Grace, mercy and peace be to you
from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’d like to read to you the Holy
Spirit’s words to us from Mark’s gospel today, which says:
The Spirit
immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness
forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the
angels were ministering to him.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth
and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and
our Redeemer. Amen.
On the first
Sunday of Lent (which is today), it is long been the custom in the church to
read the reading about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. And the reason for
reading this reading today is this: We read that Jesus spent 40 days in the
wilderness. Right from the early times of Christianity, Christians recognised
the deep significance of this event in Jesus’ life, and so it became the custom
in the church that before the celebration of Easter each year, where we
remember Jesus’ death and resurrection, to have a period of 40 days of
preparation. This period of 40 days is called Lent. And right until today this
has been a time when Christians all throughout the world dedicate themselves to
some particular spiritual discipline. Usually, the kinds of things that people
think about dedicating themselves to are giving to the needy, prayer and
fasting. And this is what we read about in Matthew 6 in our reading on Ash
Wednesday last week, which is the first day of Lent.
“Giving to
the needy” is a discipline that is directed towards other people, “prayer” is
directed towards God, and “fasting” is directed towards ourselves.
Anyway, our
focus today is particularly on that event in Jesus’ life where he was fasting
for 40 days in the wilderness.
In our series
or cycle of readings in the church, which we call the “lectionary”, we have a
focus on a different Gospel each year. Last year, most of the readings were
from Matthew, this year, they are from Mark and next year they will be from
Luke. The Gospel of John is put in throughout the three year cycle.
And in the
Gospel of Mark, there’s not actually much written about Jesus’ temptation in
the wilderness. If we want to read all the detail about what Satan said to
Jesus and what Jesus said to him, then we need to go to the gospels of Matthew
and Luke. Here in the Gospel of Mark, there’s only two verses which describe
this event. So today, I’d like to focus particularly on what Mark has to say
about this. This is what he says:
The Spirit
immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness
forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the
angels were ministering to him.
So firstly,
let’s take the first part – it says: The Spirit immediately drove Jesus out
into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by
Satan.
Immediately
after what? Well, in all of the Gospels, it is clearly stated that this time
that Jesus spent in the wilderness happened immediately after his baptism. And
this is a very significant thing.
But in order
to understand this, I’d like to go back to Adam and Eve. In the first chapters
of the bible, in the book of Genesis, we read that God gave a particular
command to Adam, which went like this: You may surely eat of every tree of
the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not
eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
And yet not
long after this word had been spoken, Satan comes along and says: Did God
actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?
So the devil
actually feeds on God’s word here, and all his power comes from twisting it
around to make it say something that God doesn’t say. Eventually, Satan says to
Eve: You will not surely die. This is the exact opposite of what God
said. God actually did say: You shall surely die.
Now, there’s
a similar thing that now happens in Jesus’ life. We read that when Jesus was
baptised, the heavens were opened and the Spirit came down upon him in the form
of a dove, and God says: You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.
And as soon
as God speaks this word, we read that the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit
that just came and rested on Jesus, drove Jesus out into the wilderness. It’s
almost like it says that the Holy Spirit pushed Jesus out, forced him out. In
Matthew’s Gospel it says that the Holy Spirit lead him out into the wilderness
specifically so that he would be tempted by the devil.
Here the Holy
Spirit wants to demonstrate to the world that the word that God the Father said
about the Son is true.
Back to Adam
and Eve – After Adam and Eve had fallen into sin, God comes and speaks to them
and says this about Satan: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you
shall bruise his heel.
So here we
have Jesus, who is now the first man to walk on the earth since Adam and Eve
who is without sin. And Satan bruises Jesus’ heel—he comes and tests Jesus, he
gives Jesus a little bite on the foot. But we read about Jesus: He shall
bruise your head. Jesus in our reading today is sent into the wilderness to
be tempted by Satan, to crush his head.
And so what
do we learn from this? We know that when are baptised, we are given all the
gifts of the Holy Spirit. Jesus calls baptism being born again by water and
the Spirit. We have water poured over us, and we have the voice of the
Spirit spoken to us: I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit. So when we are baptised, we are given all of Jesus’
gifts of forgiveness, eternal life, salvation, the Holy Spirit, we are made
part of God’s family, we become children of God the Father, and brothers and
sisters of Jesus himself. Baptism is such a wonderful gift, and our whole
Christian life flows from baptism. Christianity is living our baptism. Baptism
is Christianity, and Christianity is baptism.
But we know
that as Christians, even though God gives us a completely new life, our old
life is still around. Our flesh, our old sinful self still needs to be told to
be quiet, and our hearts needs to listen to voice of our Lord Jesus.
Now it so
happens, that when we are baptised, when we live a Christian life, we are
constantly faced with temptations. The devil does everything he can possibly do
to drag us back to the filth with him. Sometimes, for example, I’ve heard about
people who are converted to Christianity, but their family is not supportive.
Maybe a husband is not supportive of their Christian wife, or a wife is not
supportive of their Christian husband. And then as soon as they are baptised,
or returns to the church after a time away, the new convert gets nothing but
ridicule from the people around them. Lots of Christians feel this today—we are
surrounded by people who think what we do on Sunday is a royal waste of time.
And sometimes people are sucked into the sludge and the drag is too much for
them.
But when we
are baptised, we are given Jesus’ victory over the devil as a gift. We will
often find ourselves being badgered by Satan. And Satan loves to make sin look
like nothing before we commit it—so we get all sure of ourselves and cocky. And
yet, when we fall into it, then he blows it up into massive proportions, and
rubs our face in it—and then we despair. People who struggle with addictions
have a particularly hard time with this, because their whole life is a constant
battle with temptation—whether people are addicted to alcohol, gambling, drugs,
pornography—or maybe people have a bad temper, or whatever. The devil wants to
rub people’s faces in it, so that once we have fallen into sin, we despair, and
sometimes people might even ask whether our loving God exists.
