Lord’s Prayer--Time of Trial

John 3:17-21

November 14, 2004

1.  We’ve been working our way through The Lord’s Prayer.  This week we turn to the last petition in the prayer as we find it in Luke’s gospel.  “Do not bring us to the time of trial” is how it reads in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.   We find the more familiar phrase in the King James and Revised Standard and NIV translations: “Lead us not into temptation.”  That’s the version we know by heart, and if you’re anything like me, you don’t even think about what you’re saying.  We pray this prayer every week from our “automatic pilot” mode. The gears in our heads take over while our hearts remain in neutral.  We seldom stop to ask what Jesus meant when he taught this prayer to his disciples.

2.  “Do not bring us to the time of trial/Lead us not into temptation.”  Literally it reads this way: “And not bring us into/towards/among . . .” followed by a big word that means a test, or an experiment, or a trial.  Now, this big word encompasses two kinds of tests.  It can either be a literal test, like testing the strength of a metal or experimenting with a new medication or trying a criminal in a trial, or it can be a theological test, when we believe God is testing us and even when we test God.  It’s all the same word.

3.  Jesus was very likely thinking about the testing he experienced during those 40 days after his baptism.  He needed to be alone to think about what it meant to be claimed by God as a son.  The wilderness is the very best place to be alone, so that’s where he went.  In the solitude of the wilderness, the Satan tested him.  “Satan” is a word whose sound had been brought into English, but not the meaning.  In the language of Moses and the language of Jesus, the letters s-a-t-a-n mean ‘adversary’ and ‘opponent.’  A “satan” is an opponent.  And that’s exactly what happened while Jesus was in the wilderness.  Three times the Satan tempted him to oppose God.  And in every instance, Jesus sensed a trap.  The Satan offered him food and power and prestige.  Jesus knew if he did what the Satan wanted, he would be the only one who would benefit.  And he also knew that God sent him to serve others, not be served by them.  Jesus knew it was not “all about him.”  Being interested only in his own benefit was totally opposite God’s will.  So he shooed him away.

4.  Even though Jesus’ temptation clearly came from the Satan, sometimes people claim that temptation comes from God.  They believe God tests us to see how we would react in a difficult situation.  That idea works for some, but it doesn’t work for me.  God already knows us inside and out.  God has a pretty good idea of how we will respond to any temptation.  God is love, and love doesn’t test the one it loves.  People who don’t love us will test us, and we might want to claim it’s God’s doing.  Situations in life will test us; and we might “be tempted” to point to God as the source.  But I don’t believe that.  Those who oppose God will test us (and they do every day!); but I don’t believe God intentionally sends people and situations to put us on the hot seat.

5.  “Temptation” is probably the most important word in this phrase.  But it comes at the end.  The word at the beginning, what we’re asking God not to do, is also important.  That word is translated “lead” or “bring.”  Jesus could have actually used any of four different words, and all of them could have been translated the same.  One of those words means “drive” or “induce.”  I can imagine a shepherd “leading” his sheep into green pastures, and one of them balks—decides he doesn’t want to go.  So the shepherd gets behind that unruly sheep and plants his foot right in the middle of its backside and “drives” it into the green pasture.  If Jesus were teaching the disciples to ask God not to test them, he would have used this word.  But this is not the word we find here.  Jesus did not teach them to pray, “And don’t push us into a difficult situation just to see if we can handle it.”  The word here is not “lead” in the sense of push.

 

6.  And it’s not “lead by the hand,” either.  There is a word that is limited to leading a blind person or an innocent child.  Why would God lead a blind person or an innocent child into something that might hurt them?  God protects those kinds of people; God doesn’t make it harder for them!  Jesus could have used that word, too, but he did not.  He did not teach us to pray, “Do not lead us by the hand into temptation.”

7.  And he did not say the kind of lead that means ‘show the way.’  He didn’t teach us to pray “Do not ‘show us the way’ into temptation.”  That would be like the time I worked on an Army base.  Every couple of weeks we received a list of the places that were “off limits” to the soldiers.  Just the title “OFF LIMITS” caught everyone’s attention.  And when they read the smaller print, they would find detailed directions to all the “off limits” places.  “South on Highway 45 to Lee’s Road; east three miles past the second dirt road, then south two miles.  It’s 200 feet behind the third building on the right.”  Those bulletins clearly “showed the way/lead them” to places that could be harmful to whomever went there.  No, Jesus didn’t say that, either.

8.  What Jesus DID say means “keep us away from.”  Another way to say it would be “Keep us strong in tempting situations . . . don’t let us fall into sin.”  Temptations happen; they are part of our everyday life.  How does that prayer go: “Dear God, So far today I’ve done all right.  I haven’t gossiped, I haven’t lost my tempter, I haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or over-indulgent.  I’m really glad about that!  But it’s almost 6:00.  In a few minutes the alarm will go off, God, and I’m going to have to get out of bed.  From then on I’m going to need a lot of help.  Thank you in Jesus name.  Amen.”  “Keep us strong in tempting situations; don’t let us fall into sin.”

 

9.  And that’s it; that’s all of the prayer Jesus taught as it appears in the Gospel of Luke.  The second half of that last phrase, “but deliver us from evil,” is missing from Luke’s record.  And the sentence with which we end the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.  Amen.”   is not found in the earliest copies of either Matthew or Luke. This phrase probably entered the tradition later – early Christians thought the prayer needed a proper ending.  And I agree.   It’s a good ending!

10.  So what do we have?  We have the perfect prayer.  We have the prayer that Jesus’ disciples wanted him to teach them.  They wanted to be like John the Baptizer’s disciples, and he had taught them how to pray.  We don’t know what John taught his disciples, but we do know that Jesus did not say “Go ask John.  His prayers are better than mine.”  Jesus taught them what to pray because he and God were so close that they were one person.   Jesus said only what God told him to say.  And God told him that when we pray we should ask for what we need to eat each day, forgiveness for what we have done wrong, and strength in the face of temptation.”  Period.  End of prayer.  Who could ask for anything more?