Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew
4:1-11)
Then
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Prayer: May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your
sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Martin Luther once said: The greatest temptation is having
no temptations.
When we are tempted, we join in with Jesus in his
temptation, and it is a kind of wonderful privilege. And also, when Jesus was
tempted, he also shared in our temptations.
The difference between Jesus’ temptation and our
temptation is this: Jesus’ temptation results in his complete and total sinlessness shining through, and his
temptation results in his perfect victory.
Our temptations result in our complete and total sinfulness shining through, and our
temptation results in our complete failure.
Against the devil, we don’t stand a chance. The devil has
been around a lot longer than any of us, and he knows us well, much better than
we would like. But the devil is completely unable to harm us Christians. This
is not because of our strength but because we have someone who fights for us
and always wins the victory: Jesus Christ.
And so, here we are: us on the one hand with all our
failures, and our defeats from the devil. And on the other hand, we have Jesus
with his success, his victory. And then Jesus does us a swap: he connects us
with himself. He baptises us with his Holy Spirit, and we become one body with
Christ. We receive his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper week after week.
And what happens? Our failure is Christ’s victory. Jesus
goes to the cross, bearing the heavy weight of the cross, being nailed to it.
Jesus suffers and dies, and to the human eye, from human wisdom, Jesus looks
like a failure. He becomes a failure for us. People go and taunt him as if he
were failing: “Let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him.”
But in actual fact, Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is his wonderful victory.
On the other hand, Christ gives to us his victory as a
gift. When we are at our weakest, when we are crushed, when we are poor,
humbled, deflated—it is precisely at those times when Christ says to us: “My
grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.” He
doesn’t say “my power will help in weakness”, but my power is made perfect,
perfect, perfect—it is accomplished, it is brought to fulfilment—in your
weakness.
But it is precisely at these times of weakness, when the
devil then comes along and wants to rub our noses in it. The word “devil” means
“accuser”. So he says: “Look at you, you stupid fool. Look at you, you
miserable wretch. Look at you, you failure. You’re worthless. You’re useless.
You’re pathetic.” At these times, the devil comes along and wants to drop-kick
us. The devil comes along to the courtroom, to our trial, and says: This person
is not worthy of God, not worthy of Jesus, not worthy of the Holy Spirit. This
person is unclean. This person is worthy of death.
And he is right. And so we agree with him, and we think
the devil’s got us. He’s got us pinned. He’s got us right where he wants us.
But along comes Jesus, the Lamb of God, our High Priest,
our Advocate, with his own blood. On behalf of the miserable, lost and
condemned criminal, He comes before the judge and offers his suffering and his
death in our place, His perfect achievement and his perfect victory over all
our enemies.
What a wonderful thing this is! What a wonderful thing it
is to have a friend like this who would come and step in for us like this!
Then God’s holy and living voice comes roaring from his
judgment seat saying: Cancel the accusation. Tear it up! That guilty person is
acquitted for Jesus’ sake from all guilt and punishment. That person is
justified, and totally freely, without price Christ’s righteousness belongs to
that person. It is credited to that person.
And this forgiving judgment which happens in heaven, is
proclaimed on the earth in the pulpit in preaching, it is spoken at the font at
baptism, it is spoken at the altar in the Lord’s Supper, and it is spoken every
time a pastor opens his mouth to speak the absolution, publically or in private:
I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit. This is God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.
And this is the reason we sing: Though devils all the
world should fill, All eager to devour us, We tremble not, we fear no ill, They
shall not overpower us. This world’s prince may still Scowl fierce as he will,
He can harm us none; He’s judged, for e’er undone; One little word can fell
him.
What a wonderful Saviour we have: A high priest who is not
unable to sympathise with us in our weakness, but one who is every respect has
been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
So in our Gospel reading today, we don’t have a reading
about Christians being tempted, but Christ himself being tempted by the devil.
And Jesus Christ himself wins the victory. And that victory then is the victory
of every Christian for the rest of time. When we are tempted, it is not the
time for us to fight, but it is the time to call in the champion, our Saviour
Jesus Christ. He knows how to fight for us, and the victory belongs to him. As
St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15: Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, our reading today is full of supernatural things and
profound mysteries that belong to the spiritual life. It is a strange reading,
because there was no one else around to see the event. Jesus was by himself,
all alone. It says that he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. And in
the same way, St Peter in his second letter, says that the holy men of God who
wrote the Scriptures, such as St Matthew here—or Mark or Luke who wrote the
event in their gospels—were carried along by the same Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, and also the same Holy Spirit carried
along the evangelists and apostles as they spoke and wrote the gospels.
So let’s make a list of these supernatural realities that
St Matthew describes: first of all, we have the Holy Spirit. Then we have the
devil. We have the miracle where Jesus fasts for forty days and forty nights.
