First Sunday in Lent

First Sunday in Lent (C)

March 6, 2022

Text: Luke 4:1-13

            Fresh from His Baptism in the Jordan, and full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is led by the Spirit out into the wilderness… to be tempted by the devil for forty days.  It is not unlike your baptismal journey, is it?  Or better, your baptismal journey mirrors that of our Lord.  Led from your Baptism into Christ, out into the wilderness of life in this world, you become a target of the devil and his temptations. 

            Now, don’t misunderstand the purpose of this account.  This is not a crash course in how to fight the devil by your own knowledge of the Bible, and your will power to resist.  No, this is not actually about you.  This is about Jesus for you.  Jesus goes out as your Champion against the old evil foe.  For us fights the Valiant One, whom God Himself elected (LSB 656:2).  Our Lord will face off against the devil right where the serpent’s temptations hit their mark in us: The temptation to fill the void in us with food and the pleasures of the flesh, over against the Bread of Life and the Word of the one true God.  The temptation to seize power and glory for yourself, even if it means selling your soul, worshiping false gods, and bowing down to the devil.  The temptation to harness religion for your own selfish ends, to live recklessly and tempt the Lord your God, over against bearing your cross patiently in the care and protection of Your Father. 

            Implicit, and often even explicit, in each one of these temptations, is the devil’s deceptive word, “If.”  “If God loved you, He would not be holding out on you.  He would want you to be well-fed, rich, successful, and fulfilled.  He would want you to have pleasure, power, and fame.  And He would understand that you have to do what you have to do to get these things for yourself.  Maybe God doesn’t love you.  Maybe He isn’t good.  Maybe He is really out to get you.  Maybe you should be your own god.  And maybe in worshiping me, I can teach you how best to worship yourself.”  So sings the serpent’s siren song.  It is precisely against this “If” that our Lord Jesus does battle in our Holy Gospel this morning.  “If you are the Son of God…” (Luke 4:3; ESV); “If you, then, will worship me…” (v. 7); and again, “If you are the Son of God…” (v. 9).  If it is true, what God said of You at Your Baptism, then… command these stones to become bread; bow down and worship me and receive all my power and glory; throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the Temple and see if God really will command His angels to bear you up.

            But the devil isn’t all that creative, and when you get right down to it, we’ve seen this play before in the Garden of Eden.  “Eve, Adam, if God really loved you, He wouldn’t withhold the fruit of this tree.  This tree is special.  Its fruit is beautiful, and good for food, and able to make one wise.  You can determine good and evil for yourself.  You can be like God.  You can be your own gods.  Just one little bite  Take and eat.  This is your true destiny, leading you to fulfillment, pleasure, and self-determination.”

            Jesus, our Champion, is our new Adam.  He will not fall for the devil’s wily tricks.  He will not take and eat food offered by the fallen angel.  He will not succumb to suggestion that if God will not fill His bodily appetites and scratch His every itch, then He must reach out and grab what is illicit for Himself.  He rebuffs Satan with the Word of God: “Man shall not live by bread alone” (v. 4).  He will not succumb to the suggestion that He should bypass and thwart God’s will, seeking the power and glory for Himself, as Adam and Eve sought to be their own gods.  This is a First Commandment issue.  It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” (v. 8).  He will not succumb to the suggestion that if the Father really loved Jesus, He wouldn’t let any harm come to Him, even if He threw Himself from a precipice, as Adam and Eve were convinced that if they took and ate, they would not surely die.  It is said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (v. 12).  You shall simply believe His Word and live according to it. 

            See how in doing this, in resisting the devil’s “If” with the sure and certain Word of God, our Lord Jesus undoes the deadly damage wrought by our Father, Adam’s, fall.  As our new and greater Adam, Jesus is all humanity reduced to one.  He battles with the devil for us, and in our place.  And He is victorious.  He holds the field forever. 

