Perhaps you have noticed that when we speak of temptation, it’s most often in a silly, comical way. You may just hear something like this, this week: “I’m on a diet but I am so tempted by that death-by-chocolate cheesecake.” “I can resist anything – except temptation!” Sometimes, the devil himself may pop up: “‘Hey, what were you thinking when you bought that convertible?’ ‘What can I tell ya? I drove by the dealership and the devil made me do it!’” One could almost come to think that the devil holds happiness in his hands, and temptation is just his naughty little commercial. We gloss easily enough over the line in the Lord’s Prayer about deliverance from temptation – and why not? Isn’t it just part of human nature to be tempted from time to time? Where’s the harm in that?

Watching the spectacle of his collapsing marriage, his deflating career, his plummeting “brand,” as the media keeps calling it, we wonder at how mundane, how pointless is his serial unfaithfulness. Hotel concierges, bartenders, waffle house waitresses - those who would seem to have so little to offer a man who is, or was, arguably the world’s most celebrated and accomplished athlete. Evidently, as disciplined as he was on the golf course, something was deeply disordered within him. And though he once often said publicly that ‘his family would always come first,’ now his life lies in smoldering ruins. And yet, even now, surely if you were to ask him, he would tell you that his children mean more to him than anything.

This is the nature of temptation. This is what temptation does. Today we name the truth: the devil’s in the death business, the slavery-to-appetites business, and because God wants more for us than death and enslavement, temptation is not to be taken lightly. When Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit after his baptism by John, went into the wilderness to face temptation, it came in a very specific form, unique, really, to Jesus himself. To Jesus, temptation said: “You don’t need to go hungry, Jesus. In fact, now that you’re here the whole world need not go hungry – and you know there are so many starving children. You can actually do something about them. Make bread!” Jesus says no, but you have to wonder: wouldn’t it be great to live in a world in which every child in Haiti, or all the children of Africa, were well-fed?

A second time, the devil tries: “everybody’s gearing up to run in the midterms, Jesus. But unlike these jokers, you’ve really got the stuff. So throw your hat in the ring; leave the details to me.” Jesus again declines, but imagine how different the nations of this world would be if Jesus were truly in charge, instead of those who just like to use his name from time to time.

Finally, the devil points out that nothing wins over skeptics like a publicity stunt! “Jump the Snake River in a rocket car, Jesus, and believe me, they’ll love you for it. Look here, it even says right here in the Bible, you’ll land safely.” (How about that, the devil can quote Scripture and misapply it.) Jesus refuses, but rare is the preacher who hasn’t considered a cheap stunt to accomplish a greater good: winning hearts for the sake of the Gospel!

I hope by now, you have spotted something about temptation that is easily missed: the devil doesn’t offer Jesus nasty things for naughty purposes. The tempter proposes good things, things that a good person might very well want. And yet to accept any one of them would be for Jesus to deny who he is, who has sent him, and the purpose for which he has come into the world. It would be wonderful to operate a world-wide food pantry, to grab headlines for God, and to order every army in the world to lay down its weapons. Truth is, in the last quarter-century many, many Christians have reached for golden apples like these, trying to deliver Jesus’ people as a voting bloc. The allure of this is strong: wield authority for good, deliver an election for this or that candidate, win power for righteousness’ sake, all in the name of Jesus.

But Jesus didn’t trade in the world’s wealth or power or prestige. He turned down these enticements to do what he was not sent to do, to be what he was not intended to be. His Father sent him to give his life for others, to be lifted up (not on the shoulders of a mob, but on a cross), to wear a crown (not of royalty, but of suffering). Jesus stands tall when the devil says, “Come on, Jesus. You are the Son of God. Don’t you want to be like God?” Jesus puts the devil behind him, because he rightly perceives an offer to become a person he was not meant to be.

She has had so much riding on her, so many people counting on her. Years ago she relied on just a couple drinks over lunch, later a few more before bed, just to level off and relax. She was never drunk. She manages the alcohol, she tells herself; the kids don’t even know about it. Increasingly, she feels distant from her husband, but drinking, she has found, helps with this, too. Now her most reliable companion is her next drink. When she looks in the mirror, she fusses with her appearance, so no one will see, so she will not see, her father staring back with empty eyes.

Betrayal. Addiction. Abandonment. Temptation is no joke. It is the cobra-and-mongoose-dance of deception and truth, the floating mirage of happiness that yields sand in hands and mouth. Temptation presents in attractive clothes, and like any good conversationalist, it knows what we value, what we believe in, what we adore. It blurs our vision, at least for a time. But the alcoholic, the adulterer, the tax fraud, the devotee of on-line pornography – all of them eventually have moments of unwelcome clarity, when they see that what they have become is not what they planned to be, or were intended to be. Temptation does not want us to pause and ask: who am I? Is this what God wants for me? What if chasing after happiness is not the reason God put me here, as if all life were about me? Could it be that ultimate satisfaction comes from something else - like living the life I’ve been given for the sake of glorifying God?

This is the season of Lent, the time of cost-counting that comes before the all-debts-paid party that is the joy of Easter. If you have succumbed to temptation before, if you’ve ever cried bitter tears of disappointment with yourself, and seen others weep for you, too, there is news on the wire for you, today. Our lives may be torn and shredded, but it’s not too late. Even if what you have done is too dark to confess to others, painful even to pray about, it’s not too late. There is a power by which you can become the person you were meant to be.

The writer of Hebrews says, “he was tempted and tested in every way, just as we are” (4:15), but Jesus did not fall. He wants more for us than to answer to an addiction or a deception that seeks control of our lives. He wants us to know who we are, because it is for freedom that he has set us free. He is there in the dark of night, and he is there when we remember our created purpose – to give glory to our Creator, and to enjoy God forever.

He was known for working hard, and had been promoted for his determination. But in his new job, there were new expectations – weekends on call, family vacations on stand-by, and treating people in ways he had never felt was fair. Now he sat in my office, looking peaceful for the first time in months. “I gave notice last week,” he said. “I told them thanks for giving me what I’d always wanted, but it turned out to be another person’s dream. I slept well for the first time in a long time that night, and I woke up feeling like God was smiling at me.” Sometimes resisting temptation can mean saying no. But really, standing fast means saying yes to the person you know in your heart you really are, and to the pleasure of being who God made you to be.

Would you pray with me?

O Lord, when we pray that you would not lead us into temptation, help us to mean it. We don’t know all that will come our way, but we do know that your power, your grace, your mercy will always be available to us. When we fail, give us the grace we will need to be honest with You, with, others, with ourselves. And when we stand fast, help us to feel your pleasure. In the name of He who was tested for our sake, Amen.