Scripture:  Luke 4: ^1-13

We begin here a five-week series “The Path of Sacrifice.”  I chose the theme of sacrifice at the end of Lent last year ­ long before Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” hit the movie theatres.  Now by the movie industry’s choice, and aside from any ethical issues the movie might raise, the entire North American culture joins us in pondering the theme of Christian sacrifice.

But for this sermon, I want to begin at a less violent place, a place that nevertheless begins in the media, this time in the "Vancouver Sun."  Last Easter a kindly soul left the "Vancouver Sun’s" Easter article by Douglas Todd on my desk.  Todd is the religion and ethics writer for the Sun.  His article was entitled:   “Easter’s message a model for human behaviour: reflections on self-sacrifice in a state of war.”  Todd wrote:

 “Sacrifice is not a popular concept in our consumer society, where we’re taught that happiness lies in looking after Number One, satisfying our every desire.  The idea of giving up our well-being, even suffering and dying for the greater good, is not something you hear advocated often in today’s mass culture.  But it is the deep message of the traditional story of Easter: that somehow Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross in an act of sacrifice; that his courage not only challenged an evil Roman empire, it mystically atoned for the wrongdoing of all humans.”

Animal and human sacrifice, in the time of Jesus were the traditional way of appeasing God and the gods.  One was sacrificed for the good of the all.  As time progressed, the Easter story, according to tradition, says Jesus Christ was a human replacement for the lamb the ancient Jews sarificed at Passover, to strengthen their covenant with God.  In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, the sacrifice is extended to secure salvation for all humanity for all time.

Gibson’s movie "The Passion of Christ" focuses on suffering and the act of physical sacrifice as the way to win God’s love.  Amid the controversy, our National Office has issued a news release which helps us to look at sacrifice as giving not killing:

 “We do not worship a sadistic god who is satisfied or appeased by sacrifice and blood.  Jesus’ suffering in fact comes from his standing with the poor and the oppressed, not to pay a debt for human sin.  As a church, we believe that God is present to all who suffer and that God does not desire suffering in any form…. This Lent, we are invited to consider Jesus’ suffering as a powerful sign of God’s love and care for the socially marginalized, the victims of torture, oppression, and injustice.  Jesus loved, healed, and stood with those who suffer.  He died as one of them and in doing so brought hope through God’s redeeming love for all those who suffer injustice.   The United church calls on those who see "The Passion of the Christ" to see through that suffering to the people Jesus loved and loves and to witness to hope by sharing God’s love and in seeking justice. “

Christians have long viewed sacrifice as a model for human behaviour.  Sacrifice is integral to the Christian concept of love, particularly Jesus’ teaching “to love your neighbour as yourself."

Bonnelle Stricking, psychotherapist and philosophy instructor at Langara College was interviewed by Douglas Todd.  She gave a very helpful reflection on the concept of sacrifice: “Sacrifice is a very important concept.  It has to do with being willing to give up something of value because it will be transformative; because it will be a path to a higher spiritual value. But there is good sacrifice and bad sacrifice…. Worthwhile sacrifice contributes to the greater good…Bad sacrifice just leads to loss, serving no larger purpose.”

As we move through Lent, we will be looking at the path of sacrifice as  a witness to hope, and a model for human behaviour that is transformative.  In choosing a path that is transformative we have to make choices about what to accept and what to reject.  Each week we are going to look at the challenges that Jesus faced and the choices he made.  Jesus was never one for simply accepting the world around him without questioning why things were as they were.  He often looked for alternative ways of understanding.  He always sought out the reason for things and if they had lost their original meaning he sought to retrieve it.  He looked at the principles and assumptions behind how the church and society were behaving.

We too are asked to look seriously at the structure of society, family, and our own lives; to question the assumptions on which we base our actions.

Thus Lent is a time of finding our true voice through honest self-inquiry.  A time of inner testing. A time of naming our destructive responses and behaviours helps us see invitations to change.

When Jesus committed himself to God’s mission. the first thing the spirit did was to drive him into the wilderness.  There he faced his own temptations and hammered out his own sense of commitment and mission.  The three temptations have a kind of universal pertinence: personal power, political power, and religious power.

These temptations were also specific to the life of Israel.  During the 40 years in the wilderness, the Israelites had to learn that their need for bread was secondary to their need to understand that God alone gives bread.  Jesus, because he understands that fact, can resist the temptation to take matters into his own hands.  Humanity does not live by bread alone.  We often latch on to external things as substitutes for what we really need.  It is frequently the case that the emptier we are inside, the more we feel a need for food, clothing, money, and a comfortable livelihood.   We may even feel the deprivation of hunger most keenly when everything seems to be alright on the outside.   The hunger of human beings is expressed in endless yearning.  Our patterns of eating are often a symbol of that yearning.

The second temptation, that to political power, is likewise one that would make sense to any reader; who has not, at one time or another, wished for some such might?  In the context of Israel’s history, however, Israel’s desire to be like its neighbours ---lies close to hand.  Jesus’ reply insists that real power only comes from God.

In this context, I am reminded of Dr. Sally McFaye’s presentation to Presbytery last Tuesday night.  Religion, she said, defines who we are and how we should act in the scheme of things.  Jesus is our lens to talk about God.  Jesus shows us the face of God.  The church then should be counter-cultural.  But Christianity has supported individualist, consumer culture by its silence, by not speaking against it.  Religion, government, economics all focus on the individual.  Market capitalism, without an alternative, is seen as truth, when in fact it is an interpretation of reality, not a description of truth.

Who we think we are, she says, really does count.

In the third temptation Jesus is evoked to test God for his own ends.  We often try to define God in terms of our own desires and wants.  We don’t want to be driven into the wilderness, we want to find rest and sink into God’s love.  Jesus clearly wanted to teach trust in God, but his trust took a curious form.  He tried to teach us that we could rise above the abyss of anxiety if we see beyond our anxieties and needs and let God define us, not us define God.

On the path of sacrifice our willingness to spend time in the wilderness facing our own desires and temptations is a time of inner testing.

The spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to face his temptations and know them, so that he could  undertake his calling with clarity and commitment.

The spirit also calls us into the wilderness to face our temptations and name them. In doing so, we too are given the power to know ourselves and follow Christ into the wilderness without fear.

May we walk the path of sacrifice, being witness to hope, modeling human behaviour that is transformative for this world.

Amen.