Maundy Thursday: Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil

“Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.” Two petitions, really, and both worthy of in-depth reflection, but also two petitions that are closely tied together and very appropriate for us on this evening that begins the greatest three days of the Christian year.

“Save us from the time of trial,” is perhaps the point where the contemporary translation differs most clearly from the tradition, “Lead us not into temptation.” Both are adequate translations of the Greek, but I suspect the newer translation was trying to get away from our rather superficial view of temptation. We think of temptation, seems to me, as connected to what Luther liked to call “puppy sins”—little peccadilloes like eating too much dessert or playing the lottery. We say a thing “tempts us” when all we mean is that we find it attractive even when we know it’s wrong.

But that is not the Biblical meaning. The Biblical meaning of temptation is really quite a lot more like “trial”—it is something difficult, something challenging, something with which we must struggle and wrestle. And it is always something that threatens to cast into doubt our trust in God.

A quick walk through some Biblical stories will help you see what I mean. When the serpent tempts Eve, do you remember what he says? It isn’t, “Why don’t you eat this apple? It’ll taste really good.” No, he says, “Did God really say . . .?” He gets Eve first to question what God’s will had actually been, and then to substitute her own judgment for that will. Suddenly she is no longer trusting God, but herself.

Or at the other end of the Bible, consider Satan’s temptation of Jesus: What he asks of Jesus, what he offers Jesus, is good—“Do what I say, and think of all the ways you could help humanity!” So the struggle in Jesus’ own soul is once again between taking a route that seems to offer great possibility and benefit, and sticking to what God has said.

It is the same thing really in the Garden of Gethsemane. Here we do not see the Tempter, but we feel his presence, don’t we? As Jesus wrestles, he prays, “Let this cup pass from me.” But he follows it up quickly with “nevertheless—not my will but your will be done.”

When Luther translates this petition into German, the word he uses for “trial” or “temptation” is Anfechtung. Luther scholar Roland Bainton described this word as representing “all the doubts, turmoil, pang, tremor, pains, despair, desolation, and desperation which invade” out hearts. The superficial things we usually think of as “temptations” are just the darts of the enemy. At the bottom for Luther, temptation, the time of trial, is when we are threatened with being torn apart from God, disobeying him, refusing to listen to him. It’s not about chocolate chip cookies or sexy magazines; rather it comes to us in a lost job, a failed exam, a dying loved one, family turmoil—all these things that make us wonder if God is really there for us. The anguish of such situations often makes one feel abandoned by God. That’s temptation! In the Large Catechism, Luther’s list of temptations is instructive: “sickness, poverty, dishonor, and all that distresses us, especially when our will, plan, opinion, counsel, words and deeds are rejected.” Not a word there about chocolate chip cookies! Yet these deeper, and often less tangible, situations are precisely what can drive a wedge between us and God because, Luther says, they “incite us to anger, hatred, embitterment, aversion and impatience.”

Or, on the other hand, sometimes temptation comes from success. It comes when everything is going well. It is the danger of thinking we have things pretty good due to our own worth or labor or effort. This kind of temptation, Luther says, “has gained the upper hand today, for the world strives only after wealth, honor, and pleasure.” Remember, that was the 16^th century! Things haven’t changed much, have they? Our desire for these things tempts us by focusing us on things rather than God; and our success in attaining them fills us with pride and with that wonderful old King James word “vainglory.”

One of my grandmother’s favorite hymns was “In the Hour of Trial”: In the hour of trial, Jesus, plead for me, lest by base denial, I depart from thee. And then the second verse, With forbidden pleasures would this vain world charm, or its sordid treasures spread to work me harm; bring to my remembrance sad Gethsemane. And the third: Should thy mercy send me sorrow, toil and woe, or should pain attend me on my path below, Grant that I may never fail thy hand to see: Grant that I may ever cast my care on thee. I remember my grandmother whistling it while she cleaned the house. I’ve sometimes reflected on what a great symbol that is: cleaning the house, doing her daily work, going about the ordinary chores of life, and yet singing about “the hour of trial.” That’s when temptations come to us, you know: at unexpected times, ordinary times; not when we’re braced and ready to face them, but when we’re least ready.

And that is why the next petition is so important. “Deliver us from evil.” Notice that it doesn’t say “protect us,” as if evil were some future threat. It is “deliver us.” We are already there, already in bondage to sin, already trapped by the temptations of everyday living and dying. We stare into the face of evil every day—both in the big, ominous things of the world, but also in the mirror of our own hearts and the continuing desire to do things our way, not God’s way. “We are in bondage to sin,” we confess. “We cannot free ourselves.” Our only hope for deliverance is this petition that asks God to deliver us. Even Jesus wrestles with it in Gethsemane: “Let this cup pass from me—nevertheless, not my will but yours.”

Does it not appear remarkable to you that in the very midst of this raging conflict, Jesus takes the time to celebrate the Passover with his disciples? Here, in the midst of all this struggle, he and they sit at table quietly, reflecting on the marvelous acts of God. They are no doubt frightened, nervous, uncertain about what is to come. But here on this night there is no careful strategizing. Jesus doesn’t treat them like a coach trying to get his team pumped up for the big game. No, they sit quietly at table, an oasis of calm in the midst of their world that is even now in the process of falling apart.

I don’t think that is a bad way to look at the sacrament whose institution we celebrate this night. When the world is falling apart, what could be less helpful, humanly speaking, than to gather around a table and share bread and wine? It seems almost a ludicrous thing to do. I remember so distinctly a TV news clip from the days of the Vietnam War: it was a military chaplain, a Roman Catholic priest, saying mass in the jungle, the sounds of war all around, the faces of young men troubled and anguished and fearful, yet coming, one after the other, to receive the bread and to hear the words, “The Body of Christ, given for you.” I see funerals of friends and loved ones, centered around Holy Communion, people in grief singing hymns and eating and drinking with faith in the very presence of death. And somehow a line from the Psalms floats through my mind: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies . . .” In the midst of conflict, strife, trouble, yes, Evil, these words: “This is my Body, given for you.” Can this be what this sacrament is about?—a sign, in the midst of conflict and chaos, a word of strengthening love when evil seems on the verge of overwhelming us?

And then I think about how often the Eucharist serves that function for me in my daily life. The evils in my world aren’t quite as dramatic and looming as they were in that upper room in Jerusalem. Often they are mundane in appearance, evil masking itself as personal disappointment or grief, uncertainty and doubt, even boredom and disinterest. Yet in the midst of all these evils, in the presence of all these enemies, our Lord prepares a table before us.

Another hymn I love: Lord Jesus Christ, you have prepared this feast for my salvation, your very body and your blood; Thus at your invitation, with weary heart, by sin oppressed, I come to you for needed rest; I need your peace, your pardon. That connects the Lord’s Supper in a wonderful way to this final petition. This feast is “for my salvation”—in it Christ “delivers me from evil.” This sacrament is one way he answers that petition, quietly assuring us that in the midst of evil we are not alone and he will not let us perish.

“In this inclusive prayer,” Luther says, “we ask that our heavenly Father would save us from every evil to body and soul, and at our last hour would mercifully take us from the troubles of this world to himself in heaven.” That is what the petition means. And in this holy sacrament, the petition begins to be fulfilled. Here, at this table, Christ takes from us the troubles of this world. He does not blot them out or remove them; they surround us still. But he turns our attention elsewhere for the time being, showing us that we need not fear for in fact we are, even now, being delivered from evil. We need not fear! For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are his, now and forever. Amen