In the Midst of Great Difficulty
In the Midst of Great Difficulty
Matthew 4:1-11
February 9, 2020
Last week, we watched as Jesus turned his back to Nazareth and set his sites on the River Jordan. Jesus is baptized by John, the Baptist. As Jesus resurfaces from the river, the Spirit descends like a dove and a voice speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The singular first note of Jesus’ ministry is a thunderous note of unconditional love. This message of unconditional love leaves us totally unprepared for what comes next…
Matthew tells us that, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” This morning, I want to preach part one of a two part sermon on this text. Here’s the thing…part one is going to have nothing to do with being tempted. Instead, I want to spend time thinking about Jesus in the wilderness, first.
Here is a question: If we are really faithful people, will that mean that we get what we deserve? If we live our faith, will life be fair? There are a lot of books sold these days on the premise that if you are a faithful person then you will prosper. That’s how you will know that you are on the right track. If you are following God’s calling then you will succeed. Shouldn’t there be rewards for doing the right thing and for following Christ? Shouldn’t a faithful life be largely trouble free?
Really, we’ve all asked about such things. We could be spurred on in a hard moment to cry out, “I don’t deserve this!” We might be even angrier and more strident when bad news comes for those we love: “This can’t be happening. This is a good person. How can God allow this?” If I’m going to try my best to be a faithful person, shouldn’t the return on that investment be that life will somehow be fair? If I’m going to do the right thing, shouldn’t the effort be easier with God behind me?
Here’s the obvious truth to me: life isn’t fair. As I have said before, life is “all of the above.” Some days life is spectacularly wrong and unfair. Terrible things happen to really good people, every day. The only question is how willing am I to see the examples of that truth. If I look around me at all, I can see the person who lost their job or the kid who is going to be bullied or the family member who is determined to share their misery with everyone in earshot. Look a little wider and we begin to see what happens when the unfairness is that someone doesn’t have food or a place to lay their heads or a chance to feel like their kids are safe. At the same time, other days are spectacularly unfair and good. I avoided that accident. I actually caught a big break. I suddenly realized just how many people love me and really care.
Now, I believe with all my heart that Jesus came to show us a different way of experiencing God’s presence and a different way of being in the world. Justice matters. We do need to speak up when the less powerful are wronged. We do need to protect the vulnerable. However, when it comes to God, what Jesus reveals is not a promise that everything will be just and fair but a promise, in Paul’s words, that “nothing can separate us from the love of God.” A loving God chooses mercy over justice, which is really good news for everyone of us who depend on God’s mercy and grace.
Honestly, if what the church had to “sell” was the promise that if you jump on board the faith train, then everything from that point on will be fair and just, we would have a marketing boom. People would love to have the security of knowing that nothing bad can happen to them. The problem is that you can work out every day and have a heart attack. You can lose a bunch of weight and still have high blood pressure. You can be the hardest working person in the office and be laid off, simply because you’ve been there too long. The secular version of a God who will keep us safe and secure is the personal set of practices that will promise me a healthy, highly-esteemed life. Neither God’s insurance policy nor my attempts to be the master of universe will give me that control. Bad stuff happens to good people, all the time. Good stuff happens, too.
In our text, something that most of us would call “bad” happens to Jesus: he is led into the wilderness by the Spirit. You would think Jesus might catch a break and get to hang out with John and his followers. Shouldn’t he have a chance to bask in the afterglow of the day’s extraordinary events? He did the right thing in showing up and humbling himself. Shouldn’t he get to enjoy that?
I’m afraid that many of us have bought into the notion that it is up to us to determine if the current moment is right or wrong or bad or good. We call “balls” and “strikes” as if we are the umpire in life. Like a batter, we decide that we are only going to “swing” and run the risk of missing altogether when we think the pitch is good. If I don’t like this moment, maybe I’ll just sit it out. After all, even if it is a matter of faith, some situations are just too hard, too challenging, too painful to be looking for God and watching for the chance to finally live what I believe.
