Lent
is a season traditionally focused on sin and repentance, with sombre words and
sombre music. There are heavy feelings around Lent and the journey to the
events of Jesus’ final three days. When taken out of context, Lent is seen as a
sad time, a time where you are told to examine all your faults, and a time
where you are asked to suffer for 40 days to show your penitence to God. It is
easy feel like Lent is something to be endured to placate a stern God whose suffocating
nature perennially frowns on our pleasure.
As a resurrection people, we look for the gospel,
for the hope, and Lent can indeed be that source of hope, despite its outward appearance.
When looking through the scope of the entire liturgical cycle, Lent, while keeping
its sombre tones, can truly be a sign of hope. During Lent, we have the
opportunity to reorient our lives, to learn the truth about ourselves, and to
walk with Christ through his journey to the cross. Lent gives us the chance to
receive the seed of salvation that comes to us by the grace of Christ’s death
and resurrection.
This year, especially if you’ve never done so before,
I wish for you to experience Lent from a perspective of hope rather than despair.
From joy rather than suffering. Not to negate the heavy and sombre feelings of
the season, but to enhance some of the meaning behind those feelings. I want to
remind you that you belong to a community of resurrection people who are all experiencing
these same reeling emotions as we walk with our Saviour to his death.
What does it mean to belong? To God? To Jesus? To
each other? To a community?
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, there
are many definitions of the word belong. The one I find most important for our
purposes is that to belong means to be a member or part of a club, an organization,
a class, etc. To belong means to be included, and to be allied to.
Over the next few weeks, we are going to be hearing
some very massive texts from John, and, of course, today’s temptation text from
Matthew, that are saturated with themes and messages. These texts can be overwhelming,
but I want to focus these enormous texts down into a moment, into key moments,
that shows what it means to belong.
Belonging comes from being yourself and being seen.
Part of feeling this sense of belonging is to make a claim on your identity.
In the Gospel reading today, we have the three
temptations of Jesus. During the discourse between Jesus and Satan, twice there
is a statement of “if you are the Son of God”. This piece of Jesus’ identity is
not in question. He is the Son of God and Satan very well knows it. The question
is, does Jesus really know it?
Yes, and no. These temptations are a real pivotal
moment for Jesus. His identity is truly connected to knowing and understanding to
whom does he belong and with whom does he belong. Throughout the temptations, by
turning away Satan’s temptations, Jesus comes into his own, claiming his identity
as the Son of God.
As well, with this 40-day journey falling between
his baptism and the start of his ministry, Jesus is claiming his identity as
fully human. Jesus is exhausted, starving, and alone as he struggles with his
time of temptation and challenge. If he was only God and not human, these temptations
would have been meaningless. Let’s look closer at these temptations and what it
has to do with identity and belonging.
In the first confrontation, the tempter encourages
Jesus to satisfy his physical hunger by turning stones into bread. Satan isn’t
declaring doubt as to Jesus’ identity. Instead of “if”, he could have just as easily
said “because you are the Son of God”. The deceiver is attempting to mislead
Jesus into using his power for himself, rather than trusting in God to provide.
Jesus, of course, sees through this trickery and declares “one does not live by
bread alone”. Jesus knows there is more at stake than food and he will not misuse
his power for personal gain.
The question becomes, “will God provide?” Will God
provide for us? Belonging to something or someone means trusting in provision. Trusting
in being fed. That’s one thing that happens with this first temptation, is that
we find out that Jesus does provide bread in his ministry. The recognition
of being provided for, particularly recalling God’s provision of manna in the
wilderness, the knowledge of God’s provision in the direst of times, in the
most unexpected and overwhelming circumstances, is what Jesus carries forward
and does in his own ministry. For example, in the feeding of the 5000, Jesus
knows that he belongs to God creates a moment of belonging with the people. In
the sharing of the bread, there is a collective belonging to one another. Throughout
this first temptation, there is a trust in God and in God’s provision, and it
is this trust that is part of what it means to belong to and with God. Jesus
trusts that God will care for him because he belongs to God. And so should we
trust that in our belonging to God, we will be provided for.
The second test focuses on Jesus’ vulnerability and
need for safety. Jesus is tempted to use his power to make himself secure from
injury and death, but, again, Jesus refuses to misuse his power.
In the second temptation, the tempter is using
scripture out of context to try and convince Jesus to test God’s protective grace.
To belong to God means that you don’t need to throw yourself off a cliff to
prove to everyone that God will protect you. Belonging to God means to have a
deep trust that God will bear you up. In fact, only a few verses later, Matthew
shows that this indeed happens by saying, “suddenly angels came and waited on
him.” Verse 11 is an affirmation that God is present and will bear you up in times
of need.
And finally, in the third temptation, Satan
attempts to seduce Jesus with domination and prestige. The tempter offers Jesus
control over all of the world’s kingdoms in exchange for his allegiance. Do you
think Jesus was fooled this time? Who wouldn’t want to be ruler of all? Of
course not! Instead, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13, “worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.”
In this last interaction, Satan reveals that his
reign in the world is through empires like Rome. What Jesus realizes belonging
to God means is that Jesus announces and lives God’s empire. He realizes that belonging
means living in God’s kingdom, living in the presence and promises of God’s
kingdom. If you continue further into chapter 4 of Matthew, you will come to a
verse that says, “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven has come near.’” In this case, repent means a transformation
of perspective and, to an extent, that is what belonging means. It means that
you have a perspective that is oriented to God, that you move about in the
world in the promise that God’s kingdom has come near, just as Jesus has declared.
It is a sense of belonging to something that is so much bigger, and so opposite,
from the “empires” around us.
Part of belonging means an absolute trust in your
identity of who you are. Jesus experienced these temptations as a way to affirm
his humanity alongside of his divinity. In the midst of these temptations,
Jesus comes into his own identity. All of these temptations, and Jesus’ ability
to deny the tempter each and every time, has created a sense of belonging that
is an affirmation of Jesus’ identity, of knowing who he is, and knowing to whom
he belongs. Ultimately, it means that Jesus himself will be provided for and then,
subsequently, he will also provide for others, for us. It means he will be born
up and lifted up by God’s presence in his life. Jesus becomes an embodiment of
God’s kingdom.
And because we too belong to God, we will also be born
up and lifted up by the presence of God in our lives, no matter what our
wilderness is.
And we will have many wildernesses throughout our lives, times where we might feel like we belong no where and to no one. But know that you will always belong to a community of resurrection people, a community of people that belong to each other, that belong to Jesus, and that belong to God. And that is good news indeed. Amen.
"Pilgrim Year: Lent" by Steve Bell
"Feasting on the Word" edited by David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor
"Belonging: A Preaching Workshop for Lent" hosted by Karoline Lewis
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