First Sunday of Lent

Genesis 2.15-17; Romans 5.12-19; Matthew 4.1-11

The reading about Jesus' time in the wilderness is the one that, more than others seems to set the tone for this season of Lent. Just as Jesus is sent out into the desert to reflect upon His relationship with God for that forty days and nights, so we use this season to reflect upon our relationship with God too.

Much has been made of Jesus' temptation, His time of trial in the desert, in the commentaries that we read. And I've used this in different ways myself over the years as I've spoken about how we can reflect upon our lives during Lent. But when we really look at this passage we can see, I think that above all it's about faith and Jesus' faith in particular, Jesus' own faith in God, His Father. The passage begins something like the way the book of Job begins where we hear God and the devil making a sort of agreement about Job's trial. God says to the devil that he can do anything he likes to Job except take his life. Here in Matthew's gospel, that alliance, if you can call it an alliance between God and the devil isn't so explicit but we read, nevertheless that 'Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.' I expect that we can only get the real sense of what that sentence means if we read it in the original language in which it was written.

But I can't do that, so I'm left with what we have in English. It sounds like an unholy alliance between God and the devil. But if I was to think of a contemporary parallel I'm sure that we've often put out that prayer, 'God, why have you done this to me?' or 'God, why have you let this happen to me?' Because there are those times when even though we firmly believe in God, those times of trial and tribulation come along where it feels like we are in the grip of evil. And isn't this what we are reading about here in Jesus' life? Or at least something like that? In those times of difficulty, our faith is tested and that's what's happening to Jesus here.

Jesus is tempted through his personal need for whatever it is that keeps him alive in very basic ways. Without food, He's thrown back onto His dependance upon God. It's from God that His life comes and it's by God that His life is sustained. So it is with us. We fast in Lent for the sole purpose of bringing that fact home to us. The food we have comes from creation which is sustained by God alone. And so we live not on food alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, as Jesus says. That word is the creative word of God that sustains creation for our benefit. And we live every day in faith that we will be provided for.

How often, when we've been in a sticky situation, have we asked of God, just do this one thing for me and I'll believe in you, or I'll keep my promise to you? So often we live our lives with God on the basis that He's got to prove Himself to us if we are to maintain any sort of belief in Him. Always we are wanting the signs from Him that He's with us, or on our side, or even simply exists at all. And that's not faith. It's an insult to God. And the devil tried that one with Jesus. How much did Jesus believe in God? How could He prove that His belief was sound? But Jesus recognised that to test God is a lack of faith and again He says to the devil 'it is written do not put the Lord your God to the test'.

And then thirdly, there's so much more in the world that we could put in God's place, so many more idols to worship in God's place. And especially idols of power and authority. Always, every day we are tempted to be drawn away from God to put our trust in, to put our faith in anything and anyone other than God. And eventually to forget God altogether as we find our fulfilment, meaning and purpose in worldly things. And we believe the lie that those things are what matter ultimately, the lie that the end of all things and the purpose of all things is this world, when in actual fact it's the kingdom of God that we are to seek first. And we do that only by worshipping the King of kings, and nobody else.

St. Matthew tells us that in all of these ways, during this time, Jesus was tested. He was pushed to put the whole of His trust, the whole of His faith in His Father, in the one God, and in nothing and nobody else. And He passed the test, for the time being. And it was so important that this testing came before His ministry began. Notice that the testing came immediately after His baptism, after the Holy Spirit came upon Him and after God spoke to Him. It was only after those great signs of assurance that God was with Him that His faith in He'd seen and heard was tested. And so it is for us too. People are carried away with the idea that being a follower of Christ is the solution to all one's problems; and in a way it is; but not in the way we might think. If we follow Christ, we tread the path He trod which was one of continual testing of His faith, whether it be in His day to day dealings with the people He met with, or when faced with His own death. And so it is for us too.

The question we have to ask ourselves and we can do especially in Lent is, how does our faith stand up to the test; remembering that Jesus said faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains?