The First Sunday in Lent
DEUTERONOMY 26:1-11: The center of this text is the creed that is stated in 26:5-9, and this creed may well be the center of the Book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy was put into the form we now have during the time of Judah's exile in Babylon. Its writers were members of a reform group in Judah that wanted to centralize Judah's worship around the temple in Jerusalem; no other sanctuaries for worship were to be permitted. The group also wanted to set a single standard of behavior for the people. To accomplish these two purposes, the writers looked back to the mission of Moses. The writers shaped their book in the form of a covenant between God and the people. Moses was the mediator of the covenant. God had graciously offered that he, Yahweh, would be Israel's God, and Israel and Judah would be God's people. God had given the people a law. The law focused on the Ten Commandments, but other laws were added to this. In order to be God's people, the people had to keep the law as God has given it. This is the setting in which the Book of Deuteronomy was composed.
The creed was an ancient one that had come down through the centuries from one or another of the tribes and clans ot Israel to the people of Judah in Babylon. Like other creeds, this one was recited during an act of worship. It had been used in worship as the men of Israel gathered each year in one of the sanctuaries of Israel to celebrate the Feast of Weeks. This feast was the second of three annual pilgrimages Israelite men were to make to fulfill their religious obligations; the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) were the others. At this celebration a token gift of the firstfruits from the grain and cereal harvest were placed in a basket and handed to the priest. The priest then placed this basket of gifts before the altar as a gesture acknowledging that the produce belonged to God. In bringing his gifts to the sanctuary, the worshiper understood that he was dedicating not only his gifts but his whole life to the God who had given him everything he had. As a continuing act of worship, he would recite this credo to his God:
A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the Lord the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and saw our affliction, and toil and our oppression; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt; with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which thou, O Lord, has given me. (26:5-10)
This passage is notable in that here the history of Israel begins not with creation or with the call of Abraham but with the wanderings of Jacob who ranged widely throughout the mideast before he settled in Egypt. The population of Israel had grown until their numbers became a threat to the the Egyptians; under the subsequent oppression by Egypt, Israel cried to the Lord who acted to deliver them. Two of God's saving acts are especially described, the deliverance from Egypt and the gift of the land of Canaan to the Israelites. This could mean that the particular clan or tribe who first recited this creed may not have known of such events as the giving of the covenant at Sinai or the wandering of the people through the wilderness. Or it could mean that all the events between the time of the destruction of the enemy troops at the sea and the entrance of Israel into the land of promise were to be included in the phrase "deliverance from Egypt." By reciting the creed year after year these Israelites would recall the saving acts of God
It was not only in the interests of the past that the creed was recited; it was primarily focused on the present and the future. As they said these words again and again, Israelites were reminding themselves that God is indeed a saving God: as in the past, the God who had delivered them then is their deliverer now; they could call upon this God, and God would answer them. From the youngest to the oldest, every Israelite was taught to believe that he or she was living in the presence of the saving God. So the creed was not merely a recital of history. It became a statement of faith: in such ways God acts in our lives right now.
PSALM 91:1, 9-16: The voice of this psalm is the voice of trust. "I will say to the Lord, My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
The psalmist has good reason for his trust. He lives in the shelter of the Most High. He abides in the shadow of the Almighty. His God is a refuge and fortress. He delivers him from the snare of the fowler amd from deadly pestilence. He covers us with his wings, even the pinions of his wings. He is like a shield and a buckler, these weapons of defense in the time of war. We need not fear the terror by night, the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that stalks us in darkness, the destruction that wastes at noonday.
In our just-closed century, we faced many of these dangers. We have seen arrows of bombs fall from the sky, rockets of bombardment streak through the heavens. We are afraid of the terrors of the night that stalk too many. We have seen pestilence rise up from the battlefields and take one-third of the world's people, we have seen AIDS fly from the midst of Africa and land on people the world over. We have seen our cities wasted in mid-day and indeed at mid-night. Ours has been a fearsome century. Do we have the trust in God that living in these times requires?
Some of the expressions of trust to which the psalmist refers do seem to be misplaced. A thousand may fall at our side, and our sons and daughters may fall with them. Ten thousand may fall at our right hand, and we may fall with them. The pestilence of disease may fall on others and then move on to invade us. Do we have automatic protection against these?
