I am sure many of you have heard the story about the man whose wife went out and bought herself an expensive dress.  When she later modeled the garment and told her husband what it had cost, she was told that when tempted to buy it she should have resisted the temptation by saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"  To which the woman replied, "That is what I did say and the Devil told me it looked very nice from the back."  We all deal with temptation.  Jesus dealt with it right away in His ministry, so we should not assume we will not have to face it.  We’re all tempted—to eat too much, drink too much, to smoke, to cheat on our taxes—or worse still a spouse.  We’re tempted to stay home instead of coming to church.  Tempted to spend money we don’t even have.   Tempted to watch too much television and exercise too little.  You get the point.  

The writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was tempted like other humans in every possible way (Heb 4:15).  We shouldn't be surprised, then, that after His great moment of vision, when His sense of God's calling and love was so dramatically confirmed at His "baptism," He had to face the whispering voices and recognize them for what they were.  These suggestions are all ways of distorting the true vocation: the vocation to be a truly human being, to be God's person, to be a servant to the world and to other people. Jesus must face these temptations now, and win at least an initial victory over them.  If He doesn't they will meet Him suddenly, in the middle of His work, and they may overwhelm Him.  The first two temptations Jesus faces play on the very strength He has just received.  “You are my son, my beloved one!” God had said to Him.  Very well, whispers the demonic voice; if you really are God's son, surely He can't want you to go hungry when you have the power to get food for yourself.  Surely you want people to see who you are.  Why not do something really spectacular?  And then, dropping the apparent logic, the enemy comes out boldly; forget your heavenly father.  Just worship me and I'll give you power, greatness like no one else ever had.

Jesus sees through the trap.  He answers, each time, with the Bible and with God.  He is committed to living off God's "word;" to trusting God completely, without setting up trick tests to put God on the spot.  He is committed to loving and serving God alone.  The flesh may scream for satisfaction; the world may offer undreamed-of power; but Israel's loving God, the one Jesus knew as Father, offered the reality of what it meant to be human, to be a true Israelite, to be Messiah.  I find it fascinating that the story of Jesus’ temptation comes right after His baptism by John.  Here’s how Matthew describes it: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.  At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him.  And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased" (Mt. 3:16-17).  And then our text this morning begins with these words: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.”  So God is saying, “This is my Son whom I love, with Him I am well pleased—and now I will send Him into the desert to be tempted by Satan.”  It’s the Spirit of God who leads Jesus into the desert, and that’s why Jesus is able to stand up to the temptation—He is led by the Spirit and He answers the devil by quoting Scripture.  He knows God’s word and will.

We walk the way with Jesus this Lenten season amid a society of self-satisfied, self-indulgence.  "Deny yourself, take up thy cross, and follow . . ." is a statement that has never been uttered in a TV advertisement.  "Enjoy yourself," that's our most popular slogan, followed by "You owe it to yourself," and "You deserve it."  For some years many segments of the church have been in the grip of what some have called the "prosperity gospel."  Got something wrong with your life?  Want more out of living?  Then come to Jesus and He'll get that for you.  Jesus is there to fix what ails us, to go and fetch us what we want but can't reach on our own.  Few "prosperity gospel" advocates are so crude as to promise us new cars, mink coats, and the like; the rewards promised are usually psychological or spiritual rather than material, but they are still rewards.  Christianity becomes just another self-help technique of getting what we want.   Indulge yourself.  Our culture thus makes Lent one of the most countercultural of the church's seasons.  During these 40 days we walk behind Jesus toward His cross.  The work of God in our world is not to help us get what we want but rather to enable us for the first time in our self-centered little lives to get what God wants.  And how does God get what God wants?  Not through the use of economic, political, or spiritual power (the three temptations offered to Jesus in the wilderness) but rather through rejection and renunciation.

It’s no accident that in the lectionary, the given texts for this Sunday, the temptation of Jesus is matched with the text from Genesis 2 and 3.  Hear again the text from Gen. 3: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.  He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"  The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"  "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.  "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for   themselves.”  

          Now if you remember last week’s sermon, you’ll know that after this Adam and Eve hid from God—they were afraid.  I said last week that humanity has dealt with fear ever since then.  Today I say that humanity has dealt with temptation ever since this incident in the Garden.  Adam and Eve are tempted and both succumb to that temptation.  Whereas Adam and Eve failed the great test and plunged the whole race into sin, Jesus, the second Adam was faithful and demonstrated His qualification to become the Savior of all who receive Him.  Jesus has been there, done that—done that which we cannot do on our own.  Some of my favorite verses in all of scripture are from 1 Corinthians 10 where Paul writes: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!  No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.  And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

So here are some Lenten questions for you: What do you need to give up in order to give Jesus a chance with your life?  What is that thing in your life that is in danger of taking over your life?  What do you love too much in the wrong way?  What temptations are you struggling with?  The good news of today's Gospel is that Jesus says "No!" to Satan, not once but three times.  He triumphed over the temptation to be who He was not meant by God to be.  And so can you.  The good news is that Jesus is powerful over temptation, even your own temptations.  He can give us the grace to deny ourselves, to take up our crosses daily and follow.  Ask Him to give you what you need in order to give up something for Lent.  Lent is our chance for a fresh start, a new page.  We consciously let down our defenses against the grace of God.  We admit to ourselves our need for improvement.  We notice how hopeless we are.  We tell God we're doing our best but we wish we could do better.  We put ourselves in God's hands.  That is what Jesus does when He goes into the desert.  He puts Himself completely in God's hands.  In Matthew's Gospel we read: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.  He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards He was famished (My first thought: don't try this at home).  By exposing Himself to hunger Jesus opens Himself up to assaults from the Devil.  But He isn't just performing daredevil stunts.  He makes a deliberate surrender of the will, a spiritual exercise.  Jesus is placing Himself in the Father's hands.

The time Jesus spends in the wilderness is a time of preparation.  It is a kind of Spring training.  Jesus has a larger mission to fulfill, a ministry, a life's work.  He is preparing Himself for a larger call.  When we go into the wilderness with Jesus our motive is similar, surrendering ourselves as a kind of preparation.  But how can we compare our little Lents to the walk Jesus takes in the wilderness?  Of course the gap is huge between our holiness and His.  We can hardly say our own names in His presence.  But Jesus doesn't notice this gap, or He seems to overlook it.  The huge divide between our lives and His is a gap He is constantly closing.  He wants us to come into the wilderness with Him, if only just to observe at first.  "Watch how I do this," He seems to be saying.  "Notice these steps, this maneuver."  Practice, He is telling us.  Practice, and you'll improve, without even knowing it.  Practice.  One thing we can learn from Jesus in the desert is to fortify ourselves with God's word.  When the Devil tries to tempt Him into turning stones to bread, as a kind of power play, Jesus answers with words from Deuteronomy, Scriptures He knows by heart: It is written, "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."  The Devil wants Him to break His fast.  More important, he wants to weaken Jesus' allegiance.

What can we learn from just this little visit with Jesus in the wilderness?  From watching Him resist the Evil One?   We know, by watching Jesus, that emptiness is the beginning of holiness.  We know that we are blessed when we hunger and thirst for righteousness.  We know we will be filled.  We walk with Jesus to be purified.  We walk with Him to be fortified.  Nourished by sacrament and word, we walk through desert places more easily.  We learn to deal with our own gaps, our lapses.  We find that we can tolerate our hunger and our thirst and we can stand up to our temptations.  Amen.