Lord, as we journey into the desert, go before us and lead us, send your Holy Spirit to fill us and open our hearts and minds to your word and your life. Amen
As most of you know – bread is something of a problem for me! I used to absolutely adore fresh-baked crusty bread – in fact would eat a good part of the loaf that my mum would send me to get from the bakers before I’d get it home, nibbling a bit here and a bit there as I walked.
But later in adult life I began to find I couldn’t digest wheat flour and so now have to eat Gluten-free bread – which while it’s much better than it used to be, isn’t like real bread, which I still crave!
What is it about us as human beings that as soon as we are told we can’t have something – we are suddenly absolutely desperate to get it? Counter-suggestable we most definitely are! Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.
In the story from Genesis, see how perfectly judged, how precisely pernicious is the serpent.
He could just as easily have achieved his aim by pointing out how beautiful the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was, how delicious it would be to eat, and certainly how amazing it would be to have the knowledge of God.
But he knows exactly how to hook us in the way that we are most susceptible – he basically makes out that God has lied to Adam and Eve, and that God is deliberately and knowingly holding something back that ought to be theirs.
Its crazy really, just look at all that God has given to Adam and Eve! All they could possibly need or desire – the whole creation to delight in, to take care of, all they need for food, for companionship, and an intimacy with God their creator – all theirs – for ever. So why would you care that there was just one fruit from just one tree, out of all the myriad of other trees and other fruits, that you weren’t supposed to be eating?
Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest – or so they say. That is until we are caught out – and then there is shame.
The story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall is not actual history of course, but a pin point accurate demonstration of the problem of sin and how evil can destroy even paradise.
The Fall brings about a falling apart – the serpent has divided and conquered it seems – in separating Eve from Adam, he is able to cause her to do what was wrong, and as a result they fall apart from each other – and from the oneness with God – the much-desired knowledge is a burden that must now be carried. They see themselves now as separate from God and from one another and so they hide.
In the desert, Jesus has come away to be apart, led by the Spirit which descended on him like a dove in his baptism, and which now leads him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
If Adam and Eve, who fell into temptation despite all that they already had, after an extended time of fasting, Jesus surely would be even easier prey. To a famished man, the thought of freshly baked bread would be irresistible, the devil must have thought. After all, Jesus will have to eat again soon, so why not now?
Surprisingly this doesn’t work, so the devil tries again – if a craving for food isn’t enough, after 40 days alone – when your mind can play all kinds of tricks, rehearses all of the worst things that you know about yourself – what you really need is love, and proof of it at that. It must have been tempting to do just what the devil suggests, even if only to prove to him, let along yourself, that God’s holy angels really will catch you if you fall.
Finally, the devil thinks, if nothing else, power will do it! Offer him power over all the kingdoms of the earth and he’ll crumble.
By now, in an appropriately devil-may-care approach, in fact in desperation – who cares what it takes – the devil promises something that he may not even be able to give – and at the same time reveals what it is that he most deeply desires – to be worshipped. To be like God.
What an irony, that he should be asking all this of the one who is God. There is no divide and conquer possible here, there is no falling apart – there is nothing that the devil can offer that Jesus doesn’t already have. Actually, the same was true for Adam and Eve if only they had recognised it.
And the same is true for us – why would we want to exchange the reality and wonder of God for the shoddy tacky cardboard cut-out idols of the world?
The readings for the First Sunday of Lent show us both the why and the way.
The illusions of the world, which the devil is so adept at presenting in ways we find very hard to resist, can prevent us seeing what riches we already have as beloved children of God. We need time away from the glitzy sham of all this to begin to see clearly again just what wonders God provides. Finding our own way to enter the wilderness in Lent allows us this time, to strip away all the trappings, and discover our desire for God all over again. God’s word sustains and satisfies us like no bread ever can. The sacrament of the Eucharist – God’s free gift of love, of God’s own self given in love on the cross for us – is all the proof we need of how much we are loved.
In the end, what we see as we journey through Lent, reminds us how our faith is both more simple and more glorious – in the dust of the desert and the ashes of sorrow, the bread that feeds our bodies and gives life to our souls , the cross on which our Lord is both killed and enthroned, through which death is defeated and eternal life is God’s gift to us.
All this and more we can discover again in Lent, as we journey through the desert. All this we can see in the Lent Trail around our church – and I encourage you to walk this trail, more than once, as part of your journey in these 40 days.
Sometimes we don’t want to enter the desert, when life can seem so hard going anyway, why make it even harder? But the disciplines of Lent are not to make things worse, but to help us see more clearly and draw closer to Jesus, who is the bread of life.
And at the end of the road through the dust of the desert, when the devil has departed in defeat and despair, we find the angels, waiting, just as they will be, one on either side of the empty tomb, to give us such glorious good news.
Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston. 26th February 2023. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)
Referenced Scripture: Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 Psalm 32, Romans 5.12-19, Matthew 4.1-11