Not today, Satan: Lead us not into temptation | Clergy
We Christians began Lent this year with The Gospel of Mark and its poignant note about how Jesus began his public ministry. Going straight to the hardest of religious tasks, he spends 40 days in the wilderness where he is “tempted by Satan.”
The Christian tradition has a variety of theological and Scriptural ideas on Satan. Popular culture often depicts Satan as a sinister red character with horns and a pitchfork. Yet one of the earliest Scriptural descriptions — in the Old Testament’s Book of Job — casts Satan as a member of the divine court, a prosecutor who works for God and tests humans by provoking them. This certainly nuances popular ideas on Satan.
This notion of Satan as a divine provocateur led author CS Lewis to write a satire on Satan in his 1942 book, “The Screwtape Letters.” The main character, Screwtape, is a seasoned demon writing letters to a young demon-in-training, his nephew Wormwood. Screwtape trains the young demon to exploit the temptations of the humans and to distract them from God — temptations like the little voices inside our heads enticing us to make bad choices; choices that do not align with our values. Telling humans things like, “No one will care if I just take one drink. I can hide it this time,” or, “No one will ever really love me, and I’m scared I’m going to be alone the rest of my life,” or, “I miss when faith was easy; now with everything going on in the world, it’s too hard to believe. Maybe I should just walk away,” a Tempter can distract humans from their own good values and lure them away from God.
Screwtape explains to Wormwood how the job of the Tempter is to prod humans continually, making small thoughts into large worries that fill the heart and mind. Soon then Tempter can shatter a human’s sense of wholeness — and fracture friendships and communities and even their connection with God. Soon the hapless human will feel like Jesus in the desert, alone and facing the full and evil power of the Tempter.
Lewis’ work is satire — and perhaps overdramatized, but it resonates with our human predicament. It also reminds me about why I am a Christian. The God man Jesus walked the dusty desert road of temptation and felt the totality of trials and temptations we face. He knew temptation, but he resisted. He resisted Satan, and as he walks the desert road with us, the desert dust is still on his feet as is his determination and goodness. We are not alone.
Though it is a great big world out there — and though we may feel like we are on our own, the fact is that God walks with us. God knows what it is like to fight for a gritty faith that keeps believing even in the shadows — even when we are tempted and tested. Even the great are lured and must encounter Temptation, which is why Martin Luther would fight back and yell at Satan, “I’ve been baptized!” There is also this modern version which I rather like: “Not today, Satan!” Not today, Satan!
We walk this Lenten Road with Christ knowing the God we believe in has been tested and tempted in every possible way. This is good to know because being human is complicated, and it is reassuring to know that God knows the little voices that tempt us, knows the values that we struggle to maintain, looks upon us with compassion, and calls us back to the center of the road of love. “Not today, Satan!” We have work to do for the love of God: feeding the hungry, forgiving our enemy, and seeking the presence of God. Oh Christ, lead us not into temptation this Lenten season.
The Rev. Jes Kast is the pastor at Faith United Church of Christ.