We have Jesus being called the Son of God. We have the devil taking Jesus to
the holy city and setting him on the pinnacle of the temple—this is quite
strange: the devil pushing Jesus around in his time of weakness. We have the
devil also taking Jesus to a very high mountain: once again, very strange. And
at the end of the reading, we have angels. It says, the angels came and were ministering to him.
If we really look at this passage, we can see that there
are many things here that we can so easily blink and miss, and so many things
that are offensive to a sceptic.
But all of these things are there in their own place, and
in a very distinctive place.
The main business has to do with Jesus himself and the
devil.
But there’s the Holy Spirit too, quietly in the
background. We read: Then Jesus was led
up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. In Mark,
it says the Holy Spirit, drove Jesus out into
the wilderness. Also, this is the first event after Jesus’ baptism. The Holy
Spirit comes down on Jesus in the form of a dove, and then that same Spirit
drives Jesus out into this lonely place. The Holy Spirit sets up the situation,
and the opportunity for Jesus to meet the devil.
Now look at how Jesus faces the devil—how simple it is. Later
on, when Jesus is arrested, and Peter cuts off a man’s ear, he says: Put your sword back into its place. For all
who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal
to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?
Now, here, at this time, we might think that this is a
good time for Jesus to call on the twelve legions of angels. But he doesn’t.
Instead, Jesus tells the angels to stay right out of it. Only after the devil
leaves Jesus—at the end of our reading, we read—behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
At the end of John 1, Jesus says: Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels
ascending and descending on the Son of Man. The only time we see the angels
actually doing this in the Gospels is in the times of his profound suffering,
when he is being tempted by the devil, and when he is praying in the Garden of
Gethsemane. (This fact should also be a great comfort to us!)
But now, we come to the actual temptation itself, when the
devil throws his arrows at Jesus, and Jesus stands his ground. But notice here,
that there’s no great wrestling match between Jesus and Satan. Jesus and Satan
are not equals, so there is no ongoing struggle.
In fact, just imagine that this whole business were a
silent movie and we were watching it. Who would look like the strong one, and
who would look like the weak one?
Jesus is hungry, he is weak. The next moment, he is taken
by the scruff of the neck and finds himself looking down metres and metres down
to the ground from the top of the temple. The next moment, Jesus is whisked up
to some high mountain and promised all the kingdoms of the world.
Jesus looks like the weak one. But in actual fact, what
happens is that at the end, the devil leaves him.
Now, let’s imagine the whole scenario not as if it were a
silent movie, but a talkie! A normal modern movie with sound! Now, this helps
us to see where Jesus power lies: in his words.
The devil wants Jesus to prove that he is the Son of God,
by turning stones into bread. The devil wants Jesus to prove that he is the Son
of God, by putting himself in a dangerous situation and making the angels come
and rescue him. And in the last temptation, the devil tempts Jesus to submit to
him and worship him, in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world.
Each of these temptations is an attack on Jesus’
authority. And spiritual warfare has to do with nothing but authority. We are
under Jesus’ authority, and this is where our victory comes from too.
In Luke 10, after Jesus sends out his seventy-two
disciples, they come back and say: ‘Lord,
even the demons are subject to us in your name!’ And he said to them, ‘I saw
Satan fall like lightening from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but
rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
But back to our reading for today… in each of these
temptations, the devil attacks Jesus’ authority, and in each situation, Jesus
defeats the devil with the greatest weapon of all: his word. Jesus says: It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ He says: Again it is written, “You shall not put the
Lord your God to the test.” And finally he says: Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’
Jesus is the Son of God, but he is also the Word of God.
In each case, Jesus quotes the bible—in fact, all the three passages that Jesus
quotes are from Deuteronomy. The devil knows the bible too, and he also tries
to use it against Jesus. But the devil wants Jesus to break the commandments of
God.
The devil is right: the angels probably would bear him up
and not let his foot strike against a stone. But the devil is wrong, when he
asks Jesus to throw himself down.
And so here we see the victory, which Jesus wins purely
through his word. Jesus is the Word become flesh, and he stands against the
devil, and speaks this word against him, and wins.
With us, we win the victory with Christ only through his
word. Apart from Jesus’ word, we have absolutely no authority whatsoever. You don't have the Holy Spirit, you don't have the angels, you don't have Jesus, you don't even have God, if you don't have God's word. Parents, children, pastors, hearers, church presidents and bishops,
governments, leaders, citizens—no-one has any authority at all except God’s word.
The devil will always want to convince parents, pastors, bishops, governments
that they can do whatever they like because they are who they are. But Christ
rules through his word, and the victory over the devil is won when the word of
God is taught in its truth and purity, and we as the children of God lead holy
lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven!
If we want to fight against the devil, we will always
lose. He can’t be defeated by sinners like us! He can only defeated by Jesus
Christ, and even he himself defeats
the devil not even with physical strength, but in his time of great weakness
simply through the speaking of his word.
So let us also live by every word that comes from the
mouth of God. Be of good cheer! Your sins are forgiven you! Thanks be to God
who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen.
Our Father in heaven, lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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