Spiritual Amnesia

Matthew 4:1-11

This is the first Sunday in Lent, and each year the gospel reading is on the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. The forty days of Jesus’ temptation is the pattern for our forty days of Lent. Lent is the time to be a bit more introspective. It is a time to examine our lives. That is what Jesus was doing in the wilderness during those forty days before the temptations began. If we read the story carefully we see that it was not until after Jesus had been fasting for forty days alone in the wilderness that the devil showed up to make trouble for him. “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came….”  What was Jesus doing during those forty days beforehand the tempter came tempting? It doesn’t say, but that does not stop me from speculating. I think he was trying to integrate the experience that he had immediately beforehand, which we find in the final verses of chapter 3, which was his baptism.

Jesus’ baptism was the most important event in his life up to that point. I think it was the moment when it all came together for him. Up until that point I don’t think Jesus fully understood who he was. It is clear that he had some idea of his true nature from the time he was twelve years old. His bar mitzvah and his discussion with the spiritual teachers in the temple courts revealed that he was no ordinary 12 year old. It says that the spiritual teachers were amazed at his answers. He called God his Father at that time, which was a very controversial statement to make in that religious setting, especially for a twelve year old. It goes on to say that he not only grew physically, but that “he grew in wisdom as well as stature” from that day on. I take that to mean that he did not have a full mature spiritual understanding yet.

I think there was a gradual unfolding and realization of his self-understanding over time up until he was thirty years old. Then something dramatically shifted for him. One day he heard his cousin John the Baptist preach and went into the Jordan River to be baptized by John. At the moment of baptism it says that the heavens were opened and Jesus heard the voice of God declaring him to be God’s Beloved Son. Here are the exact words that come immediately before our text today: “When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That was the defining moment of Jesus’ life. Immediately after his baptism Jesus went off by himself into the wilderness to fast and pray for forty days. I think that during those six weeks, he was trying to figure things out – to integrate into his life that experience and knowledge of who he truly was. That is how I see the forty days of the wilderness.

I see our forty days of Lent in that same light. I think it should be a time of integration for us. There was a pastor in a church who started each service with passing of the peace, similar to what we do at our time of Christian greeting. He would say, "The peace of Christ be with you," and the people would all respond, "and also with you.” But, one Sunday the sound system wasn’t working. He got to the pulpit and the spoke, but no one heard him. He said a little louder, "There’s something wrong with this microphone." And the people (not hearing him clearly) responded, "and also with you." Lent is not a time to try to figure out what is wrong with us. That is the way Lent is often portrayed. I would like to suggest a different approach based on this temptation scene in the wilderness. I think it is a time to get in touch with our true nature and integrate that wisdom into our lives

1. The temptation of Jesus was a time for Jesus to affirm that he was the Son of God. Listen to the first temptation of Christ, “4:3 The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." Let’s not focus on the bread too quickly. Look at the first words of the temptation: “If you are the Son of God…” That is what this temptation is about. The second temptation has the same focus. It says, “4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 4:6 saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Once again the opening words of the tempter are, "If you are the Son of God.”

For forty days Jesus had been trying to get his head around the idea that he was the Son of God! He was trying to emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually come to grips with his true nature. I think the same sort of self-inquiry should be at the root of our Lenten experience. The root of all spiritual problems is misunderstanding who we are. Once we have self-knowledge clearly in place at the center of our thinking, then everything else falls into place. Then temptations to act out of character with who we truly are are defeated. For Jesus it meant being grounded in the realization that he was the Son of God. For us the temptation is similar but not exactly the same. From a Christian perspective we are not the Son of God in the same sense that we call Jesus the only Begotten Son of God. The NT calls us children of God, sons and daughters of God, and I will get to that in a moment. But Jesus was the only begotten Son of God, meaning that he was a special kind of fellow from his birth.

But let’s talk about us – our true nature, our true identity. Who are we? There are two basic answers to that question given by Scripture. The first is in the OT in the Book of Genesis and repeated elsewhere. First, we are created in the image of God. I have talked about this before, but I keep coming back to it because I think it is absolutely essential that we get this self-identity through our heads. Genesis says “1:27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” There are many interpretations of what that means. I think it means that we are the reflection of God. That is what an image is. An image is not the thing imaged. It is a representation or a reflection of the thing imaged. I think the metaphor of a mirror catches the idea best. When you look into a mirror, we see our image reflected. I look into the mirror and I see the image of Marshall. That is not me in there in the looking glass; it is a reflection of me. Our little one year old granddaughter Vera is at the age when she is fascinated by her own reflection in the mirror. She sees her image and laughs and keeps saying, “Hi, hi!” It is not real clear to her yet whose image that is.

We are the image of God. We are not God. Jesus was God. We are the image of God. That is an important distinction to make. It is the difference between dogs and cats. If you own a dog, you pat the dog and the dog wags its tail and thinks, “My Master is God.” But if you own a cat, like we do, it is different story. I pet our cat, and the cat purrs, shuts its eyes and thinks to itself, “I am the Master. I am God.” Don’t make the mistake that the cat does. We are not God. We are the image of God.

We are a mirror created to reflect God. That is what it means to be a human being. When God looks at us, he sees his own image reflected. When other people look at us, they see the reflection – the reflected image – of God. At least that is the way it is supposed to work. But the scripture says that something went wrong. Different theologians describe it differently. Some say that the image was lost. Some say the image was marred or corrupted, that the mirror that reflected the image was cracked or destroyed. But nowhere does the scripture use terms like that. It never says that we have ceased to be the image of God. So we are still the image of God. But for some reason we do not see it. We do not experience it as true in our lives. So what is wrong?

Many people never knew they were made in the image of God. It is simply a matter of ignorance. They were never told. They never had a spiritual or religious upbringing. The good news of our true nature and identity was never communicated to them. This is where the proclamation of the gospel is so important. It is important that we proclaim the gospel so that people know who they really are, what their true nature and identity is.

Some people have been told their true nature, but they have forgotten it. You could say that they have a case of spiritual amnesia. I read a story about some newlyweds. One day a few weeks after their wedding, the young man after work absentmindedly forgot to go home where his bride had dinner waiting for him. Instead he drove to his parents’ house. He was not thinking. It was simply a matter of habit. It was not until he walked in the door and his parents asked him what he was doing there, that he remembered that he was now married. That is not amnesia; that is a case of temporary forgetfulness.

Jude and I just finished reading Dan Brown’s newest novel entitled Inferno. Very exciting novel, which seems to have been written to be made into a movie. The main character of the book is a man named Robert Langdon, who has amnesia. Much of the book is the reader trying to figure out along with Robert Langdon what really happened to him during those days that he cannot remember. It is a common plotline in books and movies.

One of the best films based on amnesia is The Bourne Identity.  Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne — a CIA agent who has suffered amnesia and is trying to figure out who he is. There is a scene early in the film where Jason has hitched a ride from Switzerland to Germany with a young woman named Marie. He's running from the police — but he's not even sure why. He tries to keep his amnesia a secret from Marie, who is driving. But she keeps asking questions about him. Finally, in response to her asking a simple question about him, he turns to her and says desperately, "I don't know who I am or where I am going." A little later they stop to eat a truck stop along a snowy highway. Bourne starts to share what little he knows about himself, looking for clues to who he is. He had recently found a safety deposit box belonging to him. Bourne asks, "Who has a safety deposit box full of…money and six passports and a gun? I come in here, and the first thing I'm doing is I'm looking for an exit." "I see the exit sign, too, but I'm not worried," says Marie. Bourne replies with increased desperation. "I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs 215 pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?”

 That is the human situation. People know a lot of things and can do a lot of things. They have a lot of information, but they don’t know who they are. The Scriptures tell us who we are. They say that we are the image of God. We come from God, created by God, to reflect God. But people do not know that. They have someone forgotten that innate knowledge. That is what it means to be spiritually lost. ABC News had a story in 2010 about Scott Bolzan has no memory of any part of his life story. It's all been erased. It was called, "The Man Who Forgot Everything." Bolzan has an extreme case of severe retrograde amnesia. The 47 year old man slipped in the men's restroom of his office building and hit his head on the ground. He forgot his whole life. His wife, his children. His friends. Everyone and everything. Bolzan said "The best word I can use to describe it is just being lost, because I lost who I am." Many people are spiritually lost like this. They wander their whole lives without knowing who they really are, where they have come from, or where they are going. The gospel of Christ reminds us who we are.

We are made in the image of God.  We are also children of God. The much misinterpreted idea of being born again, born of the Spirit, or born from above, is one way Jesus used to communicate this truth of becoming children of God. In one sense we are always children of God. Paul tells the philosophers in Athens that they are all God’s offspring. But in another sense we aren’t really children of God until we believe it. That is where faith comes in – faith in Christ and what he says. Through faith we accept that we are children of God. The apostle Paul uses the metaphor of being adopted into the family of God instead of being born of God. He makes a distinction between Jesus who was born as God’s Son, and we who are adopted by God into his family as sons and daughters of God. It doesn’t matter which metaphor or language we use. It comes down to the same – by faith be come to know and experience ourselves as children of God.

As children of God the spiritual is more important than the physical. In the temptation scene, the devil tempts Jesus with bread – making stones into bread. Jesus responds, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Spiritual bread is more important than the physical insofar as knowing who we really are. Sure we are physical beings who need food to survive, but more importantly we are spiritual beings who need the Word of God to inform our existence.

In the second temptation the devil tempts Jesus to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple to test God whether or not God will protect him physically from harm. Jesus says, “No. Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" It is not about the physical; it is about the spiritual. Of course you are going to die if you jump off a building. That does not mean God does not love you or that we are not children of God. In the third temptation Jesus was no longer doubting who he was but rather was tempted not to act in accordance with his self-knowledge. He was tempted to live as if he was not the Son of God, to live as if all that mattered was worldly power and glory. Jesus responds to the temptation saying, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" That is how we live as sons and daughters of God.

In the temptation scene Jesus was affirming who he really was. The tempter was trying to get him to deny that.  He was trying to get Jesus to think he was just physical and not spiritual. Jesus refused to forget who he was as the Son of God. And he refused to live as if he were not the Son of God. He would worship and serve God alone. Likewise, we are to remember who we are as humans created in the divine image. Through faith we are sons and daughters of God, meant to worship and serve God. Let us not forget who we are.