By Reverend Laurie DeMott

When Jesus went into the wilderness after his baptism, he entered an alien world in which the familiar markers were gone. There were no road signs to point him in the proper direction; no fences to delineate the dangers. Our Hollywood mentality often pictures Jesus' sojourn in the wilderness as primarily a time of physical deprivation when the sun blazed down on him and vultures soared overhead, but in the Bible, the wilderness is more than just a landscape where food and water are scarce. The wilderness is a place in which all of those things by which we determine who we are and where we are in the world are taken away and every time someone in the Bible enters the wilderness, that person confronts basic questions concerning their identity. Moses took the people of Israel into the wilderness so that through their deprivations and struggles, they might change from a ragtag group of slaves into the nation of Israel. David hides in the wilderness to escape the wrath of King Saul and the brutal landscape carves him into the military leader that will one day make him the greatest King Israel has ever known. The prophet Elijah flees into the wilderness in a suicidal frame of mind believing that his prophetic mission has failed but instead of dying there, he meets an angel who leads him to the mountain of God where his prophetic call is renewed. And so, we are to read this story of Jesus in the wilderness not as an adventure story of survival against brutal elements; nor as a horror story of a man battling a supernatural evil but as a story in which Jesus’ identity is challenged. Here in the wilderness, he will determine who he is and who he will become.

Luke says, “Jesus rose up from the waters of his baptism and a voice said, “You are my beloved son; with you I am so pleased,” and immediately Jesus entered the wilderness where the Devil tempted him saying, “If you are God’s beloved son, just imagine the power you can have! You can change rocks into bread; you can rule Kingdoms; you can be invulnerable.”

The story of Jesus’ temptation tells us that the most threatening temptations any of us will face in our lives are the temptations that lure us to behave in ways that cause us to become different people from the people God calls us to be. This is not usually how we talk about temptation. When most of us talk about temptations, we think in terms of lists of proper conduct or healthy lifestyle. New Year’s resolutions are full of commitments to avoid the temptations of too much chocolate or too little exercise. I recently read the story of a man who struggled with this sort of temptation. He resolved one day to lose some weight and decided that if he cut out his beloved morning donuts, he could quickly take off the desired pounds, so every day for three weeks he gripped the steering wheel tightly as he passed the Dunkin' Donuts on his way to work and for three weeks he managed to arrive at the office donut free. On the 22nd day, however, the man walked into the office with two boxes of chocolate cream donuts, one box already nearly consumed, and his office mates began to razz him for falling off the wagon.

The man protested vigorously explaining, "Wait until you hear what happened. As I was driving by the Dunkin' Donuts this morning there was a new sign posted out front that said, 'Remember, when you share, it's reduced calories' and so I prayed, 'Lord, if You want me to share these donuts with my colleagues today, give me a sign. Let me have a parking space right in front of the store!’ And sure enough, the eighth time around the block, there it was!”

We laugh because we recognize ourselves in the man's way of rationalizing his yielding to temptation and because, for a majority of the population, the temptation to overeat is a common one. And there are certainly other temptations that we could list that affect a majority of us but for most every temptation on that list, there will be people for whom it is not a temptation, for whom the opposite is actually the case. I got a Wii Fit for my birthday, and the first thing the Wii Fit does is weigh you and then ask you to set a goal for your exercise program. “Do you want to lose weight or gain weight?” it asks. I had a moment of envy for all of those people who are able to answer that question, “I want to gain weight,” and yet I know there are people who hate their scrawny bodies as much as some hate their pudgy ones. The fact is that my temptations are not your temptations nor are your temptations mine, and yet in spite of that, many Christians persist in making lists of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors as if we can run through the entire spectrum of human behavior and determine what acts will lead to wholeness and which will lead to doom for every single person on the planet.

