Luther said that if pride would cease there would be no sin anywhere.  And isn't pride really at the root of all temptation? When temptation comes with a siren call to wrong doing, it is pretty obvious, but what about when it comes in the form of good things?  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Wouldn't that be a good thing?  We could have avoided a whole lot of trouble in this world if we had that knowledge.  Stones into bread?  Again, would that be so bad?  Or a high dive off the temple --- caught by angels, that would surely have been a sign to people that they were dealing with God.  And control over all the kingdoms of the world, wasn't that what he was going for anyway?  These things are not bad, they are just offered to be used for the wrong reasons at the wrong time.  One author, writing about church life said, "Evil may be wrong, but it is not stupid, at least not at its most powerful.  It does not deal in honest, straightforward, and fair competition.  It fights dirty and deceptively, using every clever, double-binding trick to trap us and rob us of our humanity and our eternal birthright."  The tempter entices us with things that appear to be good, not with things that appear to be evil.  

          Ultimately Jesus will feed all who are hungry and reign over all creation, but the tempter had something else in mind.  The temptation was to override God, and that is constantly the temptation, to want to be God, to forget our place in this order. The temptation is to go for what seems sensible and safe, food, power, control, rather than trust that God will accomplish far more in God's own time and way.  The temptation to be like God, is our pride talking, our desire for self-sufficiency and making it on our own.  If you ARE God you sure won't NEED God.  

          It would be nice to turn the tempter into a sort of caricature, the devil made me do it, but anything that opposes God and the coming kingdom is the satanic which simply means the adversary. The wily one who quoted scripture in order to make his point, but always Jesus returned with a response from Scripture, from Deuteronomy, where the ongoing message was do not put anything above God, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your might.  Food to fill the hunger,  testing God's interest and power to save Jesus from destruction, all the power and riches available in the world---these were the things offered, but Jesus kept his eyes on God, and could say no because he would not let any of those things take the place of God.

          Pretty ironic isn't it? God says as Jesus comes out of the waters of baptism, "this is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." And the next thing he knew, the Spirit led him out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. So much for being God's beloved Son, it was clearly not an identity that would save him from the difficulties of life. The calling of God was made clear in baptism, and then the temptations came to walk away from that calling, that vocation to be a truly human being, God's person, a servant to the world and to other people.

          And so it is for us, those moments of decision and vocation in our lives?it is not as simple as being tempted to this or that particular sin, but rather the temptation which tries to turn us away from the path of servant hood ---the vocation given to each of us in baptism?the temptation to serve someone or something other than God.

          What are the things that want to draw us away, that want to turn our eyes from God to some other power? Where else are we tempted to put our faith? Family, work, patriotism, church ? Certainly all good things. Success, acclaim, safety, comfort, freedom, you name it, there is much to claim us, but it is God who has claimed us and marked us for a relationship in which we are human and God is God.

          The tempter can make the same move on us, the children of God that he made on Jesus, the Son of God?"If you are the Son of God"?like, if you are, shouldn't it be a good idea for you to do a little magic, turn those stones into bread? Shouldn't it be a good idea, IF YOU are the Son of God, for you to have special protection or political power?? If we are the children of God, shouldn't things be going a little better for us? If we are the children of God, shouldn't there be a little less pain and suffering in our lives, shouldn't we have wealth and status? Don't we deserve a little better?  Ah, the tempter would like us to think so, but that is our age old trouble. We would rather be God than a child of God, we would rather trust what we could eat or see or hang on to than trust in the One who has said, "I am the Lord your God, you are my beloved child."

          For forty days Jesus went out into the wilderness---forty days to figure out what it meant to be Jesus, what it meant to be the Son of God. For forty years Israel wandered in the wilderness, figuring out what it meant to be the chosen ones of God on their way to the Promised Land. It was forty days Noah and his family were on the ark, waiting on the Lord, ready to receive the promise, forty days Moses fasted on the mountain as he received the covenant from God to the Israelites. For forty days Elijah fasted in the desert, waiting for his new commission from God.

          Lent is our forty days, our time to ask ourselves again, "what does it mean to be children of God?"  Frederick Buechner, author and preacher says, "During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what  it means to be themselves.  And then he poses some questions, "If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why?  When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore? If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in 25 words or less? Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember? Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for? If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it? To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end."

          Our temptation is always to trust anything and everything that is not God, to forget our true identity, to want to take the short cut. But we follow Jesus, and Jesus too knew what it was to sit in the wilderness of pondering your true identity, to sit in the wilderness of doubt and fear and trust God. Jesus knew what it was to sit in the wilderness of confusion and attractive alternatives. Temptation would not be that if it did not present itself as a viable choice. Our place is to wait on God, a waiting that is confident, disciplined, expectant, active and sometimes painful clinging to God.  Waiting on the Lord is the continual, daily decision to say, "I will trust you, and I will obey you. Even though things are not going the way I would want them to, I am leaning on you."(John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat)  Is that going to be painful sometimes? Yes. Will we be tempted to give up? Yes. But this is what it is to let God be God.  "Jesus said, ?Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ?Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.' Then the devil left Jesus, and suddenly angels came and waited on him." And then Jesus got up and began his ministry; serving, healing, proclaiming the kingdom of God, the new day.  When we lean on God, we can go out in trust and courage.  It is written; Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might, and then Jesus added, and your neighbor as yourself. When we know who has a claim on us, we know where we are to go.

AMEN