1st Sunday of Lent, 2022 - Temptation

The traditional lesson from the gospels for this first Sunday of Lent is the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism. Luke’s account of the temptations is found in Luke 4:1-13. 

Temptation — it is a normal part of our human condition. It is something we all experience. It is something Jesus experienced. Temptation implies choice — the ability to choose between options. In each of the three temptations recorded in the gospel, Jesus is presented with a choice of what to do. Temptation also implies some kind of standard of right and wrong. When we are tempted, we experience the desire to abandon that which we know is right in order to follow that which is viewed as wrong.

This description of temptation implies that overcoming temptation is a matter of willpower. We only “give into” temptation because of a lack of willpower. What we need to resist temptation is greater resolve and more self-effort. I believe this understanding of dealing with temptation is simplistic and wrong. It reflects the thinking of the ego-centric self. More importantly, it ignores the deeper issue of our human condition. It has too much confidence in self-effort.

The reality of our human condition is that we often fail to measure up to the right we know to do. The apostle Paul wrote of this common struggle in his letter to the churches of Rome. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:15, 18b-19). Paul did not describe his struggle as a lack of resolve or willpower. Rather, he said his struggle pointed to a deeper issue — a sin problem. “Sin dwells in me” (Romans 7:17, 20).

Paul understood sin to be a power that held him captive. “I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Romans 7:23). “I am a slave to the law of sin” (Romans 7:25). In Paul’s mind, sin was more than the violation of some standard or wrong behavior. Sin was a disease, a virus that infected the soul. Wrong behavior, the inability to do the right things I know to do — sins — are the symptoms of this deeper issue.

Resolve, willpower, self-effort are rendered powerless against both the disease and its symptoms — Sin and sins. Something more is needed — the transforming power of the Spirit of God.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh so that the just requirement pf the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1-4).

The law, Paul said, could only tell us how to live. It could not give us the ability to do so. Jesus and the Spirit cleanse our hearts of the virus of Sin. Through the power of the Spirit, we are able to do the good we know to do and want to do.

Any experience of temptation is a reminder of our spiritual condition. It is also a reminder of the power that is ours in Christ Jesus through the Spirit. The Spirit and the Spirit’s power are the only way we can “overcome” temptation. Temptation is a call to turn again to the Spirit for the power to do what we cannot do in our own strength.

We see this reality in the temptation experience of Jesus recorded in Luke 4. Jesus was “full of the Spirit” and “led by the Spirit” (Luke 4:1-2) when he was tempted. I believe the Spirit guided Jesus and empowered him as he dealt with his temptations. The Spirit guided him to see beyond what appeared to be a logical idea — use your power to turn stones into bread to satisfy your hunger — to the deeper, underlying issue: how will you use the power God has entrusted to you? The Spirit gave him the clarity about the inseparable tie between the means and the end. The Spirit helped him recognize the devil’s misuse and twisting of scripture. The Spirit gave him his understanding of scripture and guided him in using scripture to respond to the choices he was presented.

The Lenten journey and the disciplines we embrace as we walk it are more than an exercise in willpower and resolve. They are a reminder of our human condition. They are an invitation to, once again, live in glad dependency upon the Spirit for the power to do what we cannot do in our own strength.