​God knows a lot of things. In fact, God knows everything. And God knew that Adam and Eve would give in to temptation, and that Jesus would not.

Adam and Eve really didn’t stand a chance in the Garden of Eden. They were kind of new there, kind of new to life. They had neither the tools nor the life experience to resist the temptation of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Jesus, on the other hand, was rock steady in the face of some pretty powerful temptations. He never wavered.  In fact, Jesus already had an answer for each of the devil’s temptations.

Adam and Eve of our Hebrew Scripture reading represent one end of the spectrum for resisting temptation, and Jesus, from our Gospel lesson, represents the other end of the spectrum.  And you and I are somewhere on that spectrum. There are rules, there is free will, and there are consequences.

Psychology and the Social Sciences have done countless studies on a person’s ability to ‘delay gratification’. That’s a fancy phrase for ‘resist temptation’. And what science has found is that an inability to resist temptation, or delay gratification, can lead to all kinds of troubles: credit card debt, eating disorders, chemical dependency and addiction, even incarceration.
Those who are able to delay gratification are linked with healthier life outcomes.

Many scientists believe we are born with a base-line ability or inability to resist temptation.  But the cool thing is that no matter what your base-line, everybody can learn to delay gratification longer than their base-line. It may not be easy, but one can learn to resist temptation.

Now, it must be obvious by now that we are all closer to Adam and Eve on that spectrum than we are to Jesus!  Everyone here has their weakness, the thing they can’t resist. Everyone here struggles with giving in to temptation.

Recent studies have revealed that we possess a finite amount of ‘will power’. If we spend most of our day resisting temptation, we will have a very difficult time resisting in the evening.
And there are rules.  There is free will, and there are consequences. 

What made Jesus so steady in the face of temptation? Why was he able to stare down the devil offering food after 40 days of not eating? Jesus had the courage of his convictions, his faith, to help him through. Jesus had a goal, and what the devil was offering him wasn’t it.  Jesus didn’t need what the devil was trying to give him, so he could resist.

Adam and Eve on the other hand, had little resources to resist the serpent.  No faith base, no goal, no confidence, no courage…so they gave in to temptation because they could. There was a rule.  Don’t eat the fruit of that tree. They had free will, so they broke the rule.  And there were consequences.

Human nature is not inherently evil, it is inherently open to temptation. Humanity is not sinful by nature, but it is inherently open to sinning. There is a difference.

God knew Adam and Eve would not be able to resist temptation. But they needed to make their mistakes and experience the consequences.  That is true for each and every one of us, too. We are tempted, sometimes we resist, sometimes we give in. And there are consequences either way. But judgment isn’t one of the consequences. We are not bad people, or evil people, or sinful people because we have difficulty resisting temptation.

But we are sinners. And we are forgiven. Just as Adam and Eve were forgiven, even in the midst of their consequences.

So we’re on the spectrum of resisting temptation between Adam and Eve and Jesus. Between being unable to resist temptation at all, and being able to resist all temptation. And science is telling us that wherever we are on the spectrum, we can learn to lengthen the time we resist temptation. 

So how do we do that? If I had an easy answer, I would write a book and make millions of dollars! One way to start is to be prepared. Adam and Eve weren’t prepared.

If we know what some of our temptations are, and we know that they will be in front of us at some point, we can prepare our heads and our hearts for what that might feel like. And if we can plan for an alternative instead of grabbing the temptation, we also might be better prepared.

It doesn’t matter what our weakness is, they are all the same. Some may have more dire consequences: eating all the Girl Scout cookies is not the same as taking all the heroin.

God knows we will be tempted, and God knows we will give in to temptation during our lifetimes. That does not make us bad, or evil, sinful. But there are some basic rules to the universe, to the world, and to our lives. And we all have free will to follow those rules or break them. And the universe and world and life are really good at applying the consequences to our actions!

So it makes sense for us to familiarize ourselves with the rules. To try and understand the power of the gift of free will. And to anticipate the consequences of our actions when it comes to resisting or giving in to temptation.

And let’s not kid ourselves: we all give in to temptation at some point. Nobody is as solid as Jesus was in the wilderness.

But we can be so much more prepared for the challenges ahead, the temptations ahead, if we were to take some time to reflect on the things that tempt us, the reasons why we find them tempting, and the consequences of giving in to them.

I would invite each of you to take some time this week to do just that: reflect on the role of temptation in your lives, how well you resist temptation, and the consequences of resisting, or giving in. The details don’t really matter. And we are not bad people, or evil people if we do give in.  But we know some of the consequences that will come from giving in to temptation.
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Jesus resisted temptation so that he could fulfill his role as our Savior. We are forgiven our sins, our failures, our giving in to temptation, because he did not give in.

And the closer we can move to Jesus on the spectrum of resisting temptation, the more solid we will be when those tempting moments come up.  And they will come up!

May this week’s Lenten Journey include reflecting our own temptations.  Amen.

​Several years ago, our family used the February break from school to visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  We flew into Phoenix, rented a van to drive to a town called Williams, north of Flagstaff, and then took a train north to the Grand Canyon National Park on the South rim.

From the moment we started heading north, the elevation began to rise.  Phoenix is already 1000 feet above sea level.  And the further north we traveled, the higher the elevation.  Markers on the highway told us when  we had reached 2000 feet, then 3, then 4 then 5 and so on until we were just outside Williams, at about 7000 feet.

To put things into some kind of perspective, Mt. Marcy, the highest peak in the Adirondack  mountains is a little over 5000 feet.  Mount Washington, the highest peak in New England is a little over 6000 feet.

