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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Concordia Publishing House bulletin cover for The First Sunday in Lent uses artist Greg Copeland’s fanciful depiction of the devil as an ordinary man.
Do you believe that Satan exists? If you say that you do not believe that Satan exists, then, to be consistent, you would have to believe that the whole Bible is false. If you say that you do believe that Satan exists, then, according to a couple of different surveys, you are in the majority of Americans but, oddly enough, the minority of American Christians. Survey results differ, of course, no doubt in part depending on the precise question asked. Regardless, one’s imagining that Satan does not exist or otherwise denying his existence is an odd way of attempting to “eliminate” the devil. As we reflect on the Gospel Reading for this First Sunday in Lent, we realize that, like our Lord and because of our Lord, we can with Him say, “Be gone, Satan!”
Each year as we begin our Lenten “fast” we hear an account of the temptation of our Lord from one of the three Gospel accounts that tell of it, and this year, as our lectionary series draws primarily from St. Matthew’s divinely‑inspired account, not surprisingly we hear St. Matthew’s account of the temptation. From where we have been in the account the last few weeks, however, we have to back up a little, to just after the baptism of our Lord. On that occasion, you may recall, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and came to rest on Jesus, and the Father’s voice from heaven said Jesus was His beloved Son, with whom He is well pleased (Matthew 3:13-17).
Then, as St. Matthew vividly tells in today’s Gospel Reading, the Holy Spirit led Jesus, fresh from His baptism, into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil—like the Old Testament people of Israel who crossed the Red Sea and spent 40 years in the wilderness being tested by God (Deuteronomy 8:2). Son‑ship was an issue in both the testing of Israel and the tempting of Jesus. The tempting of Jesus happened as God the Father willed, with Jesus’s consent, as directed by the Holy Spirit. Apparently in contrast both to Moses, who went forty days and nights without food in the Lord’s presence (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:9), and to Elijah, who was fed by God on occasion and sustained for forty days and nights (1 Kings 19:8), Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights and was hungry. The devil, having come to Jesus—perhaps in the appearance of a man, as today’s bulletin cover fancifully imagines it, though Jesus certainly knew who he was regardless—the devil tempted Jesus. The devil tempted Jesus at least three times: as St. Matthew tells it, first there in the wilderness, to command stones to become loaves of bread; second, of all places, in the holy city, on one of the highest points of the temple complex, to throw Himself down; and third on a very high mountain, like Moses overlooking the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 34:1), to fall down and worship the devil. Different interpreters distinguish the three temptations differently, and I could go on about them at length, but the bottom line is that Satan tempted Jesus to be an unfaithful and disobedient son, to make impossible His mission of salvation, but Jesus proved to be faithful and obedient in each case. Jesus said, “Be gone, Satan!” The devil left Him for a time, and angels came and ministered to Him—how they ministered to Him, we are not told, but the Greek word suggests (and commentators usually conclude) that they ministered to Him by giving Him the very bread that, when tempted by the devil, He would not command for Himself.
One of those people who has surveyed Americans’ belief in the devil (or lack thereof) thinks that Americans’ belief in the devil is declining because Hollywood has made evil accessible and tame, making Satan and demons less-worrisome than the Bible says they are. Perhaps somewhat ironically, then, the FOX-TV show “The Following” has promoted itself in its second season using a quotation from the 19th‑century French poet Charles Baudelaire, who wrote that “The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.” Decades later British author C. S. Lewis similarly wrote of “two equal and opposite errors”: one to disbelieve in the existence of the devil, and the other “to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them” (Preface to The Screwtape Letters). You and I may at times think too little of the devil or too much of him. As the devil tempted our Lord to, at times we may faithlessly doubt God’s provision for us, or at times we may with false-faith test God, or at times we may try to take what appears to be an easier shortcut to the goal God has set for us. Regardless of how, we all sin. Today’s Old Testament (Genesis 3:1-21) and Epistle Readings (Romans 5:12‑19) trace out well how we have come to sin and so that we deserve death.
Just before Jesus’ Transfiguration that we heard in last week’s Gospel Reading, Peter had confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God but then rebuked Jesus when Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things, be killed, and on the third day be raised. As Jesus addressed Satan at the end of His tempting, so Jesus addressed Peter, telling him to “be gone” and calling him “Satan”. But, instead of sending Peter away (as Jesus had sent the devil away), Jesus calls Peter to separate himself from all that does not come from God. (Matthew 16:13-23) What Peter and we think, say, and do by nature is so much opposed to God that Jesus can call it satanic. In so doing, Jesus called Peter and calls us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God the Father to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin, for Jesus’s sake.
