Wishing
Luke 4:1-13
If you could be anything you want, anything at all, what would you be?
I remember having this exact conversation--cliche that it is--when a small child. My friend and I had spent hours riding our bikes all over the land around my Dad's church--it was in a small town, but the church had an enormous plot of land in the middle of a residential area. The church itself was modest in size, so there was a lot of wooded area with a dirt road that ran through it. It was right next to our house, so it was a perfect playground. Tired, we plopped down in a grassy spot beneath some pine trees that created a natural nave. Lying in the grass, you felt you could look right into heaven. Our thoughts turned existential--even as nine year olds--and we began to think about what we might one day be. I don't really remember what we said at the time--probably a crane operator (my friend who had every Tonka truck ever made) or a basketball player (me, still the tallest kid in class, I had visions of grandeur, wholly unrealistic--who knew I would be done growing at 13?). We believed we had all the time in the world. We believed every possibility was still open to us.
I know we probably have far more formal, perhaps even cinematic, images of Jesus and the Devil in Christ's temptation. We most likely imagine Jesus in his translucently white robe with a burgundy cape draped on his shoulders, faint halo outlining his grizzled hair and beard, standing stoically and resolutely next the Devil, be-horned, goateed, blood red, with a spaded tail, as the Devil plays the worst used car salesman ever, offering Jesus one golden opportunity after another, with the fake smile and syrupy assurances of honesty. But I would like to offer another view. What if Jesus and the Devil were like my friend and me, simply lying on a deserted hillside, gazing deeply into the sky overhead as the Devil just asked, "If you could be anything, Jesus, what would it be?"
If you take the temptations as they are, the Devil is actually closer to the kids than to the formal view. Jesus just heard God claim him as the Beloved Son while his cousin, John, baptized him in the Jordan. The horizon just receded. The limits just vanished. The possibilities just became endless. Jesus has all the world before him, all the time in the world, and can choose to be anything he wants at this point.
We need to go back and reconsider the Devil in the Bible.
Most often, the Devil is not the preeminent fallen angel, the ruler of the fiery pit of perdition--nope, John Milton and Dante did more of that for us than the Bible--in the Bible, the Devil is more properly the Tempter, God's own prosecutor. Check out Job 1-2. There he is, like a cosmic UL tester--you know, those folks that test every appliance ever made to see just what it takes to blow them up.
As such, he meets Jesus. He meets him to test him. "All right, Jesus, you won the lottery--you are God's only Son--now what are you going to do with it?" What will it take for Jesus to crack under the temptation that his identity holds for him?
I do not see the Devil having to be particularly smarmy or wheedling or manipulative--the promise is big enough, astounding enough, to do that all by itself. Jesus will need no hard sell. So, I see Jesus and the Devil kicking back there in the weeds in the wilderness, staring into heaven, wondering. "What's it going to be Jesus? Fame? Fortune? Power? Take your pick, the day is yours!"
Years later, I remember sitting in a Scottish pub with a classmate, far from home, on a cold, wet night, trying to get warm with a pint of Guinness. It was late. The conversation turned existential. I was 21. I knew I was headed to seminary. My friend could not understand that choice. "Why?" he asked. "There are so many other things to do." The implication that life in the Church was a colossal waste of time and talent--religion was so irrelevant in the 20th Century. I recall not really having an answer. I just knew it was what I was going to do. But the temptation not to do so was great. Why, indeed? My dad's life as a pastor had had its ups and downs, and, of course, all of us family had them with him. The 20th Century had powerfully undercut our lives at times. Why would I want to enter the same arena?
Why, indeed?
Why do we choose to do with our lives what we choose to do? What finally lets the bricks settle into place in the structure of our lives? What lifts us from the grass and sets us finally on the path we choose to follow?
Note Jesus' answers to the Devil. They are not harsh. Jesus was far more snippy with Peter when he rebuked him (cf. Mt. 16:21-23). They are just reflections on a deeper meaning in play. As Jesus considers all the possibilities before him, he finds a deeper truth at work. God named him the Beloved, that, then, is not a blank check to be cashed however he chooses, but rather a call to a special responsibility. As Jesus gazes into heaven, he sees his way before him. His power, presence, and possibility are all gifts from God. Ergo, they are intended for a special purpose and a definite end.
Maybe that's the difference between being 30 and 9. You see the world as it is, rather than as it seems.
God calls each of us. God names each of us. God is with us.
But not so our team will score the winning touchdown, but rather so we will we score the next goal of love--love that redeems, reclaims, and restores.
To see that and know it to be true, though, we need times to lie back, stare into heaven, and let the questions run.
So, if you could be anything you want, anything at all, what would it be?
