It all started out as a fun outing in the country - just the two of them, father and son. Tommy, as full of energy as any seven-year-old could be, thrilled at the prospect of having dad all to himself for a weekend. The sky was blue and large, the forest full of the spicy fragrance of hemlock and juniper. As dad unloaded the car, he warned Tommy, "Now, stay by the camp. It's easy to get lost around here!" But Tommy wasn't listening. There was so much to see, and every inch of his was straining to explore. Just one step, and another, and another. He saw something interesting - a bug, a fungus, a squirrel. Finally he turned back. He could no longer see the camp. He began to try to retrace his steps, but it is hard to find where you have been in the deep woods, and so easy to end up going in circles. Panic began to set in. His walk broke into a run, his tears into a cry: "Daddy! Daddy!" But there was no answer. He ran until he could run no further. The darkness was just closing in, when he heard a familiar voice in the distance: "Tommy! Tommy! Where are you?" Soon warm arms embraced him, and tears softly wetted his hair. "Tommy, I kept calling to you, but you kept running away. You had to stop running, so that I could find you."

Jesus hears his baptismal call - in Luke, it seems to appear as a private experience, affirming what he will need to know for the rest of his journey. Then he is immediately sent out into the wilderness, to be tested, and to begin his ministry. At the end, it says, he returns to Galilee, full of the strength of the Spirit. It is out of his sense of being the "beloved" of his Father, that he finds the strength to go on, to continue toward the cross.

Many of you have had a difficult year this year. For a few of you, "difficult" is a gross understatement. Others look toward the future with apprehension and even, perhaps, fear. Life is full of problems - oftentimes we do feel we are traveling in a wilderness, surrounded by "wild beasts." We feel like King David when he says, "Many bulls have surrounded me; strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They gape at me with their mouths, as a raging and roaring lion." Even in times when we feel the holy comfort of angels - those wonderful messengers from God who minister to our needs and try to comfort us - we still are very aware that we are not yet home.

I remember my grandmother in her last years. She had a cerebral hemorrhage, and began a long downward spiral of withdrawal from the world. Oftentimes she would talk of wanting to go home, but home really was not so much a place as it was the people, places, experiences that made her feel "at home." I think often this is what people mean when they say that they do not like change in the church - suddenly here, as everywhere else in the world, they no longer feel "at home." They need a place to be home to them, a place where they feel safe - a familiar place, a place that they have always known, the place they came from, where the roots of their life are still. "Home."

I remember going back to Pittsburgh after being away from there for a number of years. I was excited at the prospect of taking my kids to all of my old haunts. We went to the pool where I life-guarded during college - actually two huge county pools, one of them a big kidney-shaped pool fifty-five meters long and almost as wide, and the other, the kiddy pool, one hundred yards long by forty-five yards wide. Some of my fondest recollections of my late teenage years were tied to working at that pool. But when we got there, it had been cemented over and turned into an outdoor roller rink. They had just cemented over my youth! You can't go back home, can you? We long for it, but we are very aware that we are not "home" at all - not in this wilderness of a world.

How do we deal with such knowledge - that we live in a world that is a wilderness, so full of death and dying? That we, ourselves are in danger of being lost, and are well along the path toward the grave? Isn't that what this passage is about? The three temptations are three ways in which we normally respond to that knowledge.

The first is the temptation of bread - living for our bellies, denying that we have a Father who loves and cares for us, one who feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies, and who counts even the hairs of our head. In response to this temptation Jesus asserts "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of the Father's mouth." He does not deny that we need food and shelter and all these things, but more than these, we need to cling to the promises of God, who provides our every need.

The second temptation is the temptation of power. When I was working at a home for wayward boys, it was frightening to me that so many were into the occult. I soon learned the reason for it - most of them felt so powerless in their life. The idea that they could have power was a strong pull for them. But it is a false promise. The devil never gives what he promises. We think if we are successful, rich, or powerful, our lives will be meaningful. But it's a lie. Only God holds the meaning of our life. Only in him can we discover what we need. So Jesus says, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve."

The third temptation is presumption. It is the last and greatest of the temptations, the one that is most difficult and most harmful, because it poses as spirituality. Aren't we called to "throw out the fleece," to "step out in faith?" Jesus, in his own ministry was challenged to perform miracles, and did many, we are told. It becomes presumptuous when we attempt to decide what God will or will not do, when we place ourselves in the place that belongs only to God - when we try to tell God what he should or should not do, rather than putting ourselves at his disposal.

The antidote to these temptations is always the same - reliance on God and his promises. "Let God be God," Paul says, "and every man a liar." In the wilderness of this world, it is reliance on God and his promises that sees us through.

Out of the waters of our own baptism, God has called us as his "beloved" children. Through the wilderness, the times of testing and trial, whether surrounded by wild beasts or ministered to by angels, it is the knowledge that we are God's beloved that enables us to cope, that gives us hope, that enables us to continue to respond to life with joy.

There a voice that calls you - calls you out of the wilderness: a voice that you have always known, calling you from your baptism. It is the voice of your heavenly Father, who has been searching for you in the wilderness, who longs to put his arms around you and cover you in his tears: "I kept calling to you, but you kept running away. You had to stop running, so that I could find you."

May you rest in the bosom of your heavenly Father, who has always loved you, and who always will.