Jesus' answer was "No!" The tempter tempted Jesus by taking him to the pinnacle of the temple and insisting that he should throw himself down. He quoted Psalm 91 behind his assertions. "He will command his angels to protect you. On their hands they will bear you up." Jesus was not fooled. As we will say below in discussing the temptations of Jesus, he replied that we are not to test God by foolish acts. We are to trust God in all things.
Trust like that is the basic message of this psalm. Beneath its rash confidence, genuine trust shines through. God provides us with a safe place. God is with us for a safe journey. Seven verbs sound God's promise to us. "I will deliver . . . I will protect . . . I will answer . . . I will rescue . . . I will honor (you) . . . I will satisfy . . . I will show my salvation." Trust in those promises, and the trustworthiness of God will be revealed to us.
ROMANS 10:8-13: Paul's letter crests with the words of a great confession: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
There is an Old Testament background to the verses (5 through 8) that precede the confession. Deuteronomy 30: 11-14 says "This commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven and bring it down to us, that we may hear and do it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' But the word is very near to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it."
Paul re-interpreted the verse in terms of Jesus Christ. It is not the law that gives us the command that God wants us to hear. It is the Christ of faith whom we must obey. He is a Christ for whom we do not have to go up into the heavens in order to bring him down, nor do we have to go down into the abyss (This was the manner in which Paul understood the word "sea," which was a threatening abyss to Jewish people) to bring him up from the dead. The word of faith which we preach is already near so that you can hear it. Therefore, confess Christ as Lord.
"Lord" was used in contemporary religious practice. The god whom one worshiped was called "Lord" and the worshipers of the god were those who belonged to this special patron. It was not customary in pagan religion to have just one "lord." A person could worship many gods and so patronize many patrons. This was not so in Judaism or in Christianity. "The Lord is one," said the Book of Deuteronomy. Christianity affirmed it: the Lord is one, and that one is Jesus Christ. He has come down to earth. He has been raised from the abyss. To confess Christ, as C H Dodd said (Commentary on Romans, 168) is to say that "Christ has chosen us to belong to the community of his worshipers and that, while others might belong to Hermes or Serapis or the rest, Christians belong exclusively to Christ. . . . Christ is head over everything for the church which is his body, and Christ is the destined Head of all the universe."
LUKE 4:1-13 There is much in Luke's account of the temptation of Jesus that is reminiscent of the sojourn of the people of Israel in the wilderness after God had delivered them from their slavery in Egypt. Indeed all the responses of Jesus to the tempter are taken from a portion of the book of Deuteronomy that deals with that earlier event. Jesus is taken into the wilderness to be tempted, and the people of Israel were tempted in the wilderness. "Wilderness" is not to be thought of in American terms, the vast and almost trackless forests of our American west or the thick impenetrable jungles of Brazil and Africa. "Wilderness" in biblical terms means the deserts of Sinai and Judea, wide expanses of sand, searing hot by day, penetratingly cold by night, where there was nothing for humans to eat and drink and where wild animals lay in wait to pounce on unsuspecting intruders, where the heat of day distorted your vision and the winds of night whispered of the presence of evil spirits. The wilderness, in short, was a place of dread and fear, where one could survive only if God were with him. The people of Israel were in the wilderness for forty years. Jesus spent forty days and nights in the wilderness. The people were hungry and cried to God. Jesus had nothing to eat, and he too was hungry, and the devil came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, `Man shall not live by bread alone.'"