In this spirit, we meet Jesus and hope that maybe what he’s going to show us is how to have an easier life, some “life hacks” that will show us why hard things aren’t really that hard or how hard things can be altogether avoided. However, let’s remind ourselves of Jesus’ example. Jesus does the right things. He forgives. He cares. He loves. However, he never does the right thing because he has figured out the return for doing it. There is no calculation involved. We do the right thing simply because it is the right thing. It may be well-received or poorly received. I do the right and faithful thing simply because that’s the only possible way to thank God for having loved me even when I did the wrong thing or even when I did nothing at all. If God is going to love me, regardless, then I would love to try to do the right thing, regardless of how that right thing might “play.”
So, it is one thing to have the “mountain top” joyful moment on the banks of the River Jordan. Everything works! God speaks! Love is in the air. The Spirit is all around them. They are immersed in the joy of the moment and the presence of God. What’s going to happen, though, when things get tough? How’s that going to go?
Jesus doesn’t have to wait long, right? In our text, it is no accident that things get hard, fast. Jesus isn’t wandering from God’s path. He hasn’t taken his “eye off the ball.” He is not lost. Rather, God is leading. Jesus is following. God leads Jesus straight into great difficulty.
Now, think about your own life. Consider a time when you set out to do the right thing. You were going to care for a sick loved one. You were going to take care of the kids so that your partner could go do what they needed to do. You were going to try hard to change a pattern of behavior that was in your way at work. You have all the momentum that comes with doing the right thing and all the expectations that we conjure up all the time that our right decision will be followed by things going really well. However, they don’t. That loved one is a real pain when they are sick! You are slowly becoming miserable. You are so ready to have Kodak moment after Kodak moment with the kids but apparently they didn’t get the memo! Work, it turns out, liked you better when you were stuck in that old behavior pattern than they do with your new “healthy”way of dealing with things. Things have a tendency to get hard fast. It is so easy to be totally unprepared for that.
The difficulty is real. I remember paddling with a youth group into the wind and the waves all day, following a group of Boy Scouts that were on the horizon. I was sure that they were just flying along, being powerful Boy Scouts. They had it so much easier than us. Then, we caught up to them. They were sitting in their canoes, worn out and tired and crying. I remember the bike trip when it dawned on us that we were about to be pedaling into a 30 mile an hour head wind for the next 10 or 12 hours. I remember walking a friend to chemo and watching the nurse hang that infusion bag and listening to her explain everything that might go horribly wrong.
Sometimes things are hard and difficult and painful and unfair. We can waste our energy by spending our time trying to find someone to blame. (If all else fails, we can always blame God! Thank God!) Or, we can altogether miss what we do have going for us (that my friends are with me, that God is with me, that hard things don’t last forever) because we are too busy filing our complaints. Ultimately, we can choose differently. We can accept what is given about our situation. We can study it carefully and glean what is there to be learned. Then, we can do the right and faithful thing and trust—not that things will get easier, but that God will be discovered in that moment as the loving presence which no difficulty can erase. No matter how difficult things may be, you are not alone. No matter how difficult things may be, you are loved.
Like a loving parent, God declares to Jesus that Jesus is loved, no matter what. In the very next moment, though, like a loving parent, God cannot protect Jesus from life’s difficulties. In fact, like a loving parent, God allows Jesus to do the hard work that leads to growth. In the wilderness, the crowds are gone. There is no food. There is no drink. Life if boiled down to its barest bones.
When we are in such moments ourselves, we learn that things we thought mattered a lot, really don’t. We learn that things we took for granted, matter more than we ever imagined. When we are in such moments ourselves, we are forced to face the things that we otherwise would use to distract ourselves from seeing. We learn about our brokenness and our vulnerabilities. We learn that there are things which can weather the storm and can help us weather the storm, too. What is difficult and challenging—the wildernesses of our lives—has value. We learn that we are resilient and that God’s love is unbreakable.