CONTENDING WITH THE DEVIL

​The First Sunday in Lent always presents us with a gospel account of the temptation of Jesus. I don’t think most of us really know what to do with this story. Jesus is propelled into the wilderness (like the ancient Israelites) to contend with his identity, his survival, his purpose. Satan is part of the story and that leaves us a little uncertain, if not squeamish.  

Satan’s approach is eerily known to us. Satan uses Jesus’ hunger to push him to simply feed himself. Jesus feeds thousands through miracles of abundance later in his journey. What harm would there be in turning a rock into bread? Just taking care of yourself seems an obviously good thing to do. 

Then Satan questions Jesus’ identity and challenges him to prove himself. This has been happening in playgrounds, schoolyards, college classrooms, and places of employment forever. Sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself, right? Not Jesus. 

Finally, Satan tempts Jesus with power and riches. I mean, who can say “No” to that? Jesus. Yet, as familiar as these temptations may be, we still have trouble seeing the spiritual assaults that come to us each day. It is not as Satan, played by Al Pacino, or with horns and a tail. The temptations come as voices of the culture, the “real” world that constantly draws us from our identity as God’s children and the abundance of God’s grace. 

Perhaps no one had a defter way of communicating this than C.S. Lewis in his classic work, The Screwtape Letters. The book is a series of letters from a demon named Screwtape to his nephew – a demon-in-training – Wormwood. The letters are about how to defeat the “Enemy” – which is God. The book can be a little challenging at first because you must remember that “the Lord” refers to Satan, and “the Enemy” is God revealed in Christ.  

Lewis identifies with precision and punch the failings of humanity to withstand our own wilderness temptations. Screwtape counsels his nephew to make sure that his subject or “patient” be as self-absorbed as possible. He writes to Wormwood, “fix his attention inward that he no longer looks beyond himself to see our Enemy or his own neighbours.” Rugged individualism and self-determination are the weapons that draw the patient away from the “Enemy” (Christ). 

Our world today is as focused on the individual as perhaps any point in human history. The collapse of communities, including the Church, comes as people prioritize self-actualization and choice over the blessings of living with others. This call to be yourself leads to the divisions that roil our world.  

This is how Lewis defines “Hell:”  
“We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”  
 
The blessing of the Church as a community that shares a life in Christ has been replaced with a notion that, while individuals might seek some spiritual element to a busy life, churches are just purveyors of assorted styles, messages, social connections that satisfy the individual instead of creating community. Screwtape counsels young Wormwood: 

“Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that "suits" him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.”  
 
I pray that this season of Lent fills us with the Spirit of Christ. I pray we will long for a life together as God’s people instead of being driven apart by the desire to turn inward and away from God’s saving grace.  

Pax Christi,  
Tim Olson – Lead Pastor