Martin Luther once threw an inkwell at the devil as the tempter disturbed his work translating the Bible into German while he was in what we might call “protective custody” at Wartburg Castle. But that inkwell story is merely a legend (although the custody is historical) created a couple generations after Luther. Tourists may still see the Luther room at the Wartburg, with a desk and chair where he was supposed to have worked. Though the legendary status of the story is acknowledged, it’s still suggested that the famous ink spot once existed in plaster now removed from the wall to the right of the picture here.
Regardless of the status of stories of Luther’s battles with Satan (at least one at the level of middle school boys’ humor), the reality of temptation is without a doubt. Our texts for this Sunday, Genesis 3:1-7 and Matthew 4:1-11 show us the first Adam and the “last” Adam, as Jesus is called in I Corinthians 15:45, responding to that temptation. Only Jesus was completely up to the challenge.
The temptations of the devil play upon our desires. We want stuff. That’s part of our nature. God gave us our desires and they are meant to good guides to survival and happiness. We want food and shelter and love and community, all good things. The problem, as Christian thinkers realized early on, is not that wanting stuff is bad. It’s that our wants and desires get misdirected. We are tempted toward wanting things which are inferior to and different from what we were created by God to want.
Our most basic desire is for communion and fellowship with God. The temptation of Adam and Eve and then the temptations of Jesus show that fundamental good desire for God being subverted by desire for food, for security, for power.
Jesus conquers those subversive temptations by looking constantly toward the ultimate desire of human beings, toward God and His will as expressed in His Word. By overcoming the temptations in this way, and as a human being, our Savior sets humanity back on the path of right desire, removing the misdirection of Adam and Eve’s choice, and focusing us again on what really matters, our relationship with God.
That restored focus and direction is the aim of the season of Lent in the church year. We want to freshly receive into our own lives the new direction Christ gives us. May that be your experience throughout these forty days.