I, Satan

Scripture: First Sunday in Lent, A.D. 2014 A

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. AMEN.

The Temptation of Christ is one of the most remarkable episodes in Jesus’ ministry. In fact, it’s quite nearly the first thing that He does. Jesus waits until age 30 to reveal Himself to the waiting world, and the moment that John baptizes our Lord in the Jordan river, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus out into the wilderness. There He fasts for 40 long days, and is tempted by the devil.

The wilderness of southern Judea around the Dead Sea is as harsh and desolate a land as most any we can fathom. It is a place of shimmering heat, towering mountains, vertiginous cliffs, and long expanses of dirt and shrub. There are rocks everywhere. Israelis talk about how the angels must’ve dumped stones by the cartload on the Holy Land, for even the shepherds’ fields prove more rock than grass. And though you do not see them in the heat of the sun, there are wild beasts out there, predators by night. It is a land of terrifying beauty, a place where Man fears to tread and devils prowl the cliffs. Here Christ is led to confront the ancient foe.

Biblical stories are a lot like art, in that art for art’s sake cannot exist. Art must always point beyond itself to some greater thing, some greater meaning, in order for it truly to be art. The Temptation of Christ points beyond itself as well. As we can tell by our readings this morning, it points back to the very beginning of human history, to our first parents, Adam and Eve. They lived not in a wilderness but in a lush and verdant garden, dwelling in perfect communion with God, with nature, and with one another. Yet this garden was not a prison. It had an exit. Humanity could choose to leave.

But why would we do that? If we lived in perfect harmony, free from all suffering or sin, at one with Creation below us and the Creator above, why reject perfection? Because of free will, I’m afraid—pure, unfettered, free will. God created Adam and Eve out of love, and love cannot force. Love always gives us the choice to love in return. To fashion creatures with free will is in fact an act of humility, of vulnerability, of self-emptying on the part of God. God enters a relationship that others can destroy. In this respect God shows us astounding honor and dignity, for He makes us equal to Him insofar as we are able to end the relationship—in this case, with a tree.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents a choice. Eating of it means that we do not trust God to judge for us right and wrong, good and evil. Eating of it means that we will judge, we will decide our own right and wrong, our own good and evil—and in this way we will become our own gods. To do so, to eat such fruit, would be to reject the love of our Creator, and to reject our God-given roles as the stewards and co-creators of this world. God tells this to Adam and Eve point blank: to choose this path, to pursue our own godhood apart from the true God, leads only to horror and death. Yet God gives us the option. It’s not a trap. It’s certainly not what God wants. But love cannot force. Love must woo.

Tradition and Scripture tell us that we are not the only beings in Creation graced with free will, and so are not the only beings given the choice to either love God or attempt to supplant Him. There were others, beings vastly greater than ourselves, beings of pure mind and unfathomable power. We call them, rather inadequately, angels. St. Augustine believed that the angels of God were created on the first day, when God made light and judged it good to separate the light from the darkness. Their choice was instantaneous, light and dark: some chose God; others chose godhood.

No one knows exactly how the choice appeared to the angels. They didn’t have a garden with one forbidden tree. Legend has it that God in His foreknowledge revealed to the angels that one day God would enter His own Creation as Jesus Christ. He would do so through a humble young woman from a marginalized desert tribe. But the greatest of angels—Lucifer, the light-bearer, second only to God—found it offensive that the Creator would enter Creation through such mud-men. How infinitely greater it would be, he thought, for the greatest of angels, the mightiest thing in all Creation, to bear God into the world. Lucifer wanted to be the Theotokos, the God-Bearer, you see. He wanted to be the mother of God!

Lucifer fell and became Satan, the Tempter, the Adversary. He thought he knew better than God, that God was wrong. He thought he could be a better god than God! And this is the same temptation that he whispers to Adam and Eve in the garden, when he comes in the form of a snake. “Try the fruit,” he hisses. “Judge for yourselves. Don’t trust what God has told you; trust in yourselves. Be your own gods!” To heck with love! Leave love to God in Heaven. Devils and Men crave power and pride.

