This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today’s Gospel reading is about Jesus’ fasting and temptation in the wilderness, and this reading has always been the focus for the first Sunday in Lent, which we are celebrating today.
Actually, the season of Lent in the church year, is based very much on this event in Jesus’ life. First of all, like Jesus’ fasting in the wilderness, Lent goes for 40 days, and also it is a time when Christians traditionally dedicated themselves to fasting. These things are purely a matter of custom and tradition, and are completely free for Christians, whether they fast at this particular time or not. But you can see that our reading today has made a strong mark on the church’s life throughout the centuries.
But let’s look out at our reading. First of all, let’s have a look first of all at the Jesus and what’s going on with him. This whole event in our reading today takes place immediately after Jesus’ baptism. The Baptism of Jesus was a wonderful event where each of the three persons of the Holy Trinity appears openly, and is manifested publicly. So, we have the Father speak a word from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Then, of course, we have Jesus, the Son of God, in the water, praying. Then, also at the baptism of Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit, descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.
So, then, we come to our reading, where we also see the Holy Trinity, and we don’t often consider this and think of this. There are three separate, individual temptations, if you like, that the devil throws at Jesus, and we’ll come to each of them in a minute. The devil, on each occasion, says: If you are the Son of God, then do this or do that. And Jesus responds to him on each occasion, by quoting the Scripture, but also by pointing to God the Father. He says: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus points to the words which come from the mouth of God. At the baptism of Jesus, the mouth of God speaks directly from heaven: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. But here, Jesus points to the mouth of God, and every word which comes from his mouth, as the very source of our life and our energy and our being and everything.
Then, in the second temptation, Jesus says: You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus points to God the Father again, as the one whom the devil wants to put to the test.
Then, again, in the third temptation, Jesus says: You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Here Jesus points once again to God the Father, as the object of our worship.
So, in the Gospel about Jesus’ baptism, we see God the Father speak clearly and distinctively out of heaven. But here, in the temptation of Jesus, God the Father is almost unnoticeable, and very much in the background, but at the same time, Jesus reveals that each of the devil’s temptations has to do with God the Father. Actually, in the 10 Commandments, we read in the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. And Luther gives a wonderful explanation of this in his catechism. We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Every temptation of the devil is always directed against God, and having him as our only God. And so, when Jesus speaks against the devil, he points to God the Father, as the centre, as the beginning and the end, and as our everything and our all, in each situation. Jesus removes the devil from the situation, by giving God the Father his rightful place, and his rightful honour.
So, we see God the Father throughout our reading, just as we see him in the reading about Jesus’ baptism. But then, also, let’s look at Jesus, the Son of God, in our reading. Jesus, of course, is the second person of the Trinity, the holy Son of God, who is also true God, who took on human flesh for us. In the baptism of Jesus, we see a glorious, wonderful, happy event, where we see God the Father speak to Him in the hearing of everybody present, and the Holy Spirit rest upon Jesus in the form of a dove.
But in our reading today, we see Jesus very weak. We read that he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. Sometimes, the word “fasting” can mean different things. Sometimes, for example, if we need to take a blood test, we are told whether it is “fasting” or “not fasting”. Here, fasting means that we don’t eat any food at all. Sometimes, fasting can mean a bit like what we would call “going on a diet”. Instead of eating the normal amount of food that we would normally eat, we eat less, or we avoid eating something particular. So sometimes, people might eat smaller portions of food, or give some particular kind of food up for a while, like coffee or desserts or sweets, or something like that. All of these things would also be called fasting.
In Luke’s Gospel, we read exactly what is meant, when it says Jesus was fasting. It says: He ate nothing during those days. Now, this is an amazing thing, that Jesus should dedicate himself to such an incredible discipline not to eat for 40 days. But then we read, that Jesus was hungry. How is it, that Jesus, the Son of God, who needs nothing, can be hungry?
This is a serious question. If Jesus is truly God, how can he be hungry? Well, we might also ask the question: how is it that he became a tiny baby? How is it that he needed to learn how to talk from his mother? How is it, if Jesus is truly God, that he actually allowed himself to suffer and bleed at the hands of his enemies? How is it that he died, if he is truly God?
