Text: Mark 1:9-15                                                          

The First Sunday in Lent is traditionally associated with Jesus’ time of temptation or testing, which takes place “in the wilderness.” Just as God tested the people of Israel for forty years before they could enter the Promised Land, we are told that Jesus was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan. Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not tell us the nature of the temptation (or “test,” another possible reading of the text.) Also unlike Matthew and Luke, he describes the temptations as continuing throughout the forty days in the wilderness, not just at the end.

The short account (two verses) of Jesus’ wilderness time provides the bridge between two events of which we heard in recent weeks—his baptism, and the beginning of his ministry of proclaiming the kingdom. It is similar to the Israelites’ time in the wilderness, which bridges their “baptism” (the crossing of the sea), and the coming of their kingdom (the entry into the land.)

Both Old and New Testaments tell us that trials, testing and temptation are essential to the formation of God’s people for ministry. In this respect, it seems to me that Mark’s more general account of Jesus’ temptations can be more helpful for us than those by the other two evangelists, because it does not demand that we relate to temptations specific to the Son of God.

However we understand the word “Satan,” we can understand that Jesus experienced temptation, and that we too experience temptation. Specific temptations may differ, but the nature of temptation is the same for all humanity. The impulse to sin, to do what is opposed to God’s desires for us comes to everyone: it is one of the things makes us human. Yielding to temptation is likewise part of the human condition. So we frail beings are bidden to pray as Jesus taught us, “Lead us not into temptation.”

Led or not, somehow or other, all too often we find our way there, in the same condition that Jesus experienced in the wilderness—struggling with temptation. Commenting on today’s text, Professor Fred Craddock makes two profound observations about Jesus’ and our temptations:

First, temptation is real. As Craddock writes:

There is no need to protect Jesus by saying he only seemed to be tempted in order to set us an example. Anyone who pretends an experience in order to set an example is not setting an example. “We have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Nor should one rob the event of its reality on the assumption that temptation is weakness. We are not tempted to do what we cannot do but what we can. The testing is one of strength, and the stronger, the more capable, the greater one is, the greater the temptation.

Second, temptation is deceptive: he goes on to say:

Temptation is not obvious, definitely not a caricature: “Hi, I am Satan; I am here to tempt you.” The tempter often looks and sounds like a friend or relative. “Get behind me, Satan!” was not Jesus’ word to the local fiend but to his friend, Simon Peter. At the heart of the deception are offers not to fall but to rise. The tempter in Eden did not ask, “Do you wish to be as the devil?” but “Do you wish to be as God?” “If you are really the Son of God…,” says the voice in Jesus’ mind. There is nothing here of the debauchery often associated with temptation. No self-respecting Satan would approach a person with offers of personal, social and professional ruin. That is in the small print at the bottom of the temptation.

And there’s the rub—it is all too easy to mistake what’s on offer by simply accepting it at face value. Many people have found themselves in financial difficulty by failing to read or heed the fine print at the bottom of a credit card application. The offer sounds good, so why not sign on the dotted line? As the saying goes, if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

The same is true spiritually. What sounds good and appealing and oh! so tempting can have unsuspected dangers. Every journey begins with a single step, which on its own may be totally innocuous, but which may ultimately lead us away from God’s purposes for our lives. On our own, using our own finite personal resources, our lives can easily go wrong, one little step after another.

But God does not leave us alone…

In that wilderness, Jesus was not alone, but rather,

… the angels waited on him.

The angels’ care recalls God’s care for his people in the wilderness of Sinai, sending them manna from heaven, flocks of quails, and water from a rock. It recalls God’s care for Noah and his family and all the animals, borne on the waters of the flood, finally to receive the promise of eternal care. God did not leave them alone, God did not leave Jesus alone, and God will not leave us alone. He sends his angels—his messengers of holy love—to minister to us in this life, caring for and supporting us, guiding and correcting us, helping us to read the fine print of life’s many offers, and to make the choices which help lead us to holiness in this life and the next. We may find God’s angels all around us, in our families and our friends, in our acquaintances and our companions in the faith, in the words of Scripture and in the silence of prayer. In these ways and all ways, God will not leave us alone.

Life’s temptations are many. They are real, and they can be very deceptive. The season of Lent is the most important time of the year to “read the fine print,” paying renewed attention to where our God is calling us, taking care with each step to consider the implications, alert for the pitfalls and the forks in the road, always with the angels of God waiting on us.

Let us then keep a holy Lent, praying that we may better know the presence of God in our lives, and that we may be led onward to the cross of Christ and beyond, finally to share in his victory.

May it be so.