This morning we mark the first week in the season of Lent,
those six weeks which lead us to Easter.
Often when we think of the word Lent,
what comes to mind is a time of depravation.
What will I give up for Lent?
And there is a reason why many of us think as we do about Lent.
According to all three of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark
and our text this morning from Luke,
immediately after Jesus was baptized,
he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for a period of 40 days,
during which Jesus ate nothing,
and afterwards he was tempted by Satan.
Jesus, as we all know,
was able to rebuff the temptations and returned to his ministry.
In the same spirit as Christ,
we try in this season of Lent to focus our hearts and minds
on increasing the discipline of our faith.
But we know that its not easy.
Sin and temptation make formidable foes.

It has been argued that the mature religious person
is one who can embrace ambiguity.
Most human beings do not, by that standard of measure,
show ourselves to be particularly mature.
The majority of us prefer things in black and white;
shades of grey are less comfortable.
We like matters clear cut.
It is easier if people can be judged altogether good or obviously evil.
Most of us would probably agree that Paul Bernardo or Clifford Olsen
represent the obviously evil side of humanity.
But what do we do with someone like Robert Lattimer,
who was convicted of killing his severely disabled daughter Tracy?
Is he an evil man or a loving father
who couldn’t bear to watch his daughter suffer any longer?
Moral choices are easier if we can firmly decide what is right and what is wrong. Mitigating circumstances are a nuisance.

But the reality is, that temptations that matter, are characterized by ambiguity.
One writer suggests that the three temptations placed before Jesus in the wilderness
were ripe with ambiguity.
Even the very fact that Jesus was in the wilderness at all
was a situation laced with ambiguity.
It was the Spirit which led Jesus into the wilderness
and in Mark’s gospel account, Jesus wasn’t just led into the wilderness,
he was literally hurled there.
At one moment Jesus is baptized and heaven is opened upon him
and in the next moment he is thrown into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
After 40 days of hunger and suffering,
the choices before Jesus were difficult in the extreme.

The temptation of turning stone into bread
wasn’t only about satiating Jesus’ own hunger.
What the devil offered Jesus was the temptation to take the easy way out,
to use his power to alleviate human hunger on a global scale.
But Jesus understood that providing for our physical needs alone
would not resolve the issue of our eternal hunger.
Secondly, Jesus faced the temptation to worship the devil
in exchange for the glory and authority over all the kingdoms of the world.
Imagine the reign of righteousness and dignity
which Jesus could have instantly conferred on the nations of the world,
to those under oppression, to those suffering from injustice and abuse.
But again Jesus realizes that there can be no liberation or freedom
when you worship anyone other than God.
Finally, Satan tempts Jesus to leap from the pinnacle of the temple
to prove his divine nature as the Son of God.
Naturally the angels would not let Jesus be hurt,
and with such a demonstration of his power
Jesus would have claimed authority and captured the hearts of all people
and yet Jesus understands that God’s plan of seeming weakness,
even to death on a cross,
which would yield disbelief and disappointment for so many,
cannot be challenged.
Even the Son must obey the Father’s will.

The key to Jesus’ ability to resist temptation lies in his understanding of scripture. Quoting three times from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy,
Jesus uses the words of scripture to rebuff Satan’s temptations,
even when those temptations are themselves couched in the words of scripture.
There is an important point being made here that we ought not to overlook.
Do we not know of instances where scripture has been taken out of context,
where people have quoted scripture to justify what we know to be sinful behaviour?

Have you ever heard the quote from Hezekiah 6:1,
that God helps those who help themselves?
The only problem is that there is no book of the Bible called Hezekiah
and this oft quoted sentence is found nowhere in the Bible.
Some may argue, however, that in 2 Thessalonians 3:10,
a passage which indeed does exist,
the Apostle Paul says that those unwilling to work should not eat,
in other words, if you aren’t willing to do your share,
don’t expect others, including God, to do it for you.
We may be tempted to use such passages
to exclude those who we think aren’t pulling their weight,
but there is a great danger in trying to enforce a one size fits all interpretation,
especially if that interpretation is used by us
to justify an unwillingness on our part to help or share our resources.
We can quite easily convince ourselves
that God only blesses those who are doing right
and those who are suffering must have done something wrong
or just don’t have enough faith.

Sadly this pseudo theology is accepted by many in our society.
In fact God is quite clear about just the opposite,
that those who trust in their own wits are fools
and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
The point is this,
we must be ever vigilant about knowing the context of the word of God,
the temptation to misuse it is often incredibly strong.
Children obey your parents, we shout at our kids in frustration,
forgetting that immediately afterwards come the words,
and parents, do not provoke your children to anger
but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
For generations some Christians used the Bible to argue for the institution of slavery, forgetting that God had also declared that in Christ
there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female,
for we are one in Christ Jesus.
There will be times when the choices before us won’t be very clear cut.
The temptation may be to appeal to part of the Bible to justify our choices,
but we better be very honest about what we’re appealing to
and what we’re intentionally rejecting to justify our choices.
The devil is no fool.
He knows that ambiguity is one of his greatest tools.
How can it be bad when it feels so good?
And more subtly, why would God bless me if he didn’t want me to do this?
Last Tuesday at our morning Bible Study, Tony Vanden Brink,
shared some stories of his time doing business in other parts of the world.
When it came to ethical practices,
what Tony shared with us confirmed
that different cultures, different places and different times
all factor into what is ethical and what is not.
Something that would be completely unethical to us
might be quite accepted as ethical somewhere else.
What one culture calls a tip, others would call a bribe.
What is called a commission by one person can be called a payoff by another.
The devil is no fool.

