Brief synopsis of the readings: We begin in Deuteronomy where Moses reminded his people of their ancestor Joseph who came to Egypt and became great, mighty and strong. But the Egyptians soon enslaved his descendants; God heard their voice and liberated them and gave them a land of milk and honey. The people are called to “bow down in the sight of the Lord your God.” Luke’s Gospel describes Jesus being led by the Spirit from the Jordan to the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing during this time and was hungry. The devil then suggested that Jesus turn stone into bread but Jesus declined. The devil then took him to a high place where Jesus could see “all the kingdoms of the world” and promised Jesus dominion over all of them if Jesus would worship him. Again Jesus refused and an exhausted devil left him to return “at the appointed time.”

As Christians we believe that Jesus was fully human and fully divine and that he is “like us in all things but sin.” Problem is we can whitewash Jesus and believe that nothing came difficult for him. But that simply isn’t true. He wasn’t “like us in all things but temptation.” That he didn’t sin doesn’t mean he didn’t have feelings of jealousy, envy, or, yes, temptation.

The Gospel begins with Jesus being led from the (River) Jordan to the wilderness where he ate nothing for forty days. I have as much of a calorie reserve as anyone but I can’t imagine what a 40 day fast would do to me. Heat, hunger, thirst, isolation, well, you get the point.

And then the devil shows up. You have to admire his timing. And he promises what anyone would want. Not just food, but power. The devil promised Jesus a kingdom.

Let’s face it: this exercise would have meant nothing if Jesus hadn’t been tempted and tempted by good things. When we think of temptations we often assume we are being tempted by bad things: too much alcohol, social status that excludes our true friends (think of your high school lunch table), high performance cars that that spew an excess of noise and carbon dioxide.

But for us, for those who follow Jesus and read Scripture, these are not our temptations. I think our temptations consist of our desire to take shortcuts to good things. Some are extreme: stealing money with the intent on making a profit promising to restore what we stole and use the surplus money for charity. But most are subtle: lying on a job application to get a job we know we can do that will profit the company in the end. Or lying about our past in the hopes of attracting someone who we know we can make happy.

But if we have learned anything from our history and our faith, doing the wrong thing in the belief that it will lead us to the right thing never works. The devil in the Gospel didn’t promise Jesus Easter Sunday, he promised a bypass of Good Friday. Who wouldn’t want that?

Well, Jesus. He recognized that the kingdom promised to him would be a far cry from the Kingdom that God promised. The devil’s kingdom would be founded on deceit: no building will rise straight and true of the foundation is crooked.

Many of you are familiar with 12 step programs. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 when two men sought relief from addiction. They soon found that simply not drinking wasn’t enough and would not sustain them. They developed 12 steps intended for long term recovery, and 87 years later many people owe their life to them.

One of the things they talked about was what they called “rigorous honesty.” By that they meant that the path to what we want must never stray from honesty and virtue. Anytime we do something we hope nobody will see, we are straying. Whenever we need to say: “Well, here’s why I did it and when I explain you’ll understand,” we are straying.

A few days ago we began the season of Lent and many of us are well aware of the tradition of giving up something we like (e.g. candy). But ultimately Lent is a season of renewal, of looking over our life and seeing if there are areas that need attention and perhaps change.

I’m not naive and I’m more than aware that this is the 3rd Lent since we first learned about COVID. We all find that things that used to be easy have become difficult and that we live with a level of stress that was supposed to be over by now. None of us are living the lives we hoped in Lent 2022. But in the midst of the stress and exhaustion we experience perhaps we can move in the direction of peace and honesty.

And yes, honesty isn’t always an easy path. Sometimes it means we speak truth to power, or even worse we speak truth to those we love. We also, by the way, give permission to allow those we love to speak truth to us and that can be hard. Sometimes it causes us to risk important relationships when a lie would be easy.

We have a long journey to Easter but frankly so did Jesus. We will (hopefully) never experiencing the suffering he did and he doesn’t want us to. But in our hardest and lowest moments we can find comfort in a Savior who understand and empathizes with our journey.

Happy Lent.