"The Evil Entity Has No Face"

                                               What is your image of Evil? 

March 9, 2014 Readings:  Romans 5: 12-19  Psalm 32, Matthew 4: 1-11

Today is the first Sunday in the Lenten season.  Lent is the 40 days of prayer, fasting and reflection leading up to Easter Sunday and it is our time to take stock of our own personal commitment as a follower of Christ.  This is probably the most important and most difficult time in the Christian year as we are required to look inward and do some personal house cleaning.   Are you ready folks?   Looking inside of one’s self is not something we humans do easily especially we who claim to be Christian.

The greatest trick the devil ever played was to make the world believe that he doesn’t exist.   That quote comes from a move called “ The Usual Suspects” and in it, the devil and his evil ways are portrayed by an entity that has no face.   In other words the devil is unrecognizable until you see that this evil entity enters and does it’s work in and through a human.   Now think about this folks because without curious humans earth would have no use for an evil entity no matter how you image it. 

Evil is lurking in the background of every person’s human nature just waiting for a temptation to awaken it.  Even Jesus had to be tempted Matthew 4: 1

We are all born with the potential to become the face of evil under the right circumstances, especially if we reject or ignore God.  Often we are unaware that we have push God off to the sidelines of our life.   Again we are reminded in the Matthew reading this morning by Jesus, that you cannot serve two masters, for you will love one and hate the other.   He then reminds us that we are to serve only the one God, the God of our creation.  

Jesus is taken to the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to face this evil entity that resides within the human nature.   I believe that Jesus was, at this moment, no different than any of us because He needs to experience the fullness of being human in order that He might be one with us.  You and I both know that the Jesus had the power and could have, with the wave of his little figure, saved himself from death on the cross.  We also know that, if He wanted to could have left out His face to face encounter with temptation, but he doesn’t.  Instead, God, comes to us in human form, in flesh and blood and chooses to be show himself in the life and times of Jesus, to endure the full experience of our frailty and our humanness.  Don’t just take my words folks, read about this for yourself, you will find it in the Gospel of John Chapter 1.

We all have been at one time or another faced with the temptation of allowing evil to be manifested in our own lives.  Jesus doesn’t give in but with the power given to him by the Holy Spirit breaks the hold the devil has on His human nature by rebuking evil.    “Away with you Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”  Can you see what Jesus is showing us here, that our only protection is to force evil to have a face to face encounter with the Holy Spirit which by the way resides in us, 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20.    As hard as we may try, we cannot combat evil on our own folks.  By inviting the presence of the Holy by calling upon Jesus into our circumstance, we will have the power to rebuke evil to.    Want to chase away temptation, fear, or anxiety all you need to do is to call upon His name.  There is no greater power in the universe than the name of Jesus.   When the devil calls us to serve Him, we to should say “Away from me Satan, I worship the Lord my God and serve Him only”

Jesus is tempted by bread for his hunger.  He is tempted to save himself from danger.   Finally He is offered the kingdoms of the world.  Jesus is clearly showing us that we can overcome the tempter too by voicing our allegiance to God through Christ.  You see evil begins in the mind with thoughts, thoughts of anger, lust, greed, jealously, self-centeredness, hatred, and pride.   These thoughts that can be turn into an action that results in doing the devils handy work {you know the old saying “the devil made me do it”} and this entity has the power to convince us, that it’s OK.   Now I ask you Folks, he convinces Adam and Eve and they fall, he works on Moses self rightness and he falls, King David fall prey to the devils influence of lust and murder and the list goes on and on right up to you and I, no one escapes the devils temptations.   The only defense we have is to call upon the Name of the one who defeats temptation.   From the Cross Jesus takes the keys of death and hell away from Satan and offers us His robe or righteousness in exchange for our failings.  Folks it doesn’t get any better than that.

Let us never forget that the PRINCE OF DARKNESS was given power over the world from the beginning and it is he who tempts us, but Jesus has the power to destroy the tempter and save us from eternal death.   

 Folks, this is what the Lenten season is all about.  It is about looking and naming the dark places in our own lives.  It is about repentance, forgiveness and recommitting our lives to Christ.   It not about guilt, and it never was, it’s about freedom, freedom from the control that fear, lust and insecurities have over us, it about a new life in Christ.