Lent and hope

He could have done it. 

Nothing was stopping him so he could have done it. 

And the other thing. 

He could have done that too. 

Not to mention the last thing, though that last thing was rather odd, rather specific, he could have done that last thing as well. 

He did none of those things. 

But he could have. 

He was the son of God, you see. 

He was the son of God and God was well pleased with him. 

And not only was he the son of God, he was from a line of the most powerful and knowledgeable in all of Israel’s history. 

He was of the line of Adam, yes, that Adam, and Seth. 

He descended from the line of Abraham and Isaac. 

Boaz, Obed, and Jesse. 

He hailed from the House of David. 

And don’t forget the women in Jesus’ lineage as reported in Matthew’s gospel. 

Strong women, namely Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, Ruth. 

Tamar, who suffered many woes but birthed the twins Perez and Zerah, Perez who would begin the line that eventually became David’s House. 

Rahab, who let in the Israelites so they could take Jericho. 

Ruth, the Moabite who married Boaz, an ancestor of Perez, and let the line of Judah continue until David was made king. 

Bathsheba, one of David’s many wives and saw to it through smarts and shrewd politics that her son Solomon would be king; Solomon who built the first Temple of the Lord. 

Bathsheba also bore another son among five named Nathan and from Nathan, continued the line that led to Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. 

Jesus, son of a carpenter, was also the son of kings and queens, the most powerful and the most humble who used whatever power they had to ensure their descendants would thrive. 

Jesus, the son of God most importantly, could have done all those things, but he didn’t. 

What things you ask? 

Well, he could have turned that stone into bread just as Satan tried to trick him into doing. 

And it would have been that fluffy warm bread with the soft crust and the steam that gets released when you pull it apart. 

Beside it would have been warm butter that smoothly spreads over the bread which is salty and just a bit, just a taste of sweet. 

Not that cold butter that doesn’t spread well. 

He then could have eaten that bread and his hunger would have been finished. 

His growling, human stomach would have growled no more, and he could have said, “Get behind me, Satan, I’m eating here.” 

But he didn’t. 

And he could have made a deal with the devil, a literal deal with the devil. 

All Jesus had to do was just pledge his allegiance to the Satan and he could have ruled the earth with a benevolent hand. 

He could have lifted up the poor out of poverty just as the valley’s will be lifted up when the Messiah returns. 

He could have brought down the haughty and the proud just as the mountains will be leveled when the Messiah returns. 

He could have ruled over all the earth with a kind and generous hand, but he did not. 

And he could have performed that rather oddly specific stunt the devil tried to convince him to do. 

He could have jumped off the very top of the Temple. 

He could have jumped and performed a most magnificent swan dive, just glorious, his arms spread and flowing robes flowing. 

There with him would have been a whole host of angels cheering him on before catching him gently in their arms. 

And with the angels would be the Archangel Michael saying, “Yeah, Jesus, you show him!” 

But he did not jump from the temple. 

He did not rule the earth and he did not turn stones into bread. 

He did none of those things. 

Why? 

Or rather, why not? 

Would the world be a better place if it was given to Jesus to rule over? 

No. 

Not if Jesus then must worship the evil one. 

And why not have a bit of soft delicious bread? 

Wouldn’t Jesus be better off if he released himself from being famished? 

No. 

Not if he had to break his fast before it was time. 

And why not just jump off the temple, people go skydiving all the time. 

Is that such a bad thing to do? 

Yes! 

Folks, listen to me. 

Do not go jumping off temples. 

It is always a bad thing to do. 

But this request from the devil really puts this reading to bed for me. 

It really ties up the loose strings of what Satan is trying to do here. 

Because we often hear these acts of the devil described as Jesus facing temptations in the desert. 

In the preface during Holy Eucharist this morning, I will say, “Through Jesus Christ our Lord; who was in every way tempted as we are, but did not sin.” 

The Collect I just read opened with the phrase, “Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan.” 

Yes, where our more modern translation of the bible concludes,  

“Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.”  

But you might remember the King James Version that reads: 

And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season. 

And this all stems from the Greek word pairazomenos (pie-raz-o-may-nos) having been originally translated as “tempt” where most scholars now agree it actually means “test”. 