And so, we need to understand here exactly who Jesus is. He is not just a man, and he is not only God. But he is both truly God and truly man, 100% God and 100% man, 100% of the time. He is both God and man in such a way that everything he thinks is the thoughts of both God and man. Everything he says and does are the words and actions of both God and man. He doesn’t have a switch which he turns off, so that this is the God-version, and this is the man-version. No—not at all. He is not like two separate persons who are glued together like cardboard.
In the early centuries of the church, the best way to describe Jesus that many people used was the picture of a piece of iron which was heated up by fire. So, if you want to make a picture or a graphic on a piece of leather, or something, and you just poke at it with a cold piece of metal, you would just put a scratch or a hole in it. If you use a blow-torch, you would just turn it all black, and burn it. So what you need is to have a piece of metal which has been heated up, which has been put in the fire, so that it can make a mark and burn at the same time.
So, with Jesus, he is both God and man in the one person. Everything he touches, is touched by fire, if you like. But also, in our reading today, where we see Jesus in his physical weakness and hunger, this is our true God, Jesus Christ, who experiences hunger. And this is not because he would normally experience hunger as God, but because he has taken on human flesh, with all of its weakness and troubles.
And so, in the baptism of Jesus, we see Jesus in a wonderful, splendid, glorious, happy occasion. Here in the temptation of Jesus, we see him immediately in great physical weakness and hunger.
Also, in our reading, at the end, we read: Behold, angels came and were ministering to him. When Jesus wins the victory in these temptations, we see that all of God’s armies and heavenly hosts were also impacted and involved in some way. And this is very important for us to keep in mind. For example, in 2 Kings 6, we read that Elisha and his servant went out and found themselves completely surrounded by an army with horses and chariots from the king of Syria. We read: The servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
It is so easy to be overcome with what looks like the overwhelming power of the enemy. Even here in the reading, the devil looks like the powerful one much of the time, and Jesus looks like the weak one. But, in actual fact, those that are with Jesus are much more than those who are with the devil. And so, it is a great comfort to us, that the angels come to be with Jesus at the this time, and rejoice with him in the great victory that he wins against the devil.
Now, in our reading so far, we’ve looked at the person of God the Father, and of God the Son, but we also see the Holy Spirit with a very special mention in our reading. In the baptism of Jesus, we read that he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and coming to rest on him. And at the beginning of our reading today, we read: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Did you hear that? Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. Even in Luke’s Gospel, it mentions the Holy Spirit twice. It says: And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
This is such an amazing thing for us to consider. Often, when we think of the Holy Spirit, we think of great power and wonders, for example, on the day of Pentecost, where there was wind and fire and miracles, and 3000 people being baptised, and all that kind of thing. However, here in the life of Jesus, it says specifically that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and that he was led by the Spirit. But where? In the wilderness. And this is something that gives us great comfort and strength in our own life. Sometimes, we find ourselves in a time in our life when it really feels like we’re in a kind of wilderness—everything is hard, everything is difficult, everything is a trial, and nothing is easy, nothing is straight-forward. We can get tired of life, and run-down, and depressed about things, and we think, “Where is God? What is he doing? How long does he want me to go on in this way? Why doesn’t he help me? Why doesn’t he give me some light at the end of the tunnel?” Jesus went through something very similar in our reading—this was a hard time, a weary time, physically and spiritually. But the great mystery of the whole thing is that he was full of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit led him there.
So, also, for us, we might ask for God to send us the Holy Spirit, and to fill us with the Holy Spirit. Actually, when we were baptised, this was the baptism of water with the word, of water and the Spirit, where God promises to give us the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And sometimes, we start to think that then everything will go well with us in life—and actually it does. We are always with God, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. But, it doesn’t always mean that our life will be easy. Sometimes we find ourselves in the wilderness for a while, and we go through hard times. But this does not mean at all that we are abandoned by God, or emptied of his Holy Spirit. Actually, our feelings are completely unreliable in giving us a sense of how things are going with us spiritually. That’s why we look to the Word of God, and the sacraments. God’s Word speaks the Gospel to us, that we are adopted as his children in baptism, that we are forgiven all our sins through the blood of Christ, that we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit—and these words are spoken to us, completely outside of us, and completely apart from our feelings. We trust that God has planted and established us in his kingdom, not because of our feelings, but because he has baptised us. And God continually feeds us in the Lord’s Supper, through the body and blood of Christ. These things are completely outside of us, and are completely separate from our feelings. So when we go through hard times, when we find ourselves in the wilderness, we should remember that at the baptism of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit came down upon him, and then led him immediately into the wilderness. The wilderness will not last forever, but only for a time.
