+ + + 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.
With this past week’s winter-weather “lockdown”, as it were, some have gotten more in touch with nature. For example, out our back doors, my neighbors and I were somewhat competing with each other to be the instruments of God in feeding the birds (and at least one squirrel). Out their windows, others elsewhere were tracking a fox. And, from two decades ago in the Canadian Rockies, I recall how extremely-heavy snowfall could drive into our small towns bears. Among other things, there are wild animals in today’s Gospel Reading for the First Sunday in Lent, on which day the Church has heard of the temptation of Jesus going back at least to the fifth century (Pfatteicher, Commentary, 229), even if hearing St. Mark’s Divinely‑inspired account of Jesus’s Temptation is of more‑recent origin. And, as St. Mark briefly tells of Jesus’s Temptation, there is contrast between Jesus’s being tempted by Satan (a fallen, evil angel) and His being ministered to by (faithful, good) angels. This morning we consider how the two verses of today’s Gospel Reading that tell of Jesus’s Temptation similarly relate to us, and so we direct our thoughts to the theme “Tempted but ministered to”.
As we heard, immediately after Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit (Who had moments before descended on Jesus like a dove) drove out Jesus (Who Himself would later drive out demons) into the wilderness (thought to be the home of demons and evil powers but also similar to where both Moses and Elijah had been with God and without food for forty days [Exodus 24:18; 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:9, 18; 1 Kings 19:5, 8; Kittel, TDNT 2:658]). In the wilderness, three things are described: Jesus was tempted by Satan (as Abraham in today’s Old Testament Reading was tested by God [Genesis 22:1-18; confer Hebrews 11:17]), Jesus was with the wild animals (arguably a threat to others but not to Him), and the angels were ministering to Him (most likely by bringing Him food and drink, as others such as Peter’s mother-in-law later would serve Him (Mark 1:31; 15:41).
St. Mark’s account does not go into the detail of Satan’s temptations of Jesus that we may know from St. Matthew’s and St. Luke’s accounts, but instead St. Mark’s account is said to emphasize “the implacable [or, “relentless”] hostility between the two combatants” (Marcus, ad loc Mark 1:13, p.167). And, the lack of those specific temptations can be helpful for us to think of all of the other specific temptations that we all face. And we all face all sorts of specific temptations: to have other gods, to misuse God’s Name, to despise His Word and Sacraments, and to dishonor His gifts: authorities whom He places over us, human life, sexual purity, possessions, reputation, and contentment. Whether tested by God to show our faithfulness, or whether tempted by Satan to show our un-faithfulness, the result shows what kind of person each one of us is. The testing or temptation pierces or searches into us and reveals to us—for God certainly knows regardless—what of good or evil is in us. Ultimately, we realize that we remain what we have always been, sinful by nature: o-mitting all sorts of good works and com-mitting all sorts of actual sins; thoughts, words, and deeds; and deserving nothing but death here in time and punishment in hell for eternity.
Yet, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus’s own preaching, like all faithful preaching before and after Him, calls and enables sinners like us to repent of our sin (to turn away from it in sorrow) and to trust in the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins by grace through faith in Him. When we so repent, then God forgives us our sins—all our sins, regardless of both the specific testing by God that we failed or the specific temptation by Satan (or the world or our own sinful nature) to which we succumbed.
You see, not only was Jesus tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15), but also Jesus died on the cross for our sin and the sins of the whole world. Like the ram that was sacrificed in Isaac’s place in today’s Old Testament Reading, Jesus died in our place, the death that we deserved. As He asked Abraham to do, God the Father gave His only Son, Whom He loved, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). In His temptation in the wilderness, Jesus showed that He was stronger than Satan (Foerster, TDNT 7:158; confer Matthew 12:29; Mark 3:27; and Luke 11:21-22), and, with His death on the cross, Jesus destroyed the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Part of the mystery of the Incarnation is that Jesus, Who was and still is God in human flesh, could not sin but yet could truly be tempted and suffer in the process (Hebrews 2:18). The outcome of His Temptation and His Crucifixion followed by His Resurrection was never in doubt, but His agony and death were no less real because He bore them triumphantly (Lenski, ad loc Mark 1:13, p.61; confer Pieper, II:76-77, and Scaer, CLD VI:63-65).
Notably, Jesus’s Temptation immediately followed His Baptism, and in some ways the same is true for us: Satan goes after us all the more once way in us has been made for the Holy Spirit (confer Rawlinson, 12, cited by Taylor, ad loc Mark 1:12-13, p.163). But, while the angels may not have been ministering to Jesus until the end of His 40 days in the wilderness (and presumably the end of at least that series of temptations), God’s messengers minister to us throughout our time of temptation in the wilderness of this world, as we walk toward the glory of the world to come. We are “Tempted but ministered to”! Because Jesus suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted (Hebrews 2:18), and He does so by sending pastors both to read and to preach the Gospel to groups such as this and to apply the Gospel individually through Holy Baptism, individual Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar—where, under the forms of bread and wine, His true Body given for us and His true Blood shed for us give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Because we have a High Priest Who sympathizes with us in our weakness, we then with confidence draw near to His throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).
When we let ourselves so be served by God through His ministry of Word and Sacraments, then we do good works in keeping with our vocations, like Abraham, whose belief in God was counted to him as righteousness long before he offered Isaac (Genesis 15:6). St. James says elsewhere that Abraham’s work of offering up his son was in some sense the “completion” of Abraham’s faith (James 2:21-23). Also, we look to God for the ability to endure temptation as a means of escaping it (1 Corinthians 10:13). For, we realize that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:11). The larger cosmic struggle between God and Satan is reflected within us, as God’s law condemns us for our sin and His Gospel forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake (Scaer, CLD VI:64). But, with daily repentance and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins and the resulting peace and joy. We daily pray that He lead us not into temptation and that His Holy Angel be with us that the Evil Foe may have no power over us.
At the outset I mentioned birds, foxes, and bears looking for food, and the Divinely‑inspired St. Peter says that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Bible commentators are divided whether the wild animals in today’s Gospel Reading are hostile to Jesus or friendly to Him, as if He has restored the Paradise of the Garden of Eden. Today’s Gospel Reading may present Jesus as undoing humanity’s fall into sin in reverse: being cast out of the world into a sort of paradise (confer Genesis 3:23-24), resisting the temptation by the devil, being at peace with the wild animals (as in the original paradise), and being ministered to by angels (as some tradition suggests Adam was before the fall [J. Jeremias, TDNT 1:141; Marcus, ad loc Mark 1:13, p.168]). Regardless, Jesus is victorious over Satan for us, and, as we are in Jesus, we are victorious, also (confer Mark 16:18; Luke 10:19; Acts 28:3-5). We have nothing to fear—no terror or persecution or death (such as by Christians’ facing wild animals in an arena [confer BAGD, 361]), for our resurrection follows (Mann, 83)! Though Jesus’s temptation is over and ours continues in this lifetime, we are “Tempted but ministered to”! As the Divinely-inspired St. James writes in today’s Epistle Reading (James 1:12-18), blessed are those who remain steadfast under testing or temptation, for when they are thereby approved, they receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +