“Passing the Test” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, March 9, 2025, Year C / Lent 1- Deuteronomy 26:1-11 · Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 · Romans 10:8b-13 · Luke 4:1-13

THEME:  When God allows us to be tested, accept the reality of our failure to rely on God, and embrace the challenge of living more like Jesus.

Have you ever taken a stress test? You may not know what that is. But, if you do, it is probably because you have had heart issues. The general idea is to test how well your heart functions under physical exertion. It is essentially doing a treadmill workout while you are hooked up to all sorts of electrodes attached to your upper body. The wires from the electrodes are connected to monitors, overseen by a doctor or nurse. Once you are hooked up to those monitors, the treadmill starts.  Gradually, it gets faster and faster. Then, depending on how well your heart is doing, the incline starts to increase, too, making it even harder.

Heart disease runs in my family. So, I took my first stress test in my 40s. I was in fairly good shape, but even so I was a little apprehensive. I knew it would be hard. Even more, I was afraid that it might show that something was really wrong. I definitely broke a sweat, but I finished the test. I am glad I did, because it gave me a clearer picture of my health and what I needed to do differently to improve it. 

Something similar happens when God tests us. We find out who we really are, and in whom we really trust. No matter what the test shows, if we take the test seriously, it can strengthen our faith. The first step is to realize that we are not the first ones God has ever tested. In fact, the Bible tells us that we are in some pretty good company. God tested Abraham, Joseph, Job, Daniel, Paul. God tested whole groups of people. He tested the Israelites as they wandered through the wilderness. He tested the disciples when Jesus was arrested and crucified. In every case, God was seeking the answer to one question. Will they place their ultimate trust in me, or in something or someone else? As Moses told the Israelites in the desert, “God is testing you to know whether you indeed love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.”

That is why God is allowing Jesus to be tested. At his baptism, God declared, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’  God gave Jesus a mission. His mission was to give others new life by sacrificing his own on the cross. God wants to know whether Jesus will remain committed to doing his father’s will. So, he sends Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Satan is God’s quality control agent. He tests Jesus the same way he tested Job. 

The very first temptation he offers is the seductive lure of self-reliance. Will Jesus rely on himself by making bread from stones, or will he rely on God to sustain him? Then Satan tempts Jesus with worldly power. Will Jesus forsake God and worship Satan in order to obtain power over all the nations of the world?  Finally, Satan tempts Jesus to turn things around and test God. He tells Jesus to throw himself off the Temple to see if God will actually let him fall to his death. This temptation is very subtle.  It is an invitation to doubt God’s character and the wisdom of his mission. Satan is suggesting that, if Jesus is truly God’s beloved son, and if God is truly benevolent and powerful, then God would never let him actually carry through with his mission to give his life on the cross.

Jesus passes each and every test. He cites the Hebrew scriptures to underscore his trust that God and God alone is the only true and trustworthy source of sustenance, power, and identity. Jesus’ mission is, of course, our mission. We are called to take up our cross and follow him. We, too, are called to trust God above all else. Naturally, God allows us to be tested, too.  He wants to see if we will be faithful to his will. We are tested as individuals, and as a people. That has been true in our history, just as it is today.  In some of the hardest times in our history, we have responded by declaring our trust in God in some very public ways.

One of the most severe tests came during the Civil War. At the height of that mighty struggle for our nation’s very existence, Abraham Lincoln had the words, “In God We Trust” placed on the 2-cent penny. Eventually all of our currency came to carry that same motto. Fast forward to the 20^th century when we faced the threat of the Cold War. In response to the atheist ideology of communism, President Eisenhower signed a law establishing “In God We Trust” as our new national motto. In the early 2000s, in the wake of 9/11, 90% of Americans surveyed agreed that “In God We Trust” should still be our national motto.

But declaring that motto and living into it are two different things. Like Jesus, we are tempted to place our ultimate trust in ourselves and worldly power, instead of God. Like Jesus, we, too, are tempted to doubt God’s goodness and the wisdom of his mission to give ourselves for others, especially the least and the lost. We face these temptations on a regular, if not daily basis. We face them in our personal lives, and we face them in our public lives. We are seeing these temptations play out right now on a national and international level, too. 

The questions we are being asked by our tempter are, “Shouldn’t we just rely on ourselves? We don’t need anybody else. Why don’t we go it alone and trust in our own power?  After all, we are the richest, most powerful nation in the world.” Our tempter also asks “Can we really trust God and his mission? Why do we have to sacrifice in order to help the poor and the oppressed, the immigrant and the stranger? Why can’t they fend for themselves?”

Abraham Lincoln famously said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” That is how the devil tested Jesus. That is how we are being tested right now, in both our private lives and our public lives, whether we realize it or not. And that is the sneaky thing about temptation. Until we have to face it in the wilderness, it is all too easy to think we are handling it just fine, even if we are giving in to it. But then, inevitably, comes a day when we find ourselves stripped of the false certainty of power, hubris, and control. When that happens, we are forced to realize that, all too often, our trust in God is at best tenuous.

Lent is just such a time. Today is the first Sunday of the season of Lent.  Now is the time to reexamine ourselves, to confess our need for repentance, and to reorient our living to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Taking Lent seriously requires that we enter a self-imposed wilderness. A place of self-scrutiny, where we allow ourselves to be honest and vulnerable. Above all, it is a place of humility. One of the earliest church fathers, Augustine of Hippo, famously wrote, “If you ask me what is the first thing in religion, I will reply that the first, second, and third thing is humility.”  1,200 years later, Richard Baxter, the Puritan pastor who had such a profound influence on Protestant Colonial America, put it this way. He said, “The very design of the gospel is to abase us; and the work of grace is begun and carried on in humiliation.  Humility is not a mere ornament of a Christian, but an essential part of the new creature. It is a contradiction in terms, to be a Christian, and not be humble.”

Humility comes from honesty, and honesty comes from the clear-sighted knowledge that none of us are, or ever will be, 100% faithful to God. None of us will pass God’s test with a perfect score. Only Jesus did that, and you and I are not Jesus. We are more like Peter denying Christ on Maundy Thursday. But all of us can make changes to become more faithful, to grow in our faith, and live more like Jesus taught us. 

That is why Lent is so important. It is like a stress test at the doctor’s office. When we challenge ourselves and test our physical limits, we find out the true state of our health. That is a very good thing to know. What is even better is making the changes in our lifestyle to get stronger and healthier. 

The same is true of Lent. If we take our self-examination seriously and then make the conscious changes required to love God with more of our whole being, and to love our neighbors more like we love ourselves, we can become more faithful followers of Jesus in all areas of our lives. The question is will we?

May it be so.