So in our reading so far, we’ve looked at the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Let’s quickly now, have a look at the tempter and the temptations themselves. A lot of people today are talking about the evil one, perhaps because they think there is so much evil going on in the world today. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in this reading, he is called Satan, the tempter, and the devil.
In our reading, we see the devil tempt Jesus. We see him even physically take him to the pinnacle of the temple. We see him even take him to a high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world. If the devil can have such power even over the Son of God, why are we so surprised if the devil bothers us? However, we must always realise that with Jesus, we see nothing but victory over the devil. And we are with Jesus, and so our starting point is always that we have been given the victory into our hands.
In his first letter, St John writes: the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. But then also in the same letter, he writes: This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believe that Jesus is the Son of God? So we should always be encouraged by this.
In our reading, the devil first tempts Jesus to break his fast, by eating a whole lot of bread. And not just one loaf of bread, but a whole lot. He plays on the fact that Jesus is weak and hungry, and wants him to “pig out” and then to rub his face in it. The devil also wants Jesus to use his divine powers to turn stones into bread.
In the second temptation, the devil takes Jesus up on the roof of the temple, and wants Jesus to throw himself down. He even quotes to Jesus the Scripture, that God will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. He tempts Jesus to demonstrate his power for all to see, but also he tempts him to suicide, by jumping off the temple. Actually, the devil here also alters the Scripture that he quotes. He says: He will command his angels concerning you, but the psalm actually says, He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Even afterwards in the psalm, it says: You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. You can see that this prayer is a wonderful prayer against the devil. The angels actually do come at the end of the reading, to support and encourage Jesus. But the devil twists everything around, to make it sound like the angels should come and help Jesus is a kind of dangerous circus show.
In the third temptation, the devil takes Jesus on a high mountain and tempts him with the kingdoms of the world and all their glory, in exchange for Jesus falling down and worshipping him. We see here that with the devil nothing ever comes for free, it is always at the expense of our very selves, and of our souls. This is what happens when people involve themselves in devilish or demonic things: it always comes at the expense of their soul. That’s why when it comes to occult things, we should always avoid them like the plague and run a hundred miles.
In each of the three temptations, Jesus wins the victory, not with any outward display of power, not with any special tricks. He simply speaks the Word of God. Each time he says: It is written, it is written, it is written. He 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.” He says: Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”
Now, before, we asked the question: if the devil can have such physical power over Jesus, by taking him up to the temple, by taking him up a high mountain, etc. what hope do we have? But then, if Jesus can get rid of the devil simply by speaking the Word of God, and just a few sentences of the Word of God, and we have that same Word in our own hands, accessible to us, then what hope does the devil have? The power and the victory and the glory is all in the simple, clear, pure Word of God. The devil uses the Word of God, but only by corrupting it. And even though he corrupts it, the angels still come and minister to Jesus anyway, just as that Word promises. We know that the Word of God in the Holy Scripture is the living voice of the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit that came upon Jesus in his baptism, that filled him and led him into the wilderness. This is the same Holy Spirit that fills us, that was poured out on us in our baptism, and that leads us through our lives. And so, we go to the Scripture, we ask the Holy Spirit to help us learn it and understand it, we listen to it, we think about it, and when we have the Word of God, we have every weapon against the evil one that we need. If it’s good enough even for Jesus, then it’s good enough for us!
So, we commend ourselves to
Jesus, to the Father, and the Holy Spirit. May the Holy Spirit lead us
throughout our lives, and help us in every trouble. May Jesus be with us and
stand with us with his victory over the evil one in his hand. And May God the
Father sustain us by the Words which comes from his mouth, and let’s commend
ourselves to his care and our lives to worship and serve him. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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