40 Days of Temptation: A Play in Three Acts



The Temptations of Christ, 12th century mosaic at St Mark's Basilica, Venice

Matthew 4:1-11 

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 

 

It's the first Sunday of Lent and by now your fight to abstain from meat on Fridays and give up whatever additional goodies (or baddies) you have chosen has been put to the test several times over. It is a time when many feel a kinship with Jesus and his temptations in the wilderness as one of the biggest enticements to sin surrounds food. Or maybe you are a Christian who doesn't participate in Lent. I didn't practice a Lenten fast until I was in my latter twenties. Being raised as Baptist in the Deep South I always thought it was more of a Catholic thing. Like many I thought that Catholics had their traditions and we had our Scripture quoting. Of course this is a false paradigm. Their are many other Christian groups besides Catholics, including many Protestant denominations (and even a few Baptists) who practice a fast for Lent. The real distinction on Lent is not a Protestant/Catholic one but rather between traditional Christianity and simplified Christianity... in other words one group tries to keep up the spiritual practices of their Christian historical forefathers while the others try and reduce Christianity to its essentials first century form (as much as possible). Upon close inspection one will find that their are elements of simplification in the traditional method and tradition in the simplified method. Case in point: Many in the simplified approach may use an altar call, an invention of the 1800's, to invite people to become Christians and/or members of the local church. These two methods don't have to be mutually exclusive. Which brings up back to today's scripture of Matthew 4:1-11. It has something for everyone: fasting and scripture quoting. It is a testament to the value of spiritual discipline and biblical literacy being tied together in the life of any believer. Specifically these two are shown as tools Jesus used to fight the three types of temptations we encounter. These are highlighted in 1 John 2:16 as 1) the lust of the flesh 2) the lust of the eyes and 3) the pride of life.



James Tissot - Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness

Act 1: The lust of the flesh

 

Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

 

Jesus was hungry. Jesus needed food. Doesn't seem like there's any sin in that right? Well it depends on the particular situation. Most sins of the flesh are like this. They deal with our physical bodies and its needs and/or strong desires. Food, sex, sleep, entertainment, etc.: all of these things are not sin in themselves. They can be good things or even great things but in the wrong context they can be sinful and/or destructive things. Jesus wasn't a gluten-free type of guy. Bread would normally have been great for Jesus. His flesh longed for it. He would later share it at the last supper as a symbol of his body and sacrifice on the cross, but at this particular moment in this particular context it would have been disobeying God. Jesus responds to Satan with a Deuteronomy 8:3. He basically stated that being a child of God sometimes means saying no to what your body demands if it is saying yes to what God's word demands. Our life isn't sustained by food but by the Lord. the giver of life.   



Detail of Temptations of Christ, Sandro Botticelli



Act 2: The pride of life

 

Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”

Satan responds to Jesus' use of Scripture as a defense by contorting Scripture himself. He tempts Jesus by misusing Psalms 91:11-12. This can be seen as the temptation to commit suicide but it seems more like the temptation to abuse his authority as the Son of God for his own good. Remember Christ came not to flaunt his power but rather to give up his power: to become powerless to gain us back through the sacrifice of his own life. To throw himself off of the temple to show that the angels would protect him would just be taking pride in his own power... and Jesus displayed constant humility in his earthly ministry. Jesus' response to this temptation also displays his reverence for biblical literacy and comprehension. It is not only important to know the Bible, but it is paramount to understand it. Jesus responds to the temptation by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. Scripture must be reasoned with other Scripture: it is the whole counsel of God that gives wisdom. There are many atrocities that have been committed in the name of the Christian God and with a certain scripture as a pretext, however, when they are held up to the light of Christ they lose all biblical validity.   



Temptation_of_Christ, Eric Armusik

 Act 3: The lust of the eyes

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

Here is where I reveal myself as more of a hack than an expert. This final temptation seems like it could go into the pride of life category as well as the lust of the eyes category. There are actually a few of them that could fit multiple categories. Temptation and Sin can be hard to categorize...it can even be harder to detect. Everything that Satan showed Christ (all of the kingdoms of the world) would be his eventually. I mean, doesn't Philippians 2:10-11 say that every knee shall bow and tongue confess to Christ? Christ didn't even have to worship Satan to get this, he's just have to be patient. Hence he rebuked the Devil and quoted Deuteronomy 6:13. Or maybe I'm not understanding it fully. Not only is the worship of Satan to get worldly kingdoms wrong but the desire to have the kingdoms of the world and their systems is wrong. Remember, Christ had a kingdom, but it was not of this world. It was not one that his disciples would have to physically fight men to establish and it was not one that they would have to quarrel amongst each other to have dominion in. The Kingdom of God is within our hearts when our hearts are within the Love of God.   



