Temptation is one of those subjects that comes to mind in Lent, especially when we are feeling the temptation to eat or drink something we have given up during this forty day period. Do you ever give in? I sometimes do, after I have made a good case for it in my head!”

We are told that Jesus was “tempted in every way as we are, but without sin.” The gospel writer might appear to be telling us that Jesus never gave in to temptation. But, as someone once said, this doesn’t mean that it was easy for Jesus. Anyone of us who has ever really been tempted and has struggled against it, knows it can be very hard. Perhaps it is most hard when everyone around you is doing whatever it is you are holding out against and teases you or jeers at you for not joining in. Perhaps it is even more difficult when you are not absolutely sure you are right. The point is that the one who is tempted in every way as we are but doesn’t give in, knows more about temptation, not less. Those of us who give in quickly and easily know very little about it, because we give into it so easily. So Jesus knew more about temptation than the average human being, not less.

Reading the story of the Temptations in the Wilderness one could get the idea that this episode was a one-off and that Jesus was not sorely tempted again until the night before his death when praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. But most human beings are assailed again and again by the same temptations. Under stress or strain many of us succumb. What if Jesus was also tempted when tired or under particular stress or strain?

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. (John 6: 1-15)

This verse is from the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Unlike its counterparts in the other gospels, John mentions the time of year: it is Passover. Some believe that this is John’s “Last Supper” as that event is not mentioned in this gospel. The bread that comes from an amount so small feeds thousands, keeps them alive and well. Christ’s sacrificial death is the Bread of Life and will feed millions and give everlasting life. But what of the last verse of this particular event, v 15.

We are told that Jesus withdraws when he realises that the crowd are about to make him king. In the Wilderness all the temptations are fundamentally about winning power, through feeding people, force or magic tricks. He turns away from all three because they will not win peoples’ hearts and minds to God’s way of love. In the story of the Feeding of the 5,000, Jesus, whilst not turning stones into bread most certainly multiplies loaves so that all are fed- and then suddenly the crowd want to make him king: the temptation to power.

Jesus withdraws to be by himself. Is he running away again from the temptation to be popular, relevant and powerful? It doesn’t matter if he is because he is running where we should all run, back to the real source of life, back to his true self, and away from what the world would have him be, back home to his Father-God. Or is Jesus simply seeking to be alone and refreshed by the Holy Spirit; back on balance, centred, quiet and still?

Re-turning to God is what we all need to do when tempted. It is also what we also need to do when we have simply had a long, hard day and there have been just too many demands on us. Pulled outside of ourselves and fragmented we return to the Father in prayer and we become ourselves again, back on balance.

One of my Lenten disciplines this year is to read all four gospels during the 40 days of Lent. This may sound a hefty task to take on but in reality it is about 10 minutes a day. The plan I am using is the “Biblegateway” one and you can access it through the internet. You even get one day a week rest day – the Sabbath – Sunday!

It is really good to read a chunk of the bible through every day and many of us do so through reading plans or the daily office but to get a run at the gospels is a real gift. I am experiencing two contrasting things. First, a sense of familiarity and comfort from words I have lived with most of my life (certainly my adult life) and secondly surprise as I see things I have never noticed before. So the familiar is full of the unfamiliar. The God of Surprises keeps tapping me on the shoulder.

One such moment happened last week when I was reading Matthew 12 and the story of the disciples picking the ears of corn to eat as they walked through a field on the Sabbath, “because they were hungry.” The ever watchful Pharisees immediately jumped on the event complaining to Jesus that his disciples were breaking the Sabbath law about work (not about eating someone else’s wheat, you notice!) In verse 7, Jesus replies,

But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.’

The words that jumped out at me were, “you would not have condemned the guiltless.” I had never really seen them before with such clarity. I know how often I condemn the guiltless in my thoughts, if not in my words and actions. If there is someone whom I am having difficulty with I am just as likely as the Pharisees to search for something that I see as wrong in the other person and jump on that, condemning people who may well be truly guiltless, but if they are not who deserve a little more understanding and compassion from me then I am willing to give them.

The chapter continues with two more illustrations of the Pharisees condemning Jesus who is guiltless. The first is when he heals the man with the withered hand, again condemned because this act of mercy is on the Sabbath; the second when he heals a blind-mute man. On that occasion Jesus is accused of being able to do what he does do through an association with Beelzebub, the devil!

The chapter is a vivid indictment of the human inclination to condemn the guiltless, not only personally but within society as well. In the UK we have always been very good at blaming people who are poor for being poor, for example, instead of really looking at the root causes of poverty and addressing them. Some of our media make matters worse by talking of people on benefits as “scroungers” whereas we know that many people are working in low paid jobs, are elderly or disabled. And this is just one example of our condemning the guiltless or at least not treating them with mercy.

I wonder what Jesus would say to us?

The Pentecostal church used the local parish church for its services on a Sunday afternoon. The local vicar used to see the husband and wife ministry team come out after their service, often three hours long, looking bright and happy.  Often she would say to him,

“We have seen the glory today, vicar.  We have seen the glory!”

Sometimes the wife said, “Have you ever seen the glory, vicar?”

To which the vicar would reply, in a typically understated English and Anglican manner, “Well…yes…um…good for you…”  (I heard this story from the vicar so I am neither maligning him nor the Church of England.)

One day the vicar happened to see the lady minister before the service began.  It was a grey and miserable day, the sort of day when the dampness gets into your bones and into your spirits; yet she looked as content and ever.  The vicar couldn’t help asking her why she was so cheerful on such a grey and miserable day; after all she hadn’t yet had the tonic which her worship was to her.  She hadn’t seen the glory.

“Ah, yes, Vicar,” was her reply, “But I am going to see the glory.  I see the glory every day.”

Every day this woman got up and went out into the world expecting to see and looking for the glory of God, and because she was expectant and because she looked, she saw it.  Yesterday we had the story of the Transfiguration as our gospel reading.  We also had part of Peter’s second letter in which he says,

You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.  (2 Peter 1:19b)

The disciples gazed on Jesus in his glory and Peter, remembering this invites us to do the same in our daily life.  We are invited to gaze at Jesus in scripture, and the glory of God in creation, through poetry, music, art – whatever brings us into a state where we are attending to that which gives life in all its fullness.  In time the day will dawn in us, too, and the morning star of love and delight will rise in our hearts.

We can all see the glory with practice.  We can all see the glory because it is there.  We just have to expect it.