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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.
We do not need to go out to the wilderness for forty days in order to be tempted by the devil, much less do we need to go out to the wilderness for forty days in order to be tempted by both the world and our sinful nature. As we know from our own experience with the cosmic struggle between good and evil, wherever we are, each and every day, the devil, the world, and our sinful nature try to deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice (Small Catechism, III:18). Amid such temptation that we regularly experience, and to which we too frequently succumb, the temptation of our Lord, which we hear of on this First Sunday in Lent, is ultimately of great comfort to us. Because, as we realize this morning in considering the Gospel Reading for the First Sunday in Lent, “Jesus was tempted for us”.
In St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, immediately after Jesus had been baptized, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove, and God the Father’s voice came from heaven identifying Jesus as the Father’s beloved Son with Whom He is well pleased (Luke 3:21-22), as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil, and arguably enduring each of the three temptations reported by trusting in God the Father, as suggested by Jesus’s responding to each of the three temptations reported with God’s Word.
St. Luke’s reference to the devil’s ending “every temptation” likely means that over the forty days there were more than the three temptations reported, and, since St. Luke’s and St. Matthew’s orders of those three temptations differ, we cannot be absolutely sure in what order those three temptations came. But, ultimately the actual order of those three temptations does not really matter, nor does the number or kinds of other temptation the devil may have attempted. (Confer Luther, Lent 1 Postil Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11, AE 76:374.) We might say that what matters is that, as the Divinely‑inspired author of Hebrews puts it, in every respect Jesus has been tempted as we are, so He sympathizes with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15).
Unlike Jesus, Who was so tempted yet without sin, you and I do not always endure temptations by trusting in God the Father, nor do we always respond to temptations with God’s Word. Too often and too easily we give in to temptations: temptations to not be content with what God has given us, to not honor others’ reputations and possessions, to not live sexually pure and decent lives in what we say and do, to not help and support our neighbors in every physical need, to not obey the authorities God has placed over us; we give in to temptations to despise preaching and God’s Word in all of its forms, to not use God’s Name as we should, and to not fear, love, and trust in God above all things.
For any one temptation to which we succumb, we deserve nothing but death here in time and torment in hell for eternity, unless we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin. As with the people of Israel described in today’s Old Testament Reading (Deuteronomy 26:1-11), who cried to the Lord in their affliction, toil, and oppression, and so were delivered, so also, when we, enabled by God, cry to Him trusting Him for forgiveness, then He forgives us and thereby delivers us from our affliction, toil, and oppression—not because of anything we have done, but because of His love, mercy, and grace for the sake of His Son, Jesus, Who was tempted for us.
Of course, Jesus did much more than be tempted for us, Jesus also died on the cross for us! If Jesus had only been tempted for us, even perfectly enduring the temptation, by trusting God the Father and responding with God’s Word, and thereby provided us an example for our own enduring of temptation, by trusting God the Father and responding with God’s Word, as important as that is, we would still be in our sin. For, on account of our sinful natures, we cannot follow His example perfectly, and so we would still find ourselves in an eternal wilderness outside of God’s paradisíacal presence. But, the Son of God in human flesh, Jesus, our High Priest, offered Himself on the cross, for and in the place of all people, including you and me. Hanging on the cross, He was tempted to come down from the cross and “prove” Himself to be the Son of God (Matthew 27:40), although His having come down would have proved that He was not the Son of God! Instead, He remained on the cross and trampled the serpent underfoot (Genesis 3:15; Psalm 91:13). Thereby He has redeemed us lost and condemned people, purchased and won us from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death (Small Catechism, II:4). As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 10:8b-13), if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
As Jesus’s baptism was closely connected to His being tempted by the devil, so our baptisms are closely connected to our being tempted by the devil. Baptism rescues us from death and the devil (Small Catechism, IV:6). In baptism we are taken off of the devil’s side and put on God’s side of the cosmic struggle between good and evil. God the Father permits us who are in Christ to be led by the Spirit into our own temptations. But, insofar as we are in baptized into Christ, we can with Martin Luther point to our baptisms and sing with translated hymn-writer Erdmann Neumeister, that “Now that to the font I’ve traveled, / All [the devil’s] might has come unraveled, / And, against [his] tyranny, / God, my Lord, unites with me!” (Lutheran Service Book 594:3).
In Holy Baptism God puts us on His side of the cosmic struggle between good and evil, and He helps keep us there. Jesus would not command a stone miraculously to become bread to feed Himself, but, in the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus miraculously makes bread and wine also be His Body and Blood, in order to satisfy us who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6), with true food and drink (John 6:55) for the way through the wilderness that is this life. So strengthened in body and soul, we at least try to endure temptation by trusting in God the Father and responding with God’s Word. The Word of God is, as it were, St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, the sword of the Spirit, an important part of the whole armor of God that helps us, as we sang in today’s Appointed Verse stand against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:17, 11). And, when we fall, as we will, we confidently draw near to God’s throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:15).
“Jesus was tempted for us”. Jesus died on the cross for us. We may lose battles against the devil and his evil forces along the way, but Jesus has won the war. During our forty-day Lenten fast, however we might observe the fast, and even during whatever afflictions God in His wisdom permits us to face, we can have peace and joy, knowing that our sins are forgiven by grace through faith in Him. Hymn-writer Hans Adolf Brorson, for example, had to leave his university studies because of his health (Pollack, 487), but he kept things in perspective. Although it goes back to one of the earliest English Lutheran hymnals, this morning for the first time since I have been at Pilgrim we will sing (as our Closing Hymn) his text translated as “I Walk in Danger All the Way”. We close now with its final stanza (LSB 716:6):
My walk is heav’nward all the way; / Await, my soul, the morrow,
When God’s good healing shall allay / All suff’ring, sin, and sorrow.
Then, worldly pomp, be gone! / To heav’n I now press on.
For all the world I would not stay / My walk is heav’nward all the way.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +