This is the transcript of the first with a link to the programme in the Radio 4 archives.
Talk One:
Tested
We are in Lent and counting
down to Easter. Lent lasts 40 days based
on our Lord's time in the wilderness. St
Mark tells us that after Jesus was baptized, the Spirit 'drove' him into the
wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil (Mark 1:12). The three temptations are well-known: to turn
stones to bread, to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Temple, and to
worship the devil to gain earthly power and glory.
We could say that our
Lord was tempted to focus on material satisfaction, to show off, and to seek
position and power. Put like this, they
are temptations that are common to us all.
For our Lord, however, they got at the heart of what sort of Messiah he
would be. If he had given into them, he
would not have been thought a bad person necessarily, and may even in his time
have been popular and successful.
For example, would our
Lord have appeared to be bad, if he had made his priority feeding the
hungry? If he had demonstrated who he
really was in an obvious and dramatic way?
If he had tried to gain influence politically to further his goals?
Our Lord, however, saw
the temptations as coming from the devil.
We know this in advance, so when we read the account of them in the
Gospels, we assume that he was tempted to do something that was clearly
wrong. The danger of our Lord's
temptations, however, was not that he was tempted to do things that were
obviously wrong - quite the reverse. It
could easily be argued that what he was being asked to do was right. The danger in doing them lay in the fact that
this was not God's way.
We all know that
lying, cheating, and murder are wrong.
We may still be tempted to do such things, but we know we
shouldn't. The far greater temptation
comes when we are asked to do something that is not necessarily wrong in
itself, but which reflects an outlook and attitude that is wrong and not of
God.
An alternative, and
probably better translation of the word we translate as temptation, is
'test'. In a test, the answer is often
not obvious and certainly not one we can know in advance. It requires us think and to work it out. It is a test!
We can all expect to
be tested. The only way we can hope to
pass is by revising hard beforehand. Our
Lord, in each of the test questions put to him, replied supporting his answer
by quoting the Bible. Knowing the Bible
won't guarantee that we get the answer right when we are tested, but we won't
get it right unless we do.
St Paul writes that
naturally our minds are hostile to God.
We don't think the way God does or the way God wants us to. We are conditioned to think the way the world
around us thinks and has taught us to think.
And, of course, the world will naturally praise us, and even call us
good, if we do what it wants. This is
what makes it so especially difficult to know what God's will is: doing what is
wrong so often seems so right.
If we are to pass the
test, we need learn to think the way God wants us to.
St Paul writes in
Romans 12:2: 'Do not be conformed to
this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you
may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.'
For us to think the
way we should, our minds need to be renewed.
This happens as we start to put God at the centre of our lives rather
than ourselves. It happens as we model
our lives on Jesus Christ, who the Bible tells us, is the image of God. It happens as God’s Spirit works in us. For God does not leave us to get on with it
by ourselves. Jesus promised his
disciples that while he was going to leave them physically he would return to
them in the person of the Spirit. The
Spirit would dwell in them and lead them into all truth.
With the Spirit’s help, we can pass the test.
Here is the link to the audio of the talk:
With the Spirit’s help, we can pass the test.
Here is the link to the audio of the talk:
No comments:
Post a Comment