Bogosity

Matt 4:1-11

1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

For those who came in late, we are just starting off in lent and looking at the nature of evil, badness, mis-doings, corruption, disharmony and wrongness – aka sin.

Why did Jesus have to go and be tempted by the Devil? Does the Devil / Satan really exist? Who is he? What is he? Was Satan really able to transport Jesus to the top of the temple and did anyone see them there? Did Jesus tell this story to his disciples later? The whole story smells like it’s been made up to me – but that’s no reason to discount it – let’s remember the Bible was not written for our scientific minds – we already know it fails the scrutiny of science time after time. Our argument is that the Bible is a communication of spiritual truth – sometimes in alegory, sometimes poetry – rarely straightforward because our surface understanding and view of the world changes to obscure past ways of thinking, yet the underlying truth remains.

Anyway – I just had to get that off my chest.

So Jesus was tempted by Satan and he did it as a kind of strength test. Jesus was tempted just as we are. Here’s my question – is it the temptation that makes us bad or the action? Surely just that we want to do something bad means that deep down we are engaged in it – some part of us wants it. How do we deal with temptation? One thing I have found is that repression does not work – giving it a name and acknowledging it’s reality is the only way. Catholics have a sacrament of confession where they are able to safely talk about their sins with a priest. The strength of this system is that it allows us to squarely face who we are – to see our dirty thoughts clearly and acknowledge them as ours.

I think a mistake the church has made in the past is to think of temptation and sin in terms of shame and guilt. We should not be ashamed to tell who we really are – we just have to be a bit careful who we tell because sometimes they could be very hurtful to others – or to ourselves if others found out- hence the catholic system of telling a priest. Anglicans also allow for confession but it is not practised as much – in the Anglican church, the parishioner makes a time with the priest and they might not use a booth like the catholics do.

Anyway, it is natural to be tempted – human. Dwelling on it rarely helps but thinking about why you want to do it and what the consequences might be – why it is a bad thing may help. Giving it a name helps you to deal with it. Looking for your deeper motives might help you to understand a wider issue in your life – if you’re lusting after someone’s partner then perhaps you are lonely and need to get serious about meeting more people or dealing with some relationship blockers you might have yourself. That’s just a crappy example but you get the gist I hope.

Finally, I’ll give you some links to some dodgy song lyrics. If any of my reader(s) have favorite songs about temptation we could put together a Lent pop-CD.
My contributions: tempted by Squeeze, Into Temptation by Crowded House and to lighten it up Cheese Burger in Paridise by Jimmy Buffet.