Sermon for Lent 1C 09 March 2025.                                                        Luke 4.1-13

Do not bring us to the time of trial, but deliver us from evil.

A long time ago, but just after the Piper Alpha disaster, all personnel who worked on North Sea oil platforms had to complete a full 5-day safety course on evacuation and fire fighting.

The course covered a wide range of topics. How to launch and operate an orange lifeboat in the open water, with optional seasickness. How to escape from a variety of scenarios with ditched helicopters. There were sessions on first aid and resuscitation. There were fire drills with extinguishers and training on how to escape a room filled with smoke. There were dramatic simulations to survive. We jumped off platforms into dark and stormy wave pools with strobe flashes for lightning, hoses pouring rain into our faces, and extra explosions to further confuse our overwhelmed senses. It did not always feel fun or safe. I was in my mid-20s, and for me, it was a roller coaster of terror and adrenaline.

There was a lot of macho nonsense surrounding the course. Old hands loved terrifying new hires with their own near-miss stories. There were many horror stories about the courses, but they were not all myths. My dad witnessed a death following the underwater helicopter escape training, and a dear friend of mine died climbing up scramble nets; his heart just gave up. This was a course that demanded all your wits and physical ability just to survive it.

In light of that, can we reconsider those temptations offered to Jesus by the Devil?

Like the safety training given to workers just in case something awful happened, Christ’s temptations and experiences over those 40 days in the wilderness prepared him for the challenges coming his way.

Why am I convinced that God placed Jesus in the wilderness to prepare him for his ministry? The primary answer is that the Holy Spirit led him there. He was taken directly from his Baptism to face trials that questioned his identity and abilities. To God at least, it was no accident or surprise that the Devil should meet him there. This was part of a Divine plan.

Just as an aside, we believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so we need to be careful how we understand the Devil. Theologians suggest that although the Devil is powerful and represents all that is evil or wrong in this world, the Devil is never capable of acting outside the scope of God’s purposes. That follows the relationship between God and the Devil in the Book of Job, but it does give me cause to pause on this unsettling aspect of God. It rather ties back to our Lent book of ‘God on Mute’ and the whole issue of difficult unanswered prayer.

Those trials laid on him by the Devil were not pass or fail tests, but rather preparation for what he would ultimately experience when faced with his own death and suffering. He was training for the Garden of Gethsemane, and for his death.

Different questions asked different things of him. Could his physical weakness and hunger be used as a weapon against him? Would he give everything away for ultimate power over the universe? Could he rely on his own bravery, or summon God to help whenever there was a problem?

Every challenge began the same way ‘If you are the Son of God…’ playing with his belief and his confidence. Ironically, the Devil questioned his divinity by testing his human weaknesses, insecurity and doubt.

Each time, Jesus would respond with deeply held and understood scripture from the Torah and the Psalms, nimbly parrying the challenges as they were flung at him like an Olympic fencing champion.

Finally, the Devil tested his faith and his identity – “surely God, your Daddy, will save you from all evils and hurt?” he demanded. To stress his challenge, the Devil quoted Psalm 91, which we read this morning. There is a subtle message there for us. Please note : the ability to quote the Bible does not mean you are a good guy, just one with a good memory.

Jesus gave one last parry, Do not put the Lord your God to the test. With that, the Devil departed to wait for an opportune time, not beaten, just waiting.

The trainers for the offshore course would push those who hesitated, questioning their motivation, , or suggesting that they should quit right now. I am terrible at jumping from heights and initially froze on a 4m high platform – I heard those whisperings, but I found a way to survive. In the dark, stormy evacuation, I grabbed hold of a non-swimmer and told him we were jumping together. I watched out for him in the water, and his jumping ability got me over the ledge.

On the last day of fire safety training, we had to demonstrate a team evacuation. We were placed in an upstairs office; the fire alarm went off, and so did the lights. We had to make our way through a maze of corridors. Opening the office door with the required caution, we realised that the corridor was filled with choking hot black smoke, this felt real! Moving carefully into the corridor, we formed a bright orange caterpillar of overall-clad adults as we crawled with our faces close to the floor. We reached a metal landing with stairs that led down to the exit.

Through the metal grille of the landing, I could see large oil drums filled with burning oil. The place was filling with smoke. The metal handrail was already too hot to touch, and the loud fire sirens filled my head, making it hard to think or communicate. We were making good progress until everything started to go wrong. My neighbour panicked that his fancy gold watch was burning his skin and tried to stand up to reach the stairs faster. It was not his best idea as he began choking on smoke. In front of me, another guy had stopped. He was sitting on a step, urging everyone past him while he tried to catch a breath. We faced a dilemma, how to make him move before he put us all at risk. Should we leave him, or delay our exit to keep the whole team together and risk all being roasted? The heat from the flames was increasing, but we tried to stay calm, think, and use our training to tackle this moment. It was the stuff of nightmares, for so many on Piper Alpha had died that way.

Until.

Until we remembered that we were not alone, trainers were watching over us just out of sight, just beyond the exit we were struggling to reach.

We sent out some of the team to get one of the trainers to help, and 3 of us coaxed the asthma sufferer down. It was a drill, but it had felt all too real. In the middle of trying to get out, it did not feel like play-acting and was no joke. There was a real sense that this was our chance to get it right, for the next time might be a life-and-death situation with no help in the wings.

We are not tempted like Christ, but we face trials and temptations. We can take comfort that God loves us and rarely sends us into a situation without support or the skills to deal with it. We are never alone.

Perhaps our whole life has been preparing us for the one moment when it all falls into place when our random skills connect, and we are able to serve God with all our being. That doesn’t mean our lives are a harmless run-through with no consequences, no, not at all. It does mean that we have a chance to practice, a chance to make mistakes and a chance to change what we do next time.

And when we realise that we have got it wrong, we can turn to God and try again. We are tested throughout our lives and may never quite know whether it is for real or another drill. So, we must approach each one with a desire to learn and survive. One thing we do know, we are never alone.

Jesus does not want us to face the extreme trials of faith that he experienced, so he added a line in our Lord’s Prayer. Do not bring us to the time of trial but deliver us from evil.

What to do? Practice your faith! Don’t wait for the challenge to start praying! As St Paul says: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

The Lord be with you!