Temptation

A reflection for Lent by Ray Anglesea, minister of St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook

As a child I remember the congregation of my local Methodist Chapel singing one of their favourite hymns “Yield not to temptation for yielding is sin.” My grandmother would later pass me a crinkly sweet wrapped barley sugar to unwrap during the sermon. I can still hear the crinkle of the unwrapping it. “I can resist everything accept temptation,” quipped Oscar Wilde. Temptation is commonly identified with the lure to do something it would be better to avoid. Yet we smile indulgently because what tempts us often seems harmless, perhaps one last drink at the end of an evening. And sometimes what tempts may even be beneficial. A workaholic tempted to pause, would be better off giving in and taking a break.

More commonly, however, temptation refers not to the allure of some harmless pleasure but the desire to do wrong to gain a personal advantage. We may be tempted to abuse drink or drugs for kicks; to be tempted to cut professional corners for greater profit and success; we may be tempted to cross sexual boundaries to please ourselves and do what we like. Who needs to know, we may ask? Can’t individuals do as they wish? Ask those who have been abused, the family of addicts, or those who have found out their partner’s infidelity, those who have been victimised by fraud. As people give way to temptation others suffer. So also do those who give way.

As the season of Lent begins Jesus is found going into the wilderness. He remained there for 40 days and then, we are told, he was tempted. At one level the three temptations in Matthew’s account, seeking food, testing God and worshipping a false God recall the experience of the Chosen People in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. Here the temptations to which the people succumbed, Jesus resisted. A fulfilment is found in them. Whatever the origins of the Matthew passage it is instructive to wonder as well whether it may not also have arisen partly from Jesus’ own experience. Before beginning his public ministry it is unsurprising to suppose he withdrew into the wilderness for a while to reflect and prepare himself. It is not difficult to imagine him being tempted to use his power – expressed as turning a stone into bread – for his own interest. And as he reflected, the daunting nature of what he was undertaking might readily have come home to him. Could he really trust his heavenly Father? How could he be sure? How attractive instead to forge some kind of political alliance that seemed far more reliable in the ways of the world.

It is not implausible to imagine Jesus at the beginning of his ministry being tempted to doubt his Father’s presence with him, and being tempted, therefore, to rely instead on his own powers and the powers of others to help him. However those temptations were resisted and so teach us an essential lesson.

For what kind of Messiah would Jesus have been had he doubted God and relied instead on himself and the temporal powers of others? Had he given into those temptations he could not have been the Messiah at all. They would have destroyed his identity. We may smile at the notion of resisting everything except temptation but in truth, when we succumb, crossing forbidden boundaries, we are corrupted. Our identity is damaged too.