If you could be anything you want, anything at all, what would you be?
I remember having this exact conversation--cliche that it is--when a small child. My friend and I had spent hours riding our bikes all over the land around my Dad's church--it was in a small town, but the church had an enormous plot of land in the middle of a residential area. The church itself was modest in size, so there was a lot of wooded area with a dirt road that ran through it. It was right next to our house, so it was a perfect playground. Tired, we plopped down in a grassy spot beneath some pine trees that created a natural nave. Lying in the grass, you felt you could look right into heaven. Our thoughts turned existential--even as nine year olds--and we began to think about what we might one day be. I don't really remember what we said at the time--probably a crane operator (my friend who had every Tonka truck ever made) or a basketball player (me, still the tallest kid in class, I had visions of grandeur, wholly unrealistic--who knew I would be done growing at 13?). We believed we had all the time in the world. We believed every possibility was still open to us.
I know we probably have far more formal, perhaps even cinematic, images of Jesus and the Devil in Christ's temptation. We most likely imagine Jesus in his translucently white robe with a burgundy cape draped on his shoulders, faint halo outlining his grizzled hair and beard, standing stoically and resolutely next the Devil, be-horned, goateed, blood red, with a spaded tail, as the Devil plays the worst used car salesman ever, offering Jesus one golden opportunity after another, with the fake smile and syrupy assurances of honesty. But I would like to offer another view. What if Jesus and the Devil were like my friend and me, simply lying on a deserted hillside, gazing deeply into the sky overhead as the Devil just asked, "If you could be anything, Jesus, what would it be?"
If you take the temptations as they are, the Devil is actually closer to the kids than to the formal view. Jesus just heard God claim him as the Beloved Son while his cousin, John, baptized him in the Jordan. The horizon just receded. The limits just vanished. The possibilities just became endless. Jesus has all the world before him, all the time in the world, and can choose to be anything he wants at this point.
We need to go back and reconsider the Devil in the Bible.
Most often, the Devil is not the preeminent fallen angel, the ruler of the fiery pit of perdition--nope, John Milton and Dante did more of that for us than the Bible--in the Bible, the Devil is more properly the Tempter, God's own prosecutor. Check out Job 1-2. There he is, like a cosmic UL tester--you know, those folks that test every appliance ever made to see just what it takes to blow them up.
As such, he meets Jesus. He meets him to test him. "All right, Jesus, you won the lottery--you are God's only Son--now what are you going to do with it?" What will it take for Jesus to crack under the temptation that his identity holds for him?
I do not see the Devil having to be particularly smarmy or wheedling or manipulative--the promise is big enough, astounding enough, to do that all by itself. Jesus will need no hard sell. So, I see Jesus and the Devil kicking back there in the weeds in the wilderness, staring into heaven, wondering. "What's it going to be Jesus? Fame? Fortune? Power? Take your pick, the day is yours!"
Years later, I remember sitting in a Scottish pub with a classmate, far from home, on a cold, wet night, trying to get warm with a pint of Guinness. It was late. The conversation turned existential. I was 21. I knew I was headed to seminary. My friend could not understand that choice. "Why?" he asked. "There are so many other things to do." The implication that life in the Church was a colossal waste of time and talent--religion was so irrelevant in the 20th Century. I recall not really having an answer. I just knew it was what I was going to do. But the temptation not to do so was great. Why, indeed? My dad's life as a pastor had had its ups and downs, and, of course, all of us family had them with him. The 20th Century had powerfully undercut our lives at times. Why would I want to enter the same arena?
Why, indeed?
Why do we choose to do with our lives what we choose to do? What finally lets the bricks settle into place in the structure of our lives? What lifts us from the grass and sets us finally on the path we choose to follow?
Note Jesus' answers to the Devil. They are not harsh. Jesus was far more snippy with Peter when he rebuked him (cf. Mt. 16:21-23). They are just reflections on a deeper meaning in play. As Jesus considers all the possibilities before him, he finds a deeper truth at work. God named him the Beloved, that, then, is not a blank check to be cashed however he chooses, but rather a call to a special responsibility. As Jesus gazes into heaven, he sees his way before him. His power, presence, and possibility are all gifts from God. Ergo, they are intended for a special purpose and a definite end.
Maybe that's the difference between being 30 and 9. You see the world as it is, rather than as it seems.
God calls each of us. God names each of us. God is with us.
But not so our team will score the winning touchdown, but rather so we will we score the next goal of love--love that redeems, reclaims, and restores.
To see that and know it to be true, though, we need times to lie back, stare into heaven, and let the questions run.
So, if you could be anything you want, anything at all, what would it be?
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