The train from Williams took us the final 60 miles into the park, and we went up another 1000 feet, so that by the time we reached the south rim of the canyon, we were at 8000 feet. 

Standing on the edge of one of the most majestic and awesome canyons in the world, where the land looked flat as a pancake, we were higher than the highest peak in New England, and we weren’t even on a mountain!

And even though we weren’t technically on a mountain, our experience there, our presence on the rim of the Grand Canyon can be considered a ‘Mountain-top Experience’.

Mountain-top Experiences are moments when we feel absolutely exhilarated, almost overwhelmed, a real high point in our lives, so to speak.  They don’t have to actually occur on a mountain-top, they can occur anywhere, at any time in our lives.  But it’s the exhilaration and the thought that it sure would be nice if we could stay right there in that moment that sets a Mountain-top experience apart from other moments in our lives.

Everybody has a Mountain-top experience or two in their lives.  A moment when your breath is taken from you by the beauty of what you are seeing, or by the impact of what you have seen.
Other Mountain-top experiences in my life include living in India, climbing one of the Alps in Austria, (remind me to tell you the story of Betsy’s crazy cousin Gunther sometime) and renting a cottage on Cayuga lake with Betsy and the girls.

There are probably many more, but these are the moments when I felt like I just wanted time to stand still, so I could bask in the moment for as long as I liked. 

Can you think of one of your Mountain-top experiences? A time when you were so exhilarated, overwhelmed, when you had your breath taken away by what you were feeling?  If you can remember that feelings, then you are close to understanding what Peter was feeling on the mountain with Jesus.

Our gospel lesson this morning describes what happened when Peter, James, and John went up on a mountain with Jesus.  There, they saw Jesus glow a dazzling white, his face shone like the sun.  At that moment, Peter’s thought was to build Jesus a dwelling, so he could stay there all the time.

As far as I can tell from the text, Jesus ignored Peter, didn’t he?  See, one the most important aspects of Mountain-top Experiences is that we can’t stay in them.  We can’t stay there. Those times are fleeting.  Or life moves on.  Or it’s impractical based on the realities of life.

Whatever reasons Jesus had in taking James, John, and Peter up to the mountain, where he had them glimpse his transfiguration, one thing was sure: they were not going to be staying up there hanging out with Moses and Elijah.  There was serious work to be done!

Now, does that resonate with our own lived experience? We live certain moments where we wish time would stand still and we could stay in the moment forever, but we know that we can’t stay, life moves on, and we have a powerful memory of our exhilaration and our excitement.

And after all, would we really want to isolate ourselves on a mountain-top, stuck in an experience that is meant to be fleeting? It’s OK if you say yes! But I think we’d all have to agree that reliving a Mountain-top Experience over and over and over would get old eventually.  We can’t remain fixed in an experience like that.  That’ s not living life.

And that’s not what Jesus had in mind when he went up to the mountain.  In this gospel’s version, he merely ignores Peter, in another, he rebukes him, and tells him that he doesn’t have his mind on the Kingdom of Heaven.

Mountain-top Experiences can motivate us, feed us, remind us of what is important.  They can sustain us during difficult times.  And we can spend much of our lives seeking them. But they can’t last more than a moment or two.  They aren’t designed to be anything more than fleeting moments of awesomeness!

Our Hebrew Scripture tells of Moses, going up to the mountain to meet God.  He stayed there for 40 days and 40 nights, but he did not stay up there forever. Moses still had work to do, life to live, faith to explore.

Mountain-top experiences enrich our lives. They add excitement, spice, and a healthy appreciation for God’s beautiful world.  I love reflecting on my own Mountain-top Experiences, and I hope you enjoy reflecting on your own. 

But ultimately we can’t dwell there.  We have to move on.  Our family had to pack up from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, and take the train back to Williams.  We saw different things on the way back than we did heading into the park. 

When we left Williams, we went a different way, and saw even more amazing sights in Sedona.  And, as we made our way to Phoenix, we got closer and closer to ground level.

Arriving back in Syracuse, I knew I had had another Mountain-top Experience.  And I also knew I wouldn’t be able to stay in it.  Now, that doesn’t mean some people shouldn’t at least try: practically everybody who served us, waited on us, or sold us something came from some place other than Arizona.  That tells me that a lot of people go to Arizona and have Mountain-top experiences, and a lot of people try and stay to recreate them.

But their days weren’t filled with exhilaration and excitement.  Hopefully their weekends were!
By and large, very few people can make their living staying in Mountain-top experiences.  It’s too much.  It’s not for everyday living.

I give thanks to God for my experiences, and for the insight they have given me so far, and for whatever insight they will give me in the future.  We can always learn from our Mountain-top Experiences, no matter how long ago they occurred.

But I’m even more thankful for my daily life.  The one that is sustained by those fleeting moments of awe and beauty.  The routine, the responsibility, the challenges.  The stuff real life is made of.

Moses and Jesus knew that those moments were meant to galvanize them, steel them for the challenges ahead.  We know that too.

Just before we left for Phoenix, Betsy and I ran into a parishioner from Fairmount at Wegmans.  You should have seen the look in his eye when we told him we were going to try and go through Sedona on our way back to Phoenix. I could tell that he had had a Mountain-top Experience there.  It was all over his face.

Now I know why.

On the eve of our Lenten Journey, may our Mountain-top Experiences help us along the way, though our challenges and our temptations.  But when all is said and done, may we have the wisdom to know when we must move on from our mountain tops.
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Jesus helped Peter, and James, and John, and I suspect he can help us too.  Amen.