Jesus is the Seed (or Offspring) of the Woman, prophesied in today’s Old Testament Reading, Who bruises (or crushes) the head of the serpent (the devil). As the Father’s presumed animal sacrifice then produced garments of skin to cover the man and the woman’s shame of sin, so the sacrifice of the Son produces a garment of righteousness for our sin. As today’s Epistle Reading reminded us, the Son’s one act of righteousness leads to the justification, the making righteous, of all those who believe in Him. And, in a broad sense, there was “one” act of righteousness. The Father so loved the world that He sent the Son, Who through the Spirit offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sin (John 3:16; Hebrews 9:14). The devil’s tempting Jesus in the wilderness was just one part of all Jesus did for us. According to Jesus’s divine nature, He could not sin, but nevertheless, according to His human nature, He was really tempted. And, He resisted those temptations not as God but as man, trusting in the Father and using the Father’s Word of Holy Scripture. In overcoming those and similar temptations throughout His life—including in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross—Jesus, the Stronger Man, entered the domain of the strong man, the devil, and Jesus took what is rightfully His own, namely, you and me (Matthew 12:29; Isaiah 53:12). In flesh and blood like ours, Jesus through His death destroyed the devil and his power of death (Hebrews 2:14). Made like us, Jesus suffered when He was tempted but did not sin, and so He is able to sympathize with and help us who are tempted; He is a merciful and faithful high priest Who makes atonement for our sin (Hebrews 2:17-18; 4:15; 5:2). We can confidently draw near to His throne of grace in order to receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). And, from His throne of grace, God gives us mercy and grace through His Word, in all its forms.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus and the devil both notably use God’s Word of Holy Scripture. They both regard Scripture as inspired and its text as certain, though, to be sure, the devil wrongly applies the passage from the Psalms, and Jesus rightly uses another passage to correctly interpret it. The Holy Spirit works through Holy Scripture, as the Spirit also works through Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion. The Holy Spirit came upon Jesus at His baptism and led Him out to be tempted, and Jesus in turn at His crucifixion (Matthew 27:50; John 19:30) and resurrection (John 20:22) gives His Church the Holy Spirit to create and confirm faith by water and the blood (John 19:34; 1 John 5:6). Through the Sacraments the Spirit makes us who believe participants in Jesus’s temptation, crucifixion, and resurrection for us. As angels came and were ministering to Jesus, so here God’s messengers serve us with bread that, with words that come from the mouth of God, is not bread alone but also Jesus’s body and with wine that is also Jesus’s blood. We who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed and satisfied (Matthew 5:6), for Jesus is the bread of life, and whoever comes to Him will not hunger, and whoever believes in Him will never thirst (John 6:35). His flesh is true food, and His blood is true drink (John 6:55), and they strengthen and preserve us in body and soul to life everlasting. The devil may have wanted Jesus to worship him as a condition for a gift, but we worship God as a response to having received mercy and grace—the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation—through His Word, in all its forms.
Through His Word in all its forms God also equips us for our role in the cosmic struggle between God and Satan that, though decided, continues to play out in our lives. God tests us to strengthen our faith, and the devil, the world, and our sinful nature tempts us to evil. If we give in to temptation, we do so by our own fault, but, if we endure the temptation, the victory is thanks to God’s grace. He does not let us be tempted beyond our ability to endure it with His help. That we may not enter into temptation, we watch and pray (Matthew 26:41; Mark 14:38), especially the Lord’s Prayer, that we not be led into temptation but rather be delivered from evil (Matthew 6:13). We commit ourselves to God and are ready to suffer the consequences in this fallen world, counting it joy and rejoicing when we meet testing or tempting (James 1:2; 1 Peter 1:6).
Christians do not imagine that Satan does not exist or otherwise deny his existence as an attempt to “eliminate” the devil. As baptized children of God in Christ, we can with Jesus effectually say, “Be gone, Satan!”, and Jesus’s resisting the devil with words of Holy Scripture is a great example for us to follow. But, we follow His example imperfectly, and so at times we fail. Thanks be to God that, far more than being an example for us, Jesus also is our substitute, Who defeated Satan for us, setting us free from sin, death, and the power of the devil and Who gives us His victory with its peace and joy now and for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +