A love that shows
Luke 4 1-13
Parish Eucharist, 25/02/07

It is said that the author John Ruskin once sat with a friend in the
dusk of an evening and watched a lamplighter, torch in hand, lighting
the street lamps on a distant hill. Very soon the man’s form was no
longer distinguishable in the distance, but everywhere he went, he left
a light burning brightly. “There,” said Ruskin, “is what I mean by a
true Christian. You can trace his course by the light he leaves
burning.”

So if we were to reflect a little further on this metaphor by Ruskin we
might say that the light that he was speaking of is the love we have
for God and for others and that the true Christian is someone who
during his lifetime leaves a trail of light and of love. In John 13 34
Jesus says to his disciples, “By this shall everyone know that you are
my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And it is love that
defines us as followers of Jesus, love that defines us as Christians.
Love that burns brightly in the darkness of the world, a love that is
manifest in our thoughts, our words, our actions and in the way we live
our lives. Above all, ours should be a love that shows.

In our Lent course, which is due to begin tomorrow, and to which
everyone is welcome, we will be discussing ‘A love that shows’ in our
first session. Today, on the first Sunday of Lent, I would like to look
at how the love we show forth in our lives helps us to deal with
temptation.

So what is temptation? William Barclay, in his book ‘The Gospel of St
Luke’ says this, “Temptation in the New Testament means any testing
situation. It includes far more than the mere seduction to sin; it
covers every situation which is a challenge to and a test of a person’s
integrity and fidelity. We cannot escape it, but we can meet it with
God.”

Make no mistake, we are all, during the entire course of of our lives,
subject to temptation. It has been said that the more truly human a
person is, the more he or she will be tempted. Our human nature means
we have bodies and self will and natural desires that need to be
disciplined if we are to live full and loving lives. It is a common
mistake, however, to regard the temptation in itself as a sin. The
moment we are tempted, we begin to feel we are doing something wrong.
Not so. Let us remember that Jesus himself was tempted over and over
again, yet remained without sin. The sin only occurs when we give way
to temptation.

So how do we fight temptation in this season of Lent? I would suggest
to you that we fight temptation not merely by giving up things,
resisting things, learning to say ‘no’, commendable though these things
may be. True strength comes from something much more positive than
that. True strength and resistance to temptation occurs when the love
we have for others and for God is strong and true, when we are
committed because of this love, when we see with the eyes of this love
and when we cannot help but show forth this love in the way we live,
the things we say, the way we interact with others.

And to prove this we have only to look at the life of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Our Lord was someone who was prepared to love his Heavenly
Father with his entire being, with all his heart and soul, with all his
strength. This love was to be manifest in the love he showed us. And it
was the strength of this love that helped him to say ‘no’ to
temptation.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus comes face to face with the devil. In this day
and age, there are some who would question the existence of this being
we call the devil. But I would suggest to you that the devil has always
been the symbol of all those things that stand between us and God, all
that would stop us from becoming the loving people God would like us to
be, all that would prevent us from achieving our true potential as
children of our Heavenly Father and would stop us from leading fulfiled
and loving lives. And I would also suggest that the temptations our
Lord faced are also those that we ourselves face in our daily lives.
Let’s look at the three temptations of today’s Gospel, briefly, one by
one.

In the first temptation, Jesus is told by the devil to turn stones into
bread. Here is a man who has been fasting in the wilderness, who is
absolutely famished. What a quick and easy solution then, to work signs
and miracles to abate his own hunger. But the man who was later to turn
water into wine for others, would not do the same for himself. Why?
Simple, it was because he had too much integrity and he loved so much.
He never wanted to misuse the power that God had given him.

So what similar temptations do we have in our lives? After all, we
ourselves, generally speaking, cannot work signs and wonders. No, but
we all of us, without exception, have hungers. If we are honest with
ourselves, we hunger for all sorts of things and this hunger is fuelled
by the advertising we are constantly bombarded with, that urges us
towards, for example, a better standard of living, a bigger house, a
more expensive car, more prestige, greater wealth. And we tend to
forget the difference between need and want. Subsequently, the tragedy
occurs when we spend our lives trying to change stones into bread, in
the pursuit of the things that give only temporary satisfaction, while
ignoring the one hunger we should be satisfying, the hunger of the
human soul for its Creator.

In the second temptation Jesus is told that if he will sell himself to
the devil he will be given the kingdoms of the world. Let us remember
that at the time of Jesus, the Jewish people were oppressed by the
might of the Roman empire. It was a time of great cruelty, bloodshed
and barbarity. What a temptation then, to put a stop to all that, to
bring about a kingdom of peace and stability through whatever means.
Again, it was love that stopped Jesus. The love he had for his Father
would not let him sell his soul to the highest bidder, and he knew,
unlike some world leaders today, whom I will not name, that the end
never justifies the means. Instead, it was love that made him choose
the hard way, the heartbreak way, the way that would eventually lead
him to the cross.

And in our lives too, the love we have for others and for God again
demands great courage. We too have power in our relationships, but how
well do we use this power? For those we love, are we sometimes prepared
to be cruel in order to be kind? Do we sell ourselves lightly in order
to have temporary peace but lasting damage or are we prepared to be
strong and true in the interests of the long-term good and what we know
to be right, even though this can make us unpopular? Even though this
can be so very hard? Love always demands sacrifices we would rather not
make and often a commitment we are reluctant to give. The choices we
are called to make are not easy and our Lord knew this, having faced
them himself.

In the third and final temptation, Jesus is asked to test God Himself.
The Bible tells us that he was full of the Holy Spirit. I would imagine
he could feel the power of the Holy Spirit running through his veins,
whispering in his heart, alive in his thoughts. His was the power of
the healer, the power that would make the blind see, the lame walk, the
dead rise again. So why should he not test a little of this power on
himself? However, in response, Jesus sends the devil packing in no
uncertain terms by telling him not to put the Lord God to the test.

And we might ask ourselves, how often do we test God in our lives? How
often do we take him for granted, or want him to conveniently fit the
mould we have made him into, comfortable with our own horizons, our own
limitations, the boundaries of our own lives? How often do we want him
to prove to us that he is trustworthy? How often in times of doubt do
we wish for physical proof from God that he exists and cares? Or feel
tempted to use the fasts we impose on ourselves this Lent as a
bargaining point, saying to God something along the lines of “Dear
Lord, I’ve been good, so what are you now going to do for me?” Instead,
should we not this Lent be deepening our own trust in the Lord,
widening our spiritual horizons by seeking to grow in the knowledge and
love of him and extending this love into action, into a love that is
present in the way we live our lives, into a love that shows.

I began with a story about a lamplighter and I would like to end with a
few thoughts about them. Historically, lamplighters, were people who
lit the gas lamps with a long pole, and had often to work in the cold
and the dark. Sometimes they would serve as watchmen. And there is a
long history of the lamplighter as being a symbolic figure in
literature, bringing light to those who have none, and beauty and joy
to a world sadly in need of these.

There’s a story told about the young Robert Louis Stevenson. One
evening he was looking out of the window down an Edinburgh street when
a lamplighter came by. The little boy became very excited. “Look,” he
cried, “there’s a man out there punching holes in the darkness.”

As Christians, we too often work in the cold and the dark. We too, this
Lent, need to be on the watch against temptation. And we too need to
punch holes in the darkness with our love, a love that shows, a love
that charts our course through the darkness of this world.

Amen


An additional prayer by Colin Hull

Christ in the wilderness defend us from temptation
Help us to resist our tendencies to betray your love and your gospel.
Keep us from hunger for material things,
To be satisfied with what we have and really need,
Rather than what we desire to possess.

Defend us from selling our lives to the powers of the world,
From taking the easy road to false peace.
Make our love sacrificial
Not only to those who are nearest and dearest,
But even to the difficult and unlovely.

Defend us from the desire to put you falsely to our tests,
Trying to make you fit our expectations and wants.
Teach us true love and true knowledge,
That growing in your heavenly and sacrificial love,
We may punch holes in the darkness of the world.
Christ in the wilderness, defend us. Amen