Jesus Ministered to by Angels, James Tissot

Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

Though Christ was fully God, he was also fully human. He dealt with temptation just as we do jet remained sinless. It is because of this that Hebrews 4:15-16 states that Christ is our sympathetic high priest. One that is willing to give us mercy and grace in our hour of need. That is the point of Lent to understand the weakness of the mortal flesh and our reliance on the power of the Almighty God. Lent keeps things in perspective: we wear ashes on our forehead to symbolize that we came from dust and we shall return to dust... only the spirit remains. It is the things of the spirit that we must invest in. But this post isn't to sell you on Lent. Maybe you object on biblical grounds to making an outward show of fasting. The objective of this post is to remind you of the Truth behind the practice that it is trying to convey. The biblical truth. The truth of Jesus' 40 day temptation and victory over sin. His latter confrontation with the cross and victory over your sin. His understanding, mercy and freedom from your spiritual conflicts. Fasting and meditating on Scripture help fight temptation. And when the situational temptation leaves it will reveal that God remains there ministering to you.
 

Community Dwelling



Swoon, wheat paste hand colored woodcut print on public wall 

Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God...

 

Art ownership is usually something that we associate with home ownership. It is not that one has to be rich to buy art (but it sure does help) but it helps if you have a wall (or refrigerator) to hang your paintings on. So whether it is a house, an apartment or that cosmopolitan hybrid commonly known as a condo, art is often something that we put in our homes: a secondary consideration after we find shelter. After the cavemen moved into caves they then consulted the nearest interior designer to advise them on what cave paintings to display on their walls. Art is a way for us to mark our place in the world?  But what about the homeless: those without homes? What about refugees: those without a homeland? Where is the dwelling place in which they place their treasure? I believe that an answer can be found between one of my favorite psalms and one of my favorite street artists. Moses wrote Psalm 90 understanding what it was like to not have a home or a country. He was the leader of a nation of newly emancipated slaves that would wander the wilderness for the last 40 years of his life. Generations earlier Abraham, the forefathers of the Jewish people, had been called by God to leave his hometown (in present-day Iraq) and sojourn to a foreign land that would be his children's inheritance. God chose to be the god of pilgrims, nomads and freed slaves, creating a community where none had existed before. To these hoards of believers God would reveal Himself to be their true home. Street Artist Swoon has made a name for herself by creating artworks that don't reside within homes but rather create a community themselves. She first garnered attention by posting her wheat paste prints on public walls. These prints were beautiful in themselves and showed the beauty of the the overlooked members of the neighborhoods where the pictures where posted.  Both Moses and Swoon became members of communities of the marginalized. It is the marginalized, overlooked and rejected that God invites into His home. He places them on a pedestal as His work of art and values them as His treasures.



Swoon, Konbit Shelter Project, Haiti



...You turn man to destruction,And say, “Return, O children of men.”

For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it is past,
And like a watch in the night.
You carry them away like a flood;
They are like a sleep.
In the morning they are like grass which grows up:
In the morning it flourishes and grows up;
In the evening it is cut down and withers...

 

As beautiful as Swoon's prints are they still are temporary. They are made of wheat paste and posted publicly where they will be weathered by the elements. At the end of the day wheat is just a grass and just like Psalm 90 says it withers away. As beautiful and honorable as they are the people who are the subjects of Swoon's art will also pass away some day. Such is the fate of men and grass. Psalm 90 is all about the juxtaposition of the eternal nature of God and temporariness of Man. People understand things better when they have a point of measurement to compare a subject with. Moses compares the immenseness of God and eternity with the frailty of Man. It is hard to grasp the meaning of both of these subjects (God and eternity). Being that we cannot fully define them experientially, we rely on metaphors to show what they are like or what they are "greater than." Moses knew that his readers knew what a year was because they had experienced many of them. Therefore they could imagine what a thousand of them could be like It is much greater than the year that they understood. Yet a thousand years are nothing in the sight of the Lord's eternal vantage point. God was greater than even their perception of Time. Moses was revealing that this God that was greater than everything was as intimate and warm to the Israelites as a home. He was a solid home that would protect them from the storms of life. God is a house built upon rock with a solid foundation that can withstand tragedy. When a tragic earthquake struck the nation of Haiti in 2010 many people around the globe responded through giving. This calamity had destroyed houses, hospitals and government buildings alike. Those that were able travelled to Haiti and assisted with the rebuilding. Swoon used her own creativity in combination with science and communal effort to design a new earthquake resistant community in Haiti. The Konbit Shelter Project constructed adobe homes for earthquake victims that were dome shaped to withstand earthquakes of similar size. It also utilized local materials, coil-type construction that you see in pottery and a building material called super adobe invented by the Iranian born architect and humanitarian Nader Khalili. When Moses talks of man's fragility he contrasts it with God's solidity, firmness and endurance. God is like one of Swoon's Konbit shelters. When life gives us tragedies that tosses us to and fro, sifting us like wheat, God stands strong. Those who dwell in Him are protected fro danger. 





