Luke 4:1-13
February 14,
2016
For Superman it was kryptonite. Superman
was impervious to anything that might take out you or me. Bullets bounced off
his chest. His strength was so great he could stop speeding trains. He could
fly higher than planes. He only needed a telephone booth to make the quick change
into his hero’s tights. He even made people believe that simply putting on
glasses and ordinary clothes was an adequate disguise. Certainly there was no
way anyone could place him as Superman when he was dressed as mild mannered
Clark Kent. But one thing could take out Superman and one thing only – kryptonite.
Even a small amount of the matter and minerals from his home planet could
render him weak and powerless. His super hero, superhuman, super powers were
unbeatable; he was indestructible unless a small piece of kryptonite got too
close. Then he was as mortal and as weak as any of us. For Superman it was
kryptonite. That was his vulnerability. Kryptonite made him human.
For Jesus it was hunger. No matter
what year we are following in the lectionary cycle, no matter what the gospel, we
always begin the first Sunday of Lent with the telling of Jesus’ time in the wilderness.
After all, Lent is patterned after that time. Jesus spent 40 days in the
wilderness, fasting, praying, and being tempted by the devil. Luke’s gospel
tells us that after those 40 days of no food, Jesus was hungry. Of course he
was! Who wouldn’t be?! That’s a long time to go without food. He wasn’t just
hungry, he was famished. Anyone would be. The devil, being the great opportunist
that he was, saw Jesus’ hunger as his chance. Although we read that the devil
tempted Jesus during the 40 days, we don’t know what those temptations were.
But at the end of Jesus’ time in the wilderness, when he was starving, Luke
reveals three specific temptations.
First the devil told Jesus that if
he was really the Son of God, then he should command the stones to become
bread. Jesus answered him with scripture. “It is written, ‘One does not live by
bread alone.’”
Second, the devil took Jesus up so
that Jesus could see all the kingdoms of the world. The devil informed Jesus
that he, the devil, had been given all authority over these kingdoms. He can
give that authority and power to anyone he wishes. He would give it all to
Jesus on one condition, “worship me.” Jesus didn’t buy it and again he responded
with words of scripture. “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve
only him.”’
Lastly, the devil took Jesus to
Jerusalem. He placed Jesus on the pinnacle of the temple. Then the devil dared
him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is
written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and, ‘On
their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against
a stone.’”
The devil knew scripture too, and he
knew how to prooftext and manipulate it to say what he wanted it to say. But
Jesus still didn’t give in. He responded to scripture with more scripture. “It
is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the text.’”
The devil knew he had lost this
round, so he left Jesus; not for good but to wait for another opportune time. When
the devil retreated, Jesus left as well. He left the wilderness and began his
public ministry in Galilee.
Jesus went into the wilderness “full
of the Holy Spirit.” Although he ate nothing and was famished, he still did not
give into temptation. The devil could not get the best of him. Whenever I read
any of the temptation accounts, my first thought is, “Well of course, Jesus
wasn’t tempted. He was Jesus. He was human just like us but he did not sin.”
That is the accepted belief of our faith, isn’t it? Jesus was fully human just
like all of us, but he did not sin. He was Jesus, God’s Son. Sinning was just
not going to happen no matter how hungry he was. End of story.
Usually when I read Luke’s account,
I focus solely on the temptations themselves. I read the sentence, “he was
famished,” but it’s just a blip in the story. But I wonder if those three words
– he was famished – are actually the point. Jesus was famished. He went without
food for 40 days and he was as hungry as anyone of us would have been. If he
was as hungry as the rest of us, it is a good chance that hunger had the same
effect on him it has on us. When I’m really hungry, really, really hungry, I
get cranky. Sometimes my head hurts. I feel weak and lightheaded and agitated. If
I don’t get to bite into some food soon, I might just bite your head off. Jesus
was famished.
But because he’s Jesus, I think we
tend to diminish his hunger and how it might have affected him. He was hungry
and he was fully human, but he was also fully divine. Well, what does that mean
exactly? What does that look like? When it comes to his temptation, I think we see
Jesus more like a superhero that has been exposed to the one thing that makes
him vulnerable. He is like Clark Kent opening his shirt to reveal the large S
underneath. Jesus is fully human, but when it comes to temptation there is a
shirt with a large D for divine underneath his robe.
As one commentator put it, Jesus’
divinity acted as a fail safe. If temptation went too far and he got too close
to the edge of sin, then divinity jumped in to save him. But if that’s true,
then what’s the point of his humanity? What’s the point of telling the story of
his being tempted, because in the end they would not have been real
temptations? It seems to me that temptation has to have the possibility of
snaring you in order to actually be temptation. If Jesus wasn’t really tempted,
if it were impossible for him to actually give in, then this story is no more
than a morality play. We watch in order to get an example of how we should be,
but we are actually human so we might fail. This is nice of Jesus to show us
this, but if he couldn’t actually give into temptation, then he really isn’t
like us.
But Jesus was like us. That is the
substance of the incarnation. Jesus was like us, fully human, vulnerable,
tempted, famished. He was human, just like us.
One of the most powerful depictions
of Jesus’ humanity that I have ever seen was in a movie that was so
controversial, people from all denominations worked to ban it from theaters.
The move was The Last Temptation of
Christ. I did not see it when it came to theaters. I watched it when I was
in seminary. The main reason this movie was controversial was because it showed
Jesus in a physical relationship with Mary Magdalene. People were up in arms at
even the thought of that. But if you did not see the movie, let me give you the
larger context. The story was about Jesus and his ministry and his walk to the cross.
It was while he was on the cross that the last temptation occurred. Temptation
came to him in the form of a little child, haloed in beautiful light. The child
told him that he could get down from the cross. He didn’t have to stay there.
So Jesus does. He gets down off the cross. He falls in love. He lives.
No matter what the protesters said
about this movie, the true temptation for Jesus was not lust, it was life. His
last temptation was that he got to live just like us. He got to love just like
us. He had the chance to have a family and a home and the ordinary everyday
realities we take for granted – just like us. If we mean what we say, then
Jesus was fully human, and being human is messy. It is filled with temptation.
It is filled with wrong turns. As humans we have enormous capacity for love and
we have an equally enormous capacity for evil. Jesus was fully human, so those
temptations must have pulled at him as much as they would have us.
But I think that what makes Jesus
different, what makes him able to resist temptation was not some superhuman
ability that we do not have. I think that what he had was full knowledge, full
understanding, full comprehension of love; God’s love, sacrificial love, agape
love. Jesus was fully human, as fully human as we are meant to be, as we are
created and called to be. He knew and lived and breathed Love. Jesus was not a
superhero savior. He didn’t have some secret ability that we don’t have access
to. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, he was filled with God, he was filled
with Love.
The good news, the great and
glorious news, is that we can be too. We were created out of Love, because of
Love, for Love. Jesus was fully human just like us. He was tempted just like
us. He was weak and vulnerable just like us. But Jesus knew completely how to
love and lived and died trying to teach us to do the same. Sisters and
brothers, during this season of Lent and always, let us love like Jesus did so
that we can be fully human as well.
Let all of God’s children say, “Amen.”
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