The Thing Before The Thing Itself

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13

Lent—which literally means “springtime”—became popular about four hundred years after the time of Christ. It is a tradition built on scriptural inspiration. We remember Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness. And we use the forty days before Easter to reflect more deeply, to give a few things up, and to take a few things on.

But traditions can become stale through habit and repetition. Year after year we may read the same devotionals, temporarily abandon the same sensual indulgences, briefly burden ourselves with the same minor inconveniences, and call it “Lent.” For many of us, this process ends up looking less like worshiping with emotion and more like going through the motions.

The risk that we will not sufficiently engage with this special and holy time is compounded by the natural human inclination to guarantee success by asking relatively little of ourselves. Years ago, a friend told me that in honor of Lent he planned to abstain from screaming profanities at people who cut him off in traffic. This struck me as—shall we say—aiming rather low.

So the beginning of the Lenten season is a good time to ask an important, indeed fundamental, question: What is it—exactly—that we’re supposed to be doing? With that in mind, let’s take a good hard look at the scripture that informs our practice. And let’s see if we can find some answers.

A traditional and common answer to this question suggests that Lent is a time of preparation in anticipation of the glorious rebirth that we celebrate on Easter morning. Lent is not the final destination; it is a journey—a journey toward redemption and hope. Lent is not the thing itself; it is the thing before the thing itself.

At first glance, however, we may have a little trouble connecting this theme of preparation with the text we actually find in Luke. Indeed, when we turn to the scripture we discover a conspicuous, and perhaps even unsettling, absence. After all, these verses nowhere expressly state that Jesus went into the wilderness in order to get ready to do something else.

Nevertheless, for centuries believers have associated this theme with this text. And I think they have done so for good reason. Granted, the scripture may not raise the theme of preparation explicitly and literally; but it does seem to do so implicitly and structurally.

In Luke, Jesus’ ministry begins in earnest immediately after his time in the wilderness. Just think of all that happens after the wilderness story and in the rest of Chapter 4. Jesus returns to Nazareth; reports about Him begin to spread; He starts teaching in the synagogues; He announces that the scriptures have been fulfilled; He is driven out of Nazareth and travels to Capernaum; He astonishes people with what He says; He casts the demons out of one who is cursed; He heals the sick and suffering; and He is called the Son of God.

Similarly, in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ time in the wilderness immediately precedes the initiation of his Galilean ministry. Still, Matthew and Mark offer us a slight variation on the sequence of events. In those Gospels, the first thing Jesus does after emerging from the wilderness is to begin to gather disciples around him. I’ll have more to say about that later.

For now, though, let’s take as one answer to our question that Lent is about preparing, and specifically about preparing for the saving grace that comes to us through Jesus Christ crucified and risen. This preparation requires us to confront our humanness; to acknowledge our weakness; and to own our sinfulness. As one commentary on Lent observes, this explains the conflicting feelings that Lent may inspire:

"Lent should never be morose—an annual ordeal during which we begrudgingly forgo a handful of pleasures. Instead, we ought to approach Lent as an opportunity, not a requirement. After all, it is meant to be the church’s springtime, a time when, out of the darkness of sin’s winter, a repentant, empowered people emerge. Put another way, Lent is the season in which we ought to be surprised by joy. Our self-sacrifices serve no purpose unless, by laying aside this or that desire, we are able to focus on our heart’s deepest longing: unity with Christ. In him—in his suffering and death, his resurrection and triumph—we find our truest joy. Such joy is costly, however. It arises from the horror of our sin, which crucified Christ. This is why Meister Eckhart points out that those who have the hardest time with Lent are ‘the good people.’" (Bread and Wine (2003))

That Lent is a time of preparation, then, is one answer to our question; but it is not necessarily the only answer.

A different kind of answer focuses on the reality that Lent is where we live. We live in a world that loves the darkness. We live in an age that persists in turning its back on peace, forgiveness, reconciliation, and love. We live with minds and bodies that are constantly assailed by temptations.

We are an Easter people. But we live in a Lenten time and a Lenten place. And we live with Lenten hearts.

That is why the temptations directed at Jesus intrigue us so. His temptations are our temptations. Peter Gomes describes them as the temptations that come from the need for survival and nourishment; the temptations that come from the urge for power; and the temptations that come from our need to “prove who we are.”

These temptations are constant. Before this day is over, at least one of them will probably visit itself upon each and every one of us. And that visitation may come quietly: temptations are rude; they do not knock before entering.

Of course, these temptations typically do not arrive looking much like the satanic depictions we see in paintings and movies. Still, to paraphrase a famous observation by C.S. Lewis, it is important not to be too particular about the hoofs and the horns. In these, our highly educated and abundantly skeptical times, it is fashionable to doubt the existence of Satan. To adopt the language of our times, however, I want to suggest to you that the reality of the devil is the ultimate inconvenient truth.

And the temptations the scriptures describe are not just constant; they are unceasing. The wilderness story therefore closes with a Satan who is not triumphantly defeated but just temporarily discouraged: “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” As Peter Gomes observes, “The devil awaits that opportune time with us, that time when he can appeal to our injured pride, our wounded ego, our fear of not being appreciated, [or] our anger at being ignored. These are the opportune times when the devil’s persistence reaps great benefits.”

It may be worth noting in passing that in the scriptures Satan never really finds an “opportune time” to tempt Jesus. He does, however, find an abundance of opportune times to tempt those around Him: to tempt them into jealousy, pettiness, anger, denial, even betrayal. As many of you know, I am an enthusiastic fan of the old film “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” In my view, the film does something quite brilliant here: the same actor who portrays Satan in the temptation scene—Donald Pleasance—also plays the first person in the crowd to call for Jesus’ crucifixion.

