Lent 1C: Deuteronomy 26:1-1; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13
The Rev. Cameron Partridge
March 9, 2025
Good Morning, St. Aidan’s. I was in a group meeting last week in which the approach of the season of Lent came up in a check-in. Someone shared that they were relieved Lent was arriving because the liturgical season would finally align with how they were feeling and what they were experiencing in the world. I’ve heard jokes over the years about the absurdity of loving this penitential season, including a rewording of the song “these are a few of my favorite things” to conclude: “When it’s Christmas, When the tree’s lit, When the cards are sent, I simply remember my favorite things, And then I can’t wa-a-a-a-it till Lent.”[1] In all seriousness, you can count me among those who truly appreciate this season for how it invites us deeper into our faith and locates us within a space of wilderness or desert, hallowing that liminal location. Over the course of forty days Lent prepares us in a liturgical desert to receive and embrace the mystery at the heart of our faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As the Ash Wednesday liturgy conveyed this week, “The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting.”[2] That penitential preparation can take many forms. Some people give something up for Lent—a habit like doom scrolling, or a food (such as meat or chocolate—my gateway to Lenten observance as a teen). Others take on a practice such as setting aside a time for the Daily Office, contemplative prayer, or exercise. Perhaps you have chosen how you might like to embrace the call of Lent, or perhaps you’re not sure. As for me, this year I am making space for Lent to name a particular, grave reality – the presence of evil in this world – to help me to know how I and others are called to respond to that reality, and to strengthen my awareness of God’s presence in the midst of it.
The first Sunday of Lent always brings us the story of Temptation of Jesus in the desert. This year we hear Luke’s rendition. I have mentioned that Luke’s gospel tends to emphasize the role of prayer in Jesus’ ministry but he also, relatedly, underlines the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has a role in Jesus’ wilderness foray in all three accounts of it, but whereas in Mark’s gospel the Spirit “drives” him there, in Luke the verb is “leads.”[3] There is a sense of accompaniment, of the Spirit’s strengthening presence amid challenge, in the face of evil. Luke version of the story, like Matthew’s, elaborates three specific temptations Jesus faces. First, we hear that he ate nothing during his time in the desert and that he was famished by its close. When you are in a weakened state you are much more vulnerable, much less likely to put up a fight against a threat. The devil knows this and attacks. If Jesus is the Son of God, simply avoid all this hunger and human weakness. Turn these stones into bread. Jesus is able to muster a reply: humans do not live by bread alone (Luke 4:2-4). Matthew’s version adds, “but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:3-4). I think of our passage from Romans, “the word is very near you; it is on your lips and in your heart” (Romans 10:8b), which in turn is quotes an exhortation in Deuteronomy to root ourselves in God amid difficulties and calamities (30:14).
The second temptation brings the presence of evil front and center. The devil “in an instant” whisks Jesus to a high place and shows him the lands in view. “To you I will give their glory and all this authority,” he says, “for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours” (Luke 4:5-7). This elaboration of the devil having the “glory and authority” of the domains on display is a statement unique to Luke. It struck me strongly as I dwelt with this passage this year. In his commentary on Luke, Justo Gonzalez notes that this gospel views the kingdoms of the world as somehow belonging to evil. This is not to say that “all that is in them is bad,” he writes. But the reality of sin, of systemic evil, is shown in how humans fall far short of the mark, that we tend toward self-centeredness and exploitation, and/or – particularly for all who are marginalized – can all too easily be coerced into internalized self-disrespect and self-negation. Gonzalez sums up the situation in this way: “the present world is ordered in a satanic fashion.” This harsh description is not one that mainline Protestant contexts often use. I myself don’t usually speak in this way. But as Gonzalez emphasizes, we live in “a world of injustice and oppression. Such oppression and injustice are not merely the result of the will of oppressors, or of exploitation by the powerful.”[4] The language of sin can help name the systemic quality of this evil which is neither merely a problem of individual shortcomings and weakness of will, nor a depersonalized, abstract concept removed from our own specific lives. Evil in our world is particularly manifest in systems of power, in kingdoms and those who declare themselves monarchs or are placed upon such pinnacles by others. Gonzalez writes, “in one country, someone rises to power by means of religious fanaticism, exploiting and exacerbating the prejudices of the people, and leading to a repressive regime in which all who do not comply to the wishes of the ruler will suffer dire consequences. In another, a dictator comes to power by fanning the hatred of the people for the policies of another country, or by promising a freedom and justice he cannot deliver.” The “more democratic nations” feature politicians who “come to power by making concessions to special interest groups,” throwing vulnerable communities under the bus, “by promising what they have no intention and no possibility to deliver, and in general by compromising principles and character.”[5]
This state of affairs, ominously familiar to us from history and the present moment, is not one we humans can simply undo on our own. We need the action of the God of justice and peace, the God who in Jesus Christ confronted the evil of this world, took it up in his own mortal body and came out the other side. We need the God who alone has the power to reckon and heal, to redeem and transform this world. This is the God whom Jesus manifests in resolute strength even amid vulnerability in his wilderness confrontation. Round three of the temptation sequence lifts up the power of divine accompaniment, sustaining in the most trying of times. The devil sweeps Jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple and uses scripture to lure him away from his path. “If you are the Son of God,” place yourself in mortal danger. Pull a Superman at Niagra Falls. After all, scripture says the angels will save you (Luke 4:9-11). If you are the Son of God. It is as if the devil is saying, “I don’t believe you are who you say you are. Prove it.”[6] Prove it with daredevil prowess, with might.
But the image of the rescuing angels has a completely different spirit. It comes from our Psalm, which begins “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”[7] It is a deeply vulnerable prayer, one that reaches toward trust. I can remember praying with its imagery as a child and young teen, as I struggled with gender-based bullying and other challenges in my life at the time. I needed to lean on God, not because God would magically snatch me out of the evil I encountered – though I certainly Ionged for that – but that even if the challenges persisted, I needed to know God was with me, standing beside me. The devil seeks to draw Jesus away from the trust expressed by the Psalm, from being “bound in love” (Ps 91:14) to God the Parent who was indeed always with him, even as he would later struggle in agony and express abandonment on the cross.
And this is the gift given to us by this sobering scene: Jesus’ steadfastness, his own clinging to God the Parent, reveals to us of the strength of remaining rooted in God come what may. Jesus’ wilderness temptation does not seek to divert our attention from the reality of evil in the world. It confronts that reality as evil seeks to ensnare him, to trap him in its orbit. And in the midst of that confrontation, Jesus holds steady. God-with-us, Emmanuel, models the abiding strength of a path that refuses the powers of this world. This is a strength that comes from God, that trusts in God, that is resolutely bound to God in love. In and through that love, God finally defeats evil. In the mystery that Lent prepares us to embrace afresh, God brings new life out of death, the death that evil is convinced will vanquish the Holy One forever. God brings that new life into this world in and through us as transformative leaven in the midst of pain and suffering. Together this Lent, may we take up practices that remind us of this strength, this leaven, this love, even in the face of the evils of this world. In and through those practices, may we bind ourselves to God and one another in a love that, as Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “rejoices in the truth,” that bears, believes, hopes, endures, and truly knows in its bones that love never ends (1 Corinthians 13:6-8).
[2] The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Publishing, 1979), 264-265.
[3] Luke 4:1; Mark 1:12
[4] Justo Gonzalez, Luke: A Theological Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 58-59.
[5] Gonzalez, 59
[6] Gonzalez makes this point, p. 61
[7] It is actually Psalm 46 that begins with those words—from our appointed Psalm, 91:2 similarly reads “You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust."
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