Jesus is not being tempted in the desert, the devil is not saying, “here’s this rock, won’t you make it delicious?” 

No, this is Jesus being tested. 

And this is Jesus passing those tests. 

Now, I’ve said in the past that God does not test us and I hold to that. 

God does not want us to suffer, to starve, to leap off tall buildings in a single bound. 

Yet we do face tests in life. 

We do face the prospect of sin and sinning in our lives. 

That is the world in which we live. 

And, yes, temptation is a part of one being tested. 

I might be tempted to use AI to write a sermon so that I can stay up late and watch the Mets lose again instead. 

But that temptation would only serve as a test; testing the bounds of my priestly obligation to all of you and this parish. 

Plagiarism, be it from a previously written source or an algorithm stealing from other sources, would be a failure of that test. 

And though I could do it, my vows, my conscious, my ontological self, will not allow me to do so without breaking the trust we have as priest and parishioner. 

Therefore, I do not and I will not break that trust. 

And we all face tests. 

We are all tested at some point or another. 

And we all pass some tests and we all fail some, too. 

Again, God does not test us, but God certainly wishes us to pass the tests we  do face. 

We just read a portion of Deuteronomy and it sounds as if we read a chapter out of a rule book. 

In essence, we did. 

Yet in these rules can be found God calling us to remain together as a people. 

God sets out rules for us to follow so that we might carry on our covenant with God and one another. 

The reading speaks of remembering our past lives in the wilderness, the wilderness of our ancestors and maybe even metaphorically, the wildernesses we experience through heartache or breaking with God’s law. 

And because our ancestors were all in some sense and at some point sojourners in a strange land, we are to welcome the stranger and the sojourners in our midst in this day and in this age. 

And by doing so, we can then “celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.” 

That is where God wishes us to be and that is with whom God wishes us to be. 

All of us, together. 

All God’s children, celebrating the bounty that God provides. 

And yet, again, there are times when we do not act as God would have us act. 

There are times when we shun the stranger. 

When we bask in warmth when others are cold. 

When we forget that we were ever strangers in a land not our home. 

And I’ll say something radical. 

That’s ok. 

It’s ok because often times we do make mistakes. 

Mistakes made without consideration. 

Shortcuts taken down ruddy paths that cause us to fall. 

But that is not who we are. 

That is not the essence of our being. 

It is not a state of permanence. 

Instead, we are gifted, by God’s grace, forgiveness for our mistakes. 

Yet to realize that forgiveness, to be freed of the sins we perform in all manner of ways, we need to be penitent. 

We need to ask for forgiveness and we need to change. 

Just as children are told to do, we need to say we are sorry but more than that we need to atone. 

We need to make right our ways and most of all we need to change our ways. 

This is what this season is all about. 

A time to reflect on our past actions. 

A time to change so that we act as God wishes us to act. 

Though we might be tested by all of the temptations in the world, over and over again, we are given the chance to change, the chance to be better, the chance to pick ourselves back up if ever we stumble. 

No, this is not a fire and brimstone sermon, hell fires will not necessarily appear before us in the hereafter if we eschew our obligations to be good Christians. 

I do believe God forgives all and God will forgive us all eventually. 

But the point of this sermon is to ask you to take this season seriously. 

It is a gift. 

And all throughout Lent we’ll help you realize this gift be it quiet time spent during our meditation series or Compline this coming Thursday or Celtic Vespers on the twenty third. 

This is a season to repent in anticipation of the hopefulness that awaits us come Easter. 

This is a time to radically redirect our lives toward Christ. 

Redirect and return. 

Return to God’s table so that we might “celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.” 

Ultimately, this is a time of good. 

A time of hopefulness. 

A time to realize that we have no need to turn rocks into bread for the Lord eases our hunger. 

No need to perform evil works that the Satan might test us to do. 

And no need to jump off temples because, again, just. 

Don’t. 

Do. 

That! 

Yes, we will be tested. 

Yet there beside us stands Jesus and through Christ, we will pass those tests. 

And with Christ, we shall become the one who God wishes us to be. 

Amen.