Jesus, being God’s only Son, being divine and yet fully human,
did not fall prey to temptation, no matter how ambiguous it may have been.
But we know that we are not privy to the same strength as Jesus.
How many sermons have we heard exhorting us to not fall into temptation?
We pray that every Sunday in the Lord’s Prayer.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Now I would be unfaithful if I didn’t stand here and tell you this morning
that we should indeed resist temptation.
I would be unfaithful if I didn’t affirm
that God wants us to avoid giving in to temptation.
God has given us resources to fight off temptation,
no matter how ambiguous.
The devil may be no fool,
but he is no match for God.

God’s word, which points to the Living Word, Jesus Christ,
in its proper context and correctly interpreted through the Holy Spirit’s guidance,
is our defence against temptation.
Following our Lord, we also are invited and equipped
to rebuff even the slickest sales job dripping with ambiguity and vagueness.

But sadly, the truth is that when push comes to shove,
we are not good at being able to resist temptation.
Whether it’s a piece of chocolate or a piece of the action,
we just can’t seem to say no.
All of us, if we’re honest, will testify to the truth of that statement.
So what happens when we can’t resist temptation,
as all of us at some point have experienced?
We are not like Jesus,
just a hint of ambiguity is all it takes for us to start justifying all sorts of behaviour.
What happens when we can’t resist the temptation
to get ahead at someone else’s expense,
when we can’t resist the temptation to take the easy way out,
when we can’t resist the temptation to use a little misdirection or misunderstanding
to manoeuvre circumstances to our benefit?

What happens when we are given the choice to backdate our stock option purchases
so that our options would be worth the most?
Everyone seems to be doing it, so how can it be wrong?
Should I stand on a matter of principle while others around me are making a fortune? Why should my family suffer when everyone else has no problem with it?
Why be a whistle blower when by keeping quiet,
by not doing anything overtly unethical,
but just by not speaking up, I also can benefit?
And what about the pressures on our young people.
How do I choose between supporting my friend who has a drug habit
and telling his parents or another person in authority so that he can get help?
How do I say no when everyone around me doing the same thing?
How can I not cheat when everyone else has access to the test ahead of time?
Aren’t I depriving myself of at least being on the same playing field?
And in this day of internet access, is file sharing wrong?
I mean Microsoft and Apple and all those big companies that own movies and music
are large, faceless corporations making billions of dollars,
so what difference does it make if I download just one thing,
or just a couple of dozen things?
Ambiguity walks hand in hand with temptation.

But here’s where the good news comes in.
You see, the text this morning before us
isn’t really about helping us to avoid temptation.
God knows that we are not like his son.
God knows that the reason for his son in the first place is that we are not Jesus.
If we were, there would be no need for him.
The text isn’t a primer on how to avoid temptation,
that if we can quote scripture and focus on God,
we can avoid falling into temptation.
We know that no matter how well versed we may be in scripture,
how deep our relationship with God is,
we still succumb to temptation.
So the question isn’t, how do we avoid giving in to temptation
but rather, when we do give in, what then?

That’s what the whole point of our text this morning is.
What then? When we can’t resist temptation, what then?
What then, is that Jesus, our Saviour, the gracious gift of God,
is God’s answer to our “what thens?”
Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, ultimately,
not for his sake, but for our sake.
He was tempted and he overcame temptation,
so that later on he would embrace the redemptive work for which he was born.
Lent always points towards Easter,
towards the cross and the resurrection.
Its notable that God doesn’t do away with the temptations that we face,
but rather God has a plan when we can’t resist temptation.
That’s God’s way, to give us the freedom to succeed
but to be gracious enough that when we fail, as we ultimately will at times,
he is there to pick us up and set us back on track.

Jesus is God’s answer to what happens when we can’t resist temptation.
The good news is that God equips us to contend against evil and temptation,
the even better news is that when we fail,
we are still covered by his grace through Christ’s death and resurrection.
So our text isn’t a guide for resisting temptation
as much as it is a guide about the kind of God we believe in,
the kind of God who just can’t leave us alone
to deal with the consequences of our inability to resist temptation.

Life is full of ambiguities.
There are hard choices to make out there and even in here.
Sometimes there is more than just one right answer
and almost always there are far more wrong answers than right ones.
Its not easy to walk the path of discipleship,
but let’s be clear about one thing.
There is no ambiguity about God’s love for us.
Lent really shouldn’t be about deprivation,
it needs to be about gratitude.
It needs to be about our gratitude towards a God
who loves us so much that sent his only son to deliver us
when we can’t deliver ourselves,
when we can’t resist temptation.
Its not a blank cheque to give into temptation left and right,
but it is the gift of knowing that when we are unable, God is always able.

My friends, as we begin this journey of Lent,
as we look ahead to the cross and to the empty tomb,
may we continue in our prayers and in our practice to strive against temptation,
but may we rejoice as the people of the risen Christ,
as the community of the resurrection,
knowing that when we can’t resist,
when sin overcomes us, as it will,
our God has already made plans for our rescue and our salvation.
And thanks be to God for that!

Prayer: God in Jesus, you have provided the remedy for our sin.
In Christ we find our redemption, even when we fail to live up to your desire for us.
We confess that though you have given us what we need,
we don’t often use those gifts to stand faithfully for what you have called good,
and that too often we just fall in line with whatever is happening around us.
But we are not without hope, for in Jesus our Lord,
you have shown your love for us
and you have already provided a plan for our salvation.
Through the guidance of your Spirit, lead us not into temptation,
but reassure us that if we are overcome, we are not finished,
because your son has overcome the power of death and sin
and offers us life eternal with him.
Through his holy name we pray, Amen.