Tempted like the rest of us

This morning I take as my first text: ‘The Wind in the Willows'. You may recall the undaunted Toad, full of reckless behaviour, sitting in The Red Lion. Whilst eating the ‘best luncheon' in the house he heard the ‘poop poop' of a very desirable car. In an instant, his scaly body began to tremble in eager anticipation and he even had to hold on to the table leg to conceal his emotion. Then the party which had travelled in the vehicle came into the pub, loudly extolling the virtues of the car. Toad could stand it no longer. He quietly sauntered round to the inn-yard.

‘There cannot be any harm,' he said to himself, ‘in my just looking at it.' Next he found himself closely inspecting the car, drooling over every part of it. Without knowing how it happened, he found himself in the driving seat and an old passion took over. It completely mastered him and, as if in a dream, he found himself out in the countryside. There he was, living out the love of his life, ‘reckless of what might become of him'.

We can laugh at the loveable rogue but we can see parallels with our own predicament: temptation, beginning with an innocent interest, developing into a detailed inspection, then all resistance slipping away and the initial desire being heartily fulfilled.

Today's reading in Matthew takes us to Jesus' temptations. After his baptism, Jesus was led out by the Spirit into the wilderness. Here, he was confronted by Satan, at precisely the moment when he was most vulnerable. The landscape was desolate. Jesus had left the warm Jordan valley, and ascended the highlands to the west. The dusty, brown rolling hills were only sparsely dotted with green shrubs. Broom trees grew erect and scraggly and provided scant shade. It was centuries earlier that Elijah had run in fear of his life from Jezebel and sat under a broom tree praying that he might die. The limestone provided a difficult terrain for walking, even for someone accustomed to travelling on foot. He had heard about the bands of thugs that preyed on unsuspecting travellers. Perhaps from experience, he would later tell of a man who was robbed on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This area was also famous for its lions. After wandering through the area for ‘forty days and forty nights', Jesus was weary, probably having huddled in a cave at night and feeling very fragile from lack of sleep and food.

In this inhospitable wilderness he continued to relive the experiences of God's people, tasting their forty years of wandering in the wilderness. They had succumbed to grumbling and had doubted God's call. Would Jesus succeed where they had failed? A battle royal raged within Jesus, and Satan tried to sow doubt. What did it mean to be God's Son? What kind of Messiah must he be?

Jesus faced three temptations. Each one offered a literal, material gain but also a deeper significance. Imagine starving on a mountain-side littered with little round pieces of stone that resembled the loaves his mother baked in Nazareth. Should Jesus use his powers selfishly to satisfy his aching hunger? But it was not just his own hunger that was at stake. Jesus was also facing the question of how he could win men and women for God. It would have been tempting to give the people material things to gain a following. If he had used this method, he would have bribed the people and it would have been a denial of all he had come to say. After all, he brought a Gospel of giving and not getting: man shall not live by bread alone.

So the tempter renewed his attack. He took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple. There was one corner at which Solomon's porch and the Royal porch met. At that corner there was a sheer drop of 450 feet into the valley of the Kedron. Why should Jesus not stand on that pinnacle and land unharmed in the valley beneath? People would be startled into following someone who could do that. The false Messiahs of the day were promising such feats. Simon Magus, one of these pretenders, had promised he could fly and he perished in the attempt. There were two quite clear reasons for not acting out the spectacle. Such an achievement would be sensationalism and those who gain a following from these activities are bound to produce ever-greater spectacles to retain their followers. A gospel founded on sensation-mongering is doomed to failure. The second is that it would be a blatant misuse of God's power. Jesus fended off this attack by using the words from Deuteronomy: ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test'.

The tempter came back with the third prong of his attack. He showed him a panoramic view of all the kingdoms of the world. This time the call was for Jesus to fall down and worship the devil who would in turn give him all these vast kingdoms. What the tempter was saying was: Compromise! Do a deal with me. Don't have such high demands. Wink at evil and questionable things, and people will follow you in their hordes. It was a temptation to advance by retreating, to try to change the world by becoming like the world.

This time Jesus' defence from God's word was: ‘The Lord your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear.' Jesus was quite sure that he could not defeat evil by compromising with it. He had answered the tempter's offers of food, fame and fortune by standing firm on the commands of Scripture. The deceiver could only limp away, his tail firmly between his legs. All the doubt he had sowed with his compromising ‘if', skulked off with him. Jesus had made his decision: the path he was to follow was not to consist of bribery, sensationalism or compromising with evil.

One early Christian writer tells us that Jesus can understand our weaknesses because he was tempted in every possible way (Hebrews 4:15). We, therefore, need to approach this story in the wilderness with special reverence, for in it Jesus laid bare his innermost feelings. He can help us in our temptations because he himself was tempted. He drew the veil from his own struggles to help us in our struggle.

The temptations we all face from day to day, although different from those of Jesus, have the same point. They are not simply trying to entice us into committing sin but trying to persuade us to become distracted or to shift us away from the path of servanthood or from following our vocation. God has a glorious vocation for us all and the enemy will try to thwart his purposes. God's children are not immune to temptation but, as his children, we have the same defence as Jesus. We can use Scripture as our shield. Sown deeply in our hearts, it will be our first line of defence.

A story from India helps us to look at resisting temptation in another way. A man knelt before the Rajah of the area and asked, ‘How can I resist temptation?' The Rajah said, ‘Go and fill a pitcher to the brim and carry it through the busiest streets in the city, especially through the bazaar and the fair. Two of my soldiers will walk beside you and if you as much as spill a drop they will run you through with their swords. If you return I will tell you the answer to your question.'

This was not what he wanted to hear but he filled the pitcher to the brim and walked through the city with the two guards by his side. Finally several hours later he returned to the palace and was ushered in to see the Rajah. ‘Did you not see anything on the stalls you wished to buy?' ‘No,' replied the man. ‘Did you not see any gaming dens?' ‘No.' ‘No dancing girls at the fair?' ‘None.' ‘No opium for sale? No drinking booths?' ‘No. My eyes were fixed on the pitcher of water.'

‘Then', said the Rajah, ‘as in your journey you kept your eyes on that pitcher, every day of your life keep your eyes on the truth and you will resist all temptation.'

That sort of discipline is worthy and I believe my generation has much to learn from that kind of self-control. But I should like to tweak the story a little. We do need to be vigilant with the pot of water but instead of relying on our own abilities to succeed we have a wonderful Supporter. Think instead of keeping your eyes not on the pitcher but on the finishing line. There is someone waving and calling out encouragement. As you get nearer the finishing line, the figure becomes clearer. It is Jesus. He is the author and finisher of our faith. We are not alone – and another member of the Trinity also comes to our aid, for the Holy Spirit is the one who comes alongside to protect, encourage and sustain us. We are not alone.

There will be many times when we are tempted and succumb. Our heads will be down but God's deep and loving forgiveness will always – if we let him - take us by the hand, lift us up and set us on our way. And for that, thanks be to God.