Jesus went into the wilderness to battle temptation but he didn’t come out with a long list of proper behaviors versus improper behaviors. He didn’t come out saying “Thou shall not eat donuts,” or “Thou shalt spend less time in front of the TV.” Jesus’ battle with temptation went deeper than that. God had told him that he was God son, loved by God, and in the wilderness Jesus confronted the temptation to use that status and power to protect his own life and wield control over others. When he left the wilderness, he left instead ready to give up his life for the sake of others in complete love for them.

“In Christ Jesus, we are all children of God,” Paul said and so we too are reminded that true temptation will not be found in the minor desires we try to subdue in our attempt to lead healthier happier lives; true temptations are those things that threaten to destroy our very identity as people who are loved by God and who are called by God to love.

In 1991, President Václav Havel of Czechoslovakia gave a speech reflecting on his experience of being given power over others. He said, “There is something treacherous, delusive, and ambiguous in the temptation of power. On the one hand, political power gives you the wonderful opportunity to confirm, day in and day out, that you really exist, that you have your own undeniable identity, that with every word and deed you a leaving a highly visible mark on the world around you. Yet within that same political power and in everything that logically belongs to it lies a terrible danger: that, while pretending to confirm our existence and our identity, political power will in fact rob us of them. Someone who forgets how to drive a car, do the shopping, make himself coffee, and place a telephone call is not the same person who had known how to do those things all his life..... He becomes a captive of his position, his perks, his office. What apparently confirms his identity and thus his existence in fact subtly takes that identity and existence away from him.... A person is transformed into a stone bust of himself. The bust may accentuate his undying importance and fame, but at the same time it is no more than a piece of dead stone.”

You are people loved by God and called by God to love. What are the temptations you face that would deny that identity?

For some of us, our temptations may come in the form of behaviors and addictions that strike at the very heart of who we are and our ability to love. Alcoholism can change a person’s personality and destroy the relationships that give you your sense of place in the world. A lust for material possessions can starve a person’s spiritual identity to leave us empty and our world void of meaning. For some people, some behaviors are more than just unhealthy – those behaviors may challenge your very identity as loved by God and called by God to love and so those are behaviors that you must acknowledge, confess, seek help to overcome, and battle with all your might.

For others of us, the temptations that challenge our identity as loved and loving people are more subtle. We are tempted to wallow in self-pity or to make cynicism a habit. We feed our despair and neglect our sense of hope. We are tempted to look upon our advancing years as license to treat others less respectfully, comforting ourselves with the words, “I’ve done enough listening in my life; now its time for others to listen to me,” as if compassion has a shelf life. We are tempted to feel that we deserve rewards for our kindness to others until our every act of generosity is done grudgingly and with little hope that it will make a difference to anyone least of all ourselves. In a thousand ways every day, we are tempted to deny that we are loved by God and turn away from our call by God to love others.

But to give in to that temptation is to strike at the very heart of who we are and leave us wandering in a desolate wilderness with no hope of life.

In 1846, Frederick Douglass visited England. After twenty years of slavery, and another seven suffering the bigotry of America, Douglass found for the first time in his life, a place where he was seen not as a Black or as a former slave but simply as a man. The experience was so novel to him that he was tempted to stay in Britain and make it his home. One biographer says, “[Such a move would have constituted] a radical redefinition of Douglass's character, and in the rejection of his American identity, a rupture with his slave past nearly as dramatic as his escape North.”

The British encouraged Douglass to stay, even raising money to support the cause, but ultimately, he resisted the temptation knowing that to stay in Britain would be to deny who he was and what he was called to do with his life. He explained his decision to a London audience saying, “I was fearful, if I settled here, I might forget my brethren in bonds, and I have resolved ....to return to America."

Like Douglas, in our own smaller ways, we face decisions and temptations every day that strike at the heart of who we understand ourselves to be. Christ says to us, “I know the struggles you face because I have faced them before you. You are God’s child, loved by God and called by God to love. Stay true to that identity and I will lead you through this wilderness to the life you are meant to live.”