But then we
remember Jesus—he says: I have won the victory over Satan. It’s like Jesus says
to us: you can’t fight against the devil with your little finger. But I have an
army of angels—thousands upon thousands. And one of them is able to flick the
devil back to hell with the tip of their little finger.
And when it
comes to temptation—each of us will have our own sensitivities, where we can
often find ourselves vulnerable. We have our little buttons, and from watching
us for years, the devil knows after a while which ones to press. But also, we
must remember that when we fall, when the devil does press our buttons, that he
has only done this because God has given him permission. And when our
vulnerability is laid bare in the presence of God, then of course he applies
the medicine to heal the wound.
There’s a
wonderful story from Martin Luther about temptation. He tells the story about
the devil coming and knocking on his door, and the devil says: Does Martin
Luther live here? And Martin Luther replies: No. Martin Luther died years ago.
Only Christ lives here.
This is a
story about baptism. When we were baptised, we died with Christ. And now, Jesus
victory over the Satan belongs to us.
When you come
to the Lord’s Supper in the church, use it as a medicine against temptation.
Come and say: Jesus, here I am with all my weaknesses this week, and all my
temptations. And now through your body and blood, give me all your strength and
you victory.
Isn’t it
amazing? We think we are the strong ones—and yet Jesus uses this weak looking
food to send us his victory all the way from eternity.
At the end of
Mark’s description of Jesus’ temptation by Satan, we read: And [Jesus] was
with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
I remember a
few years ago, when it says that Jesus was with the wild animals, I used
to think that this referred to the demons. And there are many people who take
it like this, because Satan is often spoken of as a beast. And we could also
translate this, that Jesus was with the wild beasts.
But there is
a lot of Christian artwork throughout history that often pictures Jesus with
animals. And I think this is a wonderful thing—in children’s bibles, there are
often such wonderful pictures of animals in the Garden of Eden, with lush green
ferns and waterfalls. We have to remember that animals only attack people
because of sin in the world. God didn’t create things like that in the
beginning.
Here we learn
something, that when Jesus has defeated Satan, he shows to us a little
foretaste about how he enjoys the company of the animals he created with no
danger. You might think of the passage in the book of Daniel, where the prophet
is thrown into a den of lions and the angel of God shuts the lion’s mouth. And
Daniel can sit with the lions and enjoy their company, just like he might a pet
cat from home. There is a prophecy of this kind of thing in the book of Isaiah:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the
young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a
little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young
shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing
child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his
hand on the adder’s den.
This is what
St Paul calls the peace which transcends all understanding. This is the
peace in which the world was created, and it is the wonderful peace and
calmness of eternity.
And so, we
see here Jesus defeating the kingdom Satan. But also, we see him enjoying the
animal kingdom. But then we read: And was with the wild animals, and the
angels were ministering to him.
Just as the
angels came and shut the mouth of the lions for Daniel, so also we read that
the angels are not far away from Jesus here either. And this is a very
comforting and helpful passage.
In the Gospel
of John, Jesus says to his disciples that they will see angels ascending and
descending on the Son of Man. And yet, if we go through the life of Jesus,
the angels are not often seen. Sure—at Christmas time, we read about a lot of
angels—the Angel Gabriel goes to Mary, an angel goes to the shepherds in the
field, and then he is joined by a multitude of the heavenly hosts. And
then when Jesus is risen from the dead, we read about the angels there at the
empty tomb, and we also read when Jesus ascended into heaven, angels were there
too. But in the meantime, there are only two places where angels are seen with
Jesus—the one is this event in our reading today, when he is with the devil in
the wilderness. And the second is when Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane,
praying to his Father and sweating blood. Can you see? The angels come to
strengthen Jesus not when things are going well from a worldly perspective, but
when he is experiencing the most profound suffering.
And so it is
with us—those among us who are surrounded so much by God’s angels are those who
suffer the most profound cross. When the devil treads us out like grapes, the
wonderful, sweet tasting wine of prayer and of faith and of patience and
perseverance is poured out from us, because Christ’s victory is ours, and he
sends his angels to help us.
Often if people
have ever told me about having seen an angel, it has often been in times of
grief and sadness for people. Or else it’s been people that the world rejects.
That’s because we are baptised into Jesus—the man of sorrows—and it’s this man
of sorrows who is the King of Angels. And so when we come to church, we call
him the Lord of hosts—the general of a heavenly army that fights for us against
the devil and protects us.
This whole
reading today about Jesus, the devil, the animals, the angels—it completely
flies in the face of what most people in our society consider important. For
aboriginal people, African people, Asian people, people from traditional
cultures—it’s not the case. And this is almost the central major difference
between our cultures. There are many cultures on this earth that are not as
technologically or economically advanced as ours that are much more spiritually
advanced than ours. Remember Jesus says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And in our western society, and in our
technologically advanced churches, there needs to be a renewal of the Christian
belief in the existence of angels and the whole angelic realm. This is so
important, because when we believe in the existence angels, then we are
encouraged by just how many creatures God has appointed for us to be on our
side. And when we believe in the existence of the devil, then we learn who our
enemy really is. And if it’s him who is our enemy, then we are completely free
to love every person we meet, because we know that they are not the devil, but
may in fact be an angel in disguise. What a wonderful thing that the angels
were ministering to Jesus! How much more do you think Jesus will send his
angels to minister to us, who need it so much more!
Amen.
Dear Lord
Jesus, we thank you for your victory over Satan. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. We pray that the devil may not deceive or mislead us
into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Although we are
attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the
victory together with you. Amen.
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