Allen Pruitt. When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

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Alexandrina Hensley
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1 1 of 8 Allen Pruitt When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. Well what does that mean? This is THE temptation of Jesus. If you re writing the story of Jesus, this is THE story about him being tempted in the wilderness. He s just been baptized; he s full of the Holy Spirit, and he goes out do do battle with Satan. The way I heard it growing up, this is just one of many moments of victory for our savior over the adversary, the tempter, the devil! They always left out that last part though, the part we just read: the devil departed from him until a more opportune time. If you ve seen the movie or read the book, The Last Temptation of Christ, then there s an idea of what that could possibly mean. The way that story goes, Jesus lives his life: preaching, miracles, all the rest. On the cross, a girl comes to him, a tiny child, and says, you don t have to do this. You ve done enough. And Jesus comes down from the cross and starts a family with Mary Magdalene.

2 2 of 8 At which point it could have become a Dan Brown book. But instead, at some point, Jesus comes to realize that this was another temptation, his last temptation. We realize in that moment that the devil doesn t always come in horns and hooves or even dressed all in black. And we realize that the life Jesus had lived with Mary and their children, was the temptation. And there Jesus dies on the cross. Much of the movie is the story as we know it, and only near the end does it go off in a different direction. But Jesus survives his last temptation, and the movie ends at the cross. The movies always end at the cross. The Passion of the Christ was a terribly long meditation on the suffering of Jesus. It should have been followed by a sequel, the Resurrection of the Christ. But for whatever reason, the movies seem to focus on the cross. I m at least grateful, that in the Last Temptation, it s not all ABOUT the cross, instead we get to wonder at what temptation really is. What are we tempted by? What are we tempted toward?

3 I think we could probably sum that up in one word. For us, and for the Jesus of that movie. We are tempted by life, perhaps because we are so afraid of losing it! 3 of 8 Google, as a company, has plenty of money from tracking every single thing we do, and they are expanding their business all over the place. From search engine to , and now self-driving vehicles. But they are going further than that. They have a company called, California Life Company Calico for short. The mission statement of the company is tackling aging, one of life s greatest mysteries. You have to live in the 21st century AND have an awful lot of money to come up with a mission statement like that. Aging as mystery. What if it s not a mystery? What if it s just life? What if that s just living? Day by day, hour by hour, we are living, and that leaves a mark on us. Aging, not as mystery, but as sign.

4 4 of 8 I might venture to guess that the great mystery is not in aging, but whatever is on the other side of aging. That is the unspeakable mystery of our culture, that is the greatest temptation: to avoid death, or at least to avoid talking about it. Christmas has been coopted by consumerism. That ship sailed with Coca-Cola ads 100 years ago and was lost at sea with the rise of Black Friday in the 90 s. Easter is in danger of being co-opted: show me a chocolate cross and I will show you something that is, at the very least, in poor taste, and might possibly be blasphemous. But they ll never take Ash Wednesday from us; they ll never be able to commercialize Lent. Why would they want to? Every year, in the depths of winter or in the first buds of spring, we gather, in the middle of the week to hear a reminder: we re all going to die. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Again and again: smudging that dirt on the foreheads of people I know and people I don t. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. I doubt there will ever be a greeting card for that.

5 5 of 8 But that is our temptation, isn t it? To forget, to choose NOT remembering over remembering. As if choosing to forget dying would somehow mean more living. I read an article the other day on the website Mockingbird. About our human longing for immortality. Our efforts at living forever are not all like the myth of Walt Disney being buried in Cryostasis underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney Land, awaiting the miracles of modern medicine that might be able to offer him eternal life. No, much of what we do is more humdrum than that, we seek a more pedestrian, more socially acceptable version of immortality. Which is maybe why we try so hard to DO so many, so very many things. If I don t do enough, don t accomplish enough, I won t have a legacy, I won t matter after I m gone. Or even worse, what if I don t matter while I m still here?

6 6 of 8 Here s a quote from the article: Jesus keeps looking and forces us to look out over all our accomplishments and ambitions the elaborate home decor, your department s ground-breaking research, your reputation for being kind or good or smart and the uselessness of it all to stop what s coming. He says these projects have already won their reward. They have no currency in heaven. God is not interested in them. They will die with you. Which is an utterly offensive thing to be told. It is offensive to hear that everything you do, say, accomplish, maintain, rear up, win over, or influence will, one day, be snuffed out. But what is even more offensive is to hear Jesus say that none of those things are changing your scoresheet with the Almighty That just can t be true.

7 7 of 8 But in Lent, we are supposed to ask, what if it were true? What if, upon making it to the pearly gates, Jesus said nothing about how timely you always were or how generous you were with your peers? What if he didn t credit you for the good choices you made and the temptations you avoided? Once you got past the unbearable embarrassment of it, that no great thing you achieved (or didn t achieve) was really getting you points; once you got past that, wouldn t that sound kind of nice? That all the striving and elbowing forward, all the talk about making a mark or being remembered, all of that was rendered mute? What if it were true? Well, it would sound kind of freeing, I suppose. 1 It IS offensive. I grant you that. But the more I think about it, I agree with the author, it is rather freeing. 1 fbclid=iwar1af9hbw9e_fli2xba7vd4claes_mkgrqvyv2eg3qcd1w0molovmpinwma

8 8 of 8 And here s how: if we could, for one second even, stop earning love, I wonder if that would free us up to enjoy love. If I could stop earning your love by trying to write the perfect sermon, I wonder if I could enjoy the love that you already offer me. If we could stop trying to earn the love of God, would that free us up to enjoy the love of God, which we can achieve through no amount of earning. We can t achieve it at all. But God loves us all the same. We live in this world. And good luck to us! Here, achievement and doing and performance tend to make all the difference. But we pray, every single week, for another world, a different kind of world. We pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. It s tempting, isn t it?

1st Sunday in Lent 2/22/15 Mark 1:9-15

1 1st Sunday in Lent 2/22/15 Mark 1:9-15 B THE SPIRIT IMMEDIATELY DROVE HIM OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS. AND HE WAS IN THE WILDERNESS FORTY DAYS, BEING TEMPTED BY SATAN. AND HE WAS WITH THE WILD ANIMALS, AND