In any event, this second answer to our question suggests that Lent is not only about preparing. It is also about living. It is about trying to figure out how to keep our soul safe in a time and place that relentlessly invites us to put that troublesome chunk of divinity aside and to feast gluttonously on the selfish impulse of the day.

In her essay “Living Lent,” Episcopal priest and author Barbara Cawthorne Crafton observes that when we become slaves to those impulses it often it takes a crisis to bring us to our senses and to remind us how to be in this world:

"When did the collision between our appetites and the needs of our souls happen? Was there a heart attack? Did we get laid off from work, one of the thousands certified as extraneous? Did a beloved child become a bored stranger, a marriage fall silent and cold? Or, by some exquisite working of God’s grace, did we just find the courage to look the truth in the eye and, for once, not blink? How did we come to know that we were dying a slow and unacknowledged death? And that the only way back to life was to set all our packages down and begin again, carrying with us only what we really needed?"

In this sense, Lent is not the thing before the thing itself. It is the thing itself. This perspective argues that—at least on this side of the transition we call death—there is no destination. There is only the journey. And there is only the constant challenge of deciding how we will travel it and of choosing what—and who—we will bring along as we go.

Well, that leads me to a third possible answer to the question of what we’re supposed to do during this Lenten season. But before describing that answer, I want to return to our passage from Luke and to emphasize a few things that it tells and shows us. And I want to do this because I believe that our Lenten traditions and conventions, wonderful and inspiring as they are, might distract us from some critical realities about how faith works and what we can do to foster it.

So please notice this: Jesus does not just go to the wilderness; He goes to the wilderness “full of the Holy Spirit.” And, verse 14 says, he comes out of the wilderness “filled with the power of the Spirit.”

While Jesus is in the wilderness, Satan tempts him. And Jesus meets each temptation with a quotation from scripture. Three are quotations from Deuteronomy in which the Lord is speaking through Moses. And one is a quotation from the Psalms.

So, you see, we miss something essential if we imagine Jesus (as we often do) going into the wilderness alone. He didn’t. He went with the best company imaginable.

He went with the Holy Spirit. He went with Moses and the Psalmist. He went with all the figures of the bible he read in his youth—Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Solomon and Ruth and Jeremiah and Daniel. And—as Mark tells us—he went with angels at his side.

Jesus also went there with the fresh memory of His baptism at the hands of John. Indeed, in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark Jesus’ foray into the wilderness is framed by the relationships essential to his ministry. Immediately before it we find his encounter with John at the Jordan; immediately after it we find his calling of the first disciples beside the Sea of Galilee.

This helps explain something truly astonishing about Jesus’ interactions with Satan in the wilderness, something I think often goes overlooked. Satan tries to tempt Jesus; Jesus responds; and the argument ends. Granted, Satan goes on to try other tacks; but they fail, too. So what is striking about these exchanges is that they do not devolve into prolonged debates. Satan invites Jesus to do something He knows is wrong. Jesus cites scripture to say no. And that is that.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this is not how it works in my case. My arguments with the devil tend to go on and on. Satan invites me to do something selfish; I say no; Satan points out that I’m a good guy and I deserve it; and I start to entertain the possibility that he has a point. We call him many things: Satan, the devil, Beelzebub, and so on. I sometimes wonder, though, whether we should also call him “But on the other hand.”

Often, though, we are able to cut the argument short by remembering the relationships that matter to us. Drawing on the memory and meaning of those relationships can provide critical help at critical times. It has been said that we can avoid mistakes by recalling a simple acronym, HALT, which stands for the proposition that we're most inclined to blunder when we're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. The strength we draw from relationships, however, can quell our hunger, calm our anger, refresh us with new energy, and remind us that we are never really alone.

And this leads me to the third possible answer to our question of what we’re supposed to do during Lent. Maybe, at least in part, Lent is an opportunity to learn how to exercise and flex whatever spiritual muscle we developed before Lent began. If Lent is where we live, then perhaps we should approach it as a chance to figure out how to incorporate—fully and completely—our preexisting spiritual understanding into our everyday existence.

So it may be true that part of Lent is figuring out what to leave behind. But it is also true that part of Lent is remembering what to bring along—and who to bring along. And this last point is critical, because our journey through the wilderness goes best if we don’t try to go it alone.

So we bring with us the presence of the Holy Spirit. We bring with us that chorus of biblical voices that offer guidance, instruction, encouragement, support, and the reassurance that—whatever challenges we face—there is nothing new under the sun and nothing greater than God’s capacity to help us get through it. Maybe we bring some angels. But, certainly, we bring with us those precious relationships: the ones that have helped shape who we are; the ones that will help shape what we become; the ones that we help shape in return.

It is impossible to overstate the connection between those relationships and the underlying themes and purposes of Lent. But this passage from a work by theologian Harvey Cox may explain what I’m getting at:

"Christians believe that Jesus was the fully human expression of God’s love, so like any other human being, he felt the torments of uncertainty. He sweated drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane as he tried to decide whether to continue with his mission even when he had become aware that it would cost him his life. He was fully human, and human beings need other human beings, not just as disciples but also as friends, which is what Jesus told his own followers at the Last Supper that he wanted them to be. The point is clear: Living a moral life is not a solo flight." (When Jesus Came to Harvard (2004))

Living a moral life is not a solo flight, indeed. And neither is Lent.

So we go, now, into the wilderness. But we do not go alone. We go with the Holy Spirit. We go with Noah and David and Esther and Isaiah. We go with angels. We go with those who love the Lord. We go with those we love. We go with each other.

And, lo, when they came out of the wilderness, when they arrived at the other side, it was seen that they were filled with the power of the Spirit. And the devil at long last fell away. And the Lord welcomed them home. And the angels laughed, and danced.

Amen.