Perhaps the worst thing about seducing Adam and Eve with the temptation to disobey God was that it created a barrier of guilt that began to stand between the two humans and their creator. As the story in the Bible goes, after they realized that they had disobeyed God they tried to hide from God. They found it hard to be with God comfortably.

Satan could not understand how God could continue to care for the human beings. Why didn’t this convince God that humans were unworthy of God’s love?

Satan couldn’t understand why this didn’t elevate his standing in God’s eyes as he revealed the deep flaw in Adam and Eve by his temptation?

The quick answer is that Satan did not understand love. And the more this lack of understanding became obvious, the wider the chasm between God and Satan became.

Satan could not admit he was wrong in setting up temptations – he thought he was revealing the terrible truth that had been concealed. God needed to know how terrible and disobedient these humans could be.

The gulf between Satan and God grew wider and wider. Some angels took Satan’s side. To this day Satan keeps trying to make his point by arranging temptations – some of which we fall into. Satan keeps trying to convince God that it is a mistake to love us and care for us.

So, you see, Satan is involved in an argument with God – and to prove his point, he tempts us.

He tries to estrange us from God – by wrongdoing, by the guilt that follows, by making us want to retreat from the love of God, Satan is hard at work.

III. But the fact of the matter is that Satan is not proving anything to God. God knows that each of us, all of us, are able to be tempted if the stakes are high enough.

Each of us has his or her own limits. Some higher. Some lower. Different realms of temptation cause different ones of us different troubles. Some of us are tempted by wealth, but not by food. Some by sex, but not by power. There is great variety to our vulnerabilities.

Some of us can be tempted to do the wrong thing to keep some evil from happening to ourselves or those we hold dear.

Just luck or the grace of God when the level or situation in which we would succumb to temptation is not reached.

This is a crucial point to realize. This is a central truth. Especially when we want to criticize someone else or accuse someone else. There is some point at which we, too, would succumb to temptation.

It is tempting to take the role of Satan and take some pleasure at seeing someone fall to temptation and forget that we are by no means immune.

IV. Our Gospel lesson this morning tells us, however, that Jesus has won a victory in at least a skirmish with Satan. Our lesson does indicate that Satan is crafty, sly, wily.

Satan quotes Scripture. Quotes from this morning’s psalm. It reminds us that we ought to beware of those who give us a quick and easy answer out of the Bible.

Our Lesson tells us this morning that Satan makes promises that he cannot keep: It is not up to Satan to give Jesus all the earth.

But more fundamentally, we learn this morning that Jesus is able to resist temptation.

We might think that it is easy for Jesus to resist temptation. After all, he was Jesus! But actually, just the opposite is the case.

Jesus was the Son of God. He was in a position of great power and responsibility, and therefore it was easier to go wrong.

If you’re entrusted with $1 million, you’re in more danger than if you’re entrusted with $.50.

Being the messiah in some ways makes Jesus more vulnerable to temptation, not less.

Satan offered Jesus the whole world for the small price of worship.

God offered Jesus the whole world for the price of going to the cross.

Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, but Jesus resisted and Satan departed from him for a time.

Because Jesus knows what it is to be tempted, his compassion and understanding reaches out to us in our weakness. Because he did not succumb to the temptation to abandon his mission, he is able to invite us into the merciful love of God revealed in the cross and resurrection, whether we have fallen to temptation or not.

Over the next several weeks of Lent we will consider temptation in a variety of arenas and circumstances.

May we be strengthened in our self-discipline and in our inclinations so that our preferences and our desires may increasingly come to reflect and embrace the goodness and wisdom of God and may we come to have the strength and courage to follow where Christ leads. Thanks be to God. Amen.