Swoon, Swimming Cities of Serenissima, Venice, Italy

...For we have been consumed by Your anger,

And by Your wrath we are terrified.
You have set our iniquities before You,
Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.
For all our days have passed away in Your wrath;
We finish our years like a sigh.
The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knows the power of Your anger?
For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath.
So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom...

 

 Moses speaks of God "carry(ing) them away like a flood" and later goes on to discuss Man's frailty in the face of God's wrath: our moral deficiency faced with His judgments. It is in Moses' book of Genesis that we discover that God had indeed judged Mankind with a flood. None was found righteous save for one man (Noah) and his family. To escape His wrath God inspired Noah to create a large boat (the Ark) with which to weather the storms with a community of his family and pairs of the world's animals). Like Noah, Swoon also engaged in some amateur boat making. Hers was not one great boat but rather an armada of several ramshackle raft creations that look like they were created by objects found in Fred Sanford's junkyard. At first Swoon gathered her friends and sailed up rivers in America but later when she was selected to be the representative artist for the United States at the prestigious Venice Biennale, she upped the ante. The crew created rafts made of New York City garbage and sailed into the Grand Canal of the city of Venice, Italy. Swoon had taken a remnant from the refuse and created a seaworthy vessel for this new community that she had created. Now just like the Creation story in Genesis there is debate amongst Christians about the Flood narrative. Was it a deluge that encased the whole world, the whole known world or just Noah's immediate world. Whichever you chose to believe the themes of the story are the same: God judges and God saves. Both damnation and salvation, justice and mercy are delivered from the Sovereign of the Universe. Both seem to fulfill the Lord's purpose of redemption and renewal. After the Great Flood, Noah's family and the pairs of animals went and fulfilled God's earlier command to "be fruit and multiply." But God gave them more commands than He had provided for Adam and Eve, as He made His covenant with Noah He announced a prohibition against murder and set a precedent of demanding justice of all nations. When Moses told this story in Genesis He did so as a precursor to what he would show in the four other books of the Torah/Law. Moses would later tell of God's saving of the nation of Israel from Egyptian bondage, His revelation of the commandments and all of the Law and the subsequent judgment of many who had heard the Law. So Moses would pen this psalm as a testament of all that he had seen concerning Man before God's judgment. Sometimes we don't think about the fact that salvation as an act of judgment as well. When God saved the Israelites it also was an act of judgment against the nation of Egypt. God's mercy towards Israel was an ark of protection against the greater wrath that He was exercising against their captors. We too have an ark of salvation that saves us from God's judgment. This is the Body of Christ. The Church is an assortment of believers around the world like Noah's animals but we come together because God has chosen us worthy to be saved from His wrath. Yet our status of worthiness is not due to anything we have done but rather what Christ has done. Like Swoon when Christ designed his ark he sifted through the refuse. He gathered sinners from the debris of humanity and created a remnant to save. It is with these sinners that Christ found a home. It is to these sinners that Christ is a home. Jesus sails into Heaven upon this ramshackle group of believers. Though we were thrown away before, Christ has redeemed and re purposed us. He has re-commissioned us to be God's armada: not an army of destruction but one of salvation.     

 

Swoon, Music Box, New Orleans

...Return, O Lord!

How long?
And have compassion on Your servants.
Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!
Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us,
The years in which we have seen evil.
Let Your work appear to Your servants,
And Your glory to their children.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands.

 

New Orleans is a city nestled in the Gulf Coast swamps of Southeast Louisiana. A place where it is not unheard of to live in a houseboat. Yet Swoon did not create arks or houseboats of any type in New Orleans. Swoon made ordinary land based structures but they were made of river refuse and the leftovers from a dilapidated Creole cottage. Swoon built more than a house: she built a shanty town. And to honor New Orleans' musical heritage she built one that actually plays music. All of the buildings and rooms incorporate elements from musical instruments. They also provide a space where local musicians can perform. That is what the Lord's mercy is. It is not just a house to protect us from danger. It is not just an ark to save us from judgment. God's mercy is place of joy. God's mercy is a place of music and singing. When Moses wrote this poem because he continually found himself in God's mercy. God's mercy is a portico in which do dance within. It is a dining hall to sit within and make merriment with family, friends, strangers and enemies. God is a shelter from tears for those who dwell in Him.