First Sunday in Lent
Familiarity doesn't necessarily breed contempt. It can often breed simple boredom.

Oh, it's the first Sunday in Lent? Yep- it must be. There's that story again- Jesus' temptations. Three of them. And they represent the basics of all temptations. If Jesus can do it, so can we.

Or something like that. How many times have we heard it? How man times have we had it explained. Wake me when it's Easter.

But in all these years of hearing this story the beginning has always struck me. It is one of those hits up the side of the head that is meant to get your attention. Here it is from Luke 4:1-2--

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

It almost makes it sound as if God and the devil are in cahoots on this one. Almost like another Job story without hearing the heavenly dialogue as in Job. The Holy Spirit led Jesus out there for it to happen, even though Jesus was himself filled with the Holy Spirit. I have heard it explained that when someone is filled with the Holy Spirit, whether Jesus or us, the devil will attack so this story tells us to be prepared. Or perhaps the Spirit was what led him through it all so he didn't fall.

But then maybe it has another idea- that Jesus and the Spirit are once again at work defeating the wiles and ways of evil. It is about the challenge of what do in unison with God when faced with those threats to faith, the problems that undermine hope.

Sarah over at Dylan's Lectionary blog struggles with that as well. As part of her dealing with the struggle she reminds us that

the bible isn't that book that a lot of us heard about in Sunday School -- the one that says that we should be quiet, good, and cheerful in a world of smiling white guys who look a little like hippies patting the heads of fresh-faced children and snow-white cartoon sheep. It isn't a book that says that we should all be nice because everything is really OK. Read a book like Luke-Acts closely and you'll see a group of people grappling hard with hard questions, real oppression, serious pain.

When we follow Jesus, we walk with and behind sisters and brothers who have known pain and oppression.

And let's not gloss over that, because without seeing that, we can't take in the full impact of the Good News they share with us:

That Jesus the Christ, full of the Holy Spirit, came to confront all the powers of sin and death, everything that separates us from one another, from God, and from the joyful, peaceful, loving life for which God made us -- and Jesus won.