For his answer, Jesus turned to Scripture, Deuteronomy 8:3. This passage gives a much more complete context for what Jesus had in mind than does the spare answer, "Man shall not live by bread alone." Deuteronomy speaks of remembering that the LORD God led these people forty years in the wilderness. And God "humbled you," Deuteronomy said, "And God let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that God might make you know that man does not live by bread alone but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD." And the point of it? Hear Deuteronomy again: "Lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, . . . who fed you in the wilderness, . . . to do you good in the end. Beware," adds Deuteronomy, "lest you say in your heart, `My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.'" For myself, this context in Deuteronomy turns Jesus' reply completely around. When I first read it, I thought, "Man does not live by bread alone." Superficially, we can take that to mean that we do not have to worry about people who are hungry or ill-clothed or ill-housed; Jesus gives us a spiritual gospel, "We do not live by bread alone." Such an interpretation totally misses Jesus' point to the tempter. In quoting this passage from Deuteronomy, Jesus is saying to us that the real issue is whether we think what we have is of our own making or whether what we have is the gift of God to be shared with others. Beware, says Deuteronomy, "lest you say in your heart, `My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.'" Is not this the very question we are struggling with today in nation and world? So Jesus goes deep into Scripture, frames the issue as Deuteronomy frames it, and answers his tempter with a statement that addresses not only the people of his day but the people in our own: when we build goodly houses and live in them, and our silver and gold is multiplied, in our power and our wealth do we forget the Lord, or do we remember that we and our forebears were once ill-clothed and ill-housed and ill-fed, and God supplied our need, as God wants us to supply the needs of those who lack those things? Said Jesus, Do not lift up your heart against God but remember it is the Lord your God who has given you these things. To temptation, Jesus brings a deep knowledge of the sacred writings of his people and turns to them to illuminate his own life and times.
The second temptation in Luke is the one that concerns usurping power, and this one has always seemed the most preposterous to me. The devil took Jesus up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours." How could a little peasant boy, I have said to myself, have such delusions of grandeur, that all the world would one day be his?
But it was not a fatuous dream. Would-be messiahs and posturing warlords were presenting themselves all over Galilee and Judea as world-leaders-in-waiting (see Horsley, Messiahs and Bandits). Writings found at Qumran suggested that people in that community actually believed that God was soon going to give them mastery over all the world. When Jesus celebrated his meal in the wilderness before a great multitude of people, John's Gospel tells us that these people "were about to come and take him by force and make him king." (Jn 6:15) For someone with an awareness of the inner power and charisma that Jesus knew he possessed, this promise of world-reign was no idle dream.
But Jesus refused it. Jesus answered the tempter, "It is written, `You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'" Again the book of Deuteronomy is the source of Jesus' answer. Jesus' temptation was the temptation not to weakness, as we often define temptation, but the temptation to power, to be powerful in and on his own, to be so strong that he did not need God. Deuteronomy reminded Jesus that power is no end in itself, that God is the source of all power. So Jesus replied, in the words of Deuteronomy, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve."
The third temptation is the temptation to sensationalism. In it the devil quotes Scripture to Jesus, and Jesus answers the devil with other words of Scripture.
The devil took Jesus to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; (and then he quoted scripture to him) for it is written, `He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you,' and `On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" These two quotations come from Psalm 91, and they seemed to fit the situation. The crowds would ooh and ahh, when they saw Jesus floating down from the high point of the temple, with the angels of God themselves bearing him up and keeping him from crashing against the stones below. Again Jesus went to Deuteronomy. "It is said, `You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" "Tempt" in this context, is the same as "test. The point of Jesus' answer is that God may test us, but we can never test God. Toward God, we can only be trusting.
At this point in our discussion, we have to face up to a very serious question: on the basis of what insight did Jesus trump the tempter's scripture with one of his own? Was it because the Psalms were part of what Jews called "The Writings" and therefore were not as authoritative as "The Law" which Jesus was quoting? That is one possibility, though, given Jesus' inclination to go to the Psalms for direction at crucial times in his life, that hardly seems the most plausible one. I can only say this: Jesus knew that the purpose of the sacred writings is to reveal to us the character and intent of God. Jesus' knowledge of God's character and intent told him that the God he knew was not to be tempted by shows of strength or magician's tricks but was instead to address the great moral and spiritual needs of the people. Do not provoke this God by asking him to do signs and wonders in our behalf, says Jesus. Instead, worship him, fear him, stand in awe of him, in the crucibles of life obey the God whom reveals himself to us in Scripture. Do not follow some false path, even if it is suggested in scripture, that will take us from doing what we know to be the will of God: this is the most profound lesson to draw from Luke's story of the temptation of Jesus.