And ever since, brothers and sisters, human history has been a litany of horrors and death: a long line of Alexanders and Caesars and Khans and Stalins, all striving to be gods, striving to assert their wills upon the world, no matter how bloody a swath they had to cut through history, no matter how many of the little people, the non-gods, got in their way. Go ahead, be your own god. See how that works out.

But Jesus is different, isn’t He? Where Adam and Eve fell, Jesus stands strong. The devil tempts Him at every turn. “If You are the Son of God, then show me Your strength, show me Your power! Command these infinite stones to become loaves of bread. You are hungry after so long a fast. Snap your fingers and make the world what You want it to be! Bend it to Your will! Make it Your own!” So demands the devil, for after all, it’s what he would do, if he were God. But that’s not why Jesus has come. Jesus hasn’t come to fulfill His own needs. He hasn’t come to force the world back into its original harmony. The choice has been made. The world has been broken. To heal it will take more than force, more than miracles. To heal it will take relationship and love and self-sacrifice on a Cross.

“Then show them who You are!” the devil retorts. “If you are the Son of God, throw Yourself off the pinnacle of the Temple for all Jerusalem to see! Throw Yourself from its 300 foot height, for surely the angels will catch You, and all will bow in awe!” So demands the devil, for that’s what he would do if he were God. You can almost hear the desperation in Satan’s voice. I wonder how much he understands about the Incarnation. Here is what he feared and loathed so many eons ago: God come to earth, God become Man. Can the devil use the Man in Jesus to turn away the God? Can the devil turn the Son against the Father and thus divide the Indivisible? Maybe he knows the futility of his assault. Maybe he always knew. But the devil is not one to bow to God and to love, so he will attack Jesus nevertheless.

“Rule them!” Satan screams to Jesus Christ. “Take the kingdoms of this world with an iron fist! Impose Your will, if You are God! Conquer these mud-blood apes of earth! I will show You how! They don’t deserve You! They’ve never deserved You! Admit that I was right all along, and God will walk the devil’s path!”

Oh wait, I’m sorry. Does the devil say that to Jesus Christ—or do we?

Here’s where I think we get this story all wrong. Here’s where I think we have to flip the Temptation of Christ on its head. We see that Adam was tempted, and he fell. We see that Israel was tested, and failed. Then we see Jesus succeed. Jesus stands strong against the devil. He does not succumb to the path of will and power and pride. He remains humble. He remains loving. He remains faithful to His Father and the divine plan of love—to woo and not to force. And we put ourselves in Jesus’ shoes, don’t we? (Sandals, as the case may be.) We imagine ourselves as Jesus with the devil tempting us, and we think maybe this time we won’t fail. But we will. We already have.

And not just because the devil is so much greater in mind and in might than we are. No, we will fail because deep down we agree with the devil. His words are our words. When the devil tempts Jesus—when the devil calls upon Him to force the world, force belief, force good order—that’s what we tempt Jesus to do! We tempt Him to snap His almighty fingers and force the world to be right again, instantly, painlessly, tyrannically. We want Him to fly around Jerusalem and force everyone to believe! We want Him to take the reins of power and topple kingdoms and institute a new world order by divine right, no matter who resists, no matter who rebels, no matter who gets in the way!

That’s what we tell Jesus to do! That’s what we demand as proof that He is the Son of God, because that’s what we would do if we were God, isn’t it? We would force! We would impose our will! We would make everyone love us! Just like the devil.

Jesus walks a different path. A path that is slow and painful and selfless. A path that will heal the world and save our souls not through might but through freedom and love. It is a very strange path, laid out by a very strange God. It is not what we would do, if we were God. We would not judge it right. And that, my dear Christians, is exactly why it’s going to succeed.

Christ has come. Love will win. And God will bring us home. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.