            And so it is with our fathers in the faith.  For even as Jesus stands in for all humanity, so He stands in for all Israel, and that is to say, the Church.  Delivered from slavery in Egypt, baptized in the Red Sea waters, the children of Israel spent, not forty days, but forty years sojourning in the wilderness.  And they were tempted.  And they fell to the temptation.  And what were the temptations primarily about?  Food.  “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex. 16:3).  They were not living by every Word the proceeds from the mouth of God.  They were not content to worship the LORD their God and serve Him only, but made Aaron fashion a calf from their gold jewelry, bowed down to worship it, made a feast for it, and rose up to play (Ex. 32; 1 Cor. 10:7).  Time and again they put the LORD their God to the test, believing the devil’s “If.”  “If God really loved us, if He really desired to save us, then He would feed us abundantly” (never mind, of course, the manna and the quail… and what is the temptation to turn stones into bread, after all, but a temptation to repeat the manna miracle?).  If God really loved us and wanted to save us, then He would make our wilderness sojourn easy… no danger, no toil… we’d live in the lap of luxury, and the nations would fall down in submission before us.  We’d march into the Land, victorious and triumphant, without a single casualty.” 

            Jesus will not fall for such a ruse.  He believes the Promises of His Father.  He knows that in hungering, He is blessed, and after hungering, God will satisfy Him.  He knows that as the eternal Son of the Father, He already holds all the world and its power in His hands, and after He has endured the cross and suffering, the Father will exalt Him to His right hand to rule all things, not just as God, but as flesh and blood Man.  He knows that God will command His angels concerning Him, to guard Him in this very important manner, which the devil leaves out: “in all your ways” (Ps. 91:11).  But He knows that His Way necessarily entails His suffering and death for the redemption of all humanity.  And He also knows, having thus endured the punishment due our sins, His Way leads through the empty tomb to resurrection life.  And He knows another verse the devil left out of his quotation of the Psalm: “You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot” (v. 13).  Yes, in resisting the devil’s temptations and in going the Way of the cross, our Lord Jesus crushes the serpent’s head.  The devil is defeated at his own game.  He can misquote the Scriptures all he wants.  Jesus knows the Scriptures, and believes them.  He has no doubt that He is the Son of God, and that the Father loves Him.  And the Scriptures are, in every part, about Jesus Himself, and His death and resurrection victory over Satan.  So, quote away, you old slithering reptile.  Where Adam, and our fathers, and we ourselves have entertained your little “If,” Jesus hears only the voice of His Father in heaven.

            So in Christ, Adam’s defeat is undone.  Israel’s defeat is undone.  Your defeat is undone.  For you are in Christ.  Baptized into Christ, His victory over the devil counts for you. 

            It is so tempting to read this Holy Gospel as some sort of manual for overcoming the devil’s temptations.  Just quote some Scriptures, and you’ll be safe.  Just set your face against his every enticement, and you can do it.  You’ll be fine.  But see, this makes this text all about you and your knowledge and ability, as though you really had any power to resist the devil.   As though this text was about you, and not Jesus for you.  Do you really think you can out-quote the Scriptures to the devil?  He pays more attention in Sunday School than you do.  Do you really think you can resist him with your great might?  The devil is stronger than the whole world. 

            But Christ is the Stronger One who binds the strong man and plunders his house (Matt. 12:29).  Of course, you should resist temptations, and you should know the Scriptures and quote them, because they will strengthen you in the battle against your flesh.  But remember this: Your deliverance from temptation and the evil one is not in your ability to quote or engage in supernatural battle.  Your deliverance is Christ alone.  We pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” knowing that Christ has suffered the temptation for us, and that His victory is our victory.  In the battle against temptation, we are already victorious, because we are in Christ. 

            And it is on the basis of that victory that we wrestle against every temptation to sin.  No, we don’t just give-in to it and say, “well, Christ has already won the victory, so I may as well indulge.”  Instead, we say, “Christ has already won the victory.  Therefore, you have no power over me, devil.  I do not belong to you.  I belong to the One who has plundered your kingdom, undone my sin and death by His own suffering and death, and who is risen from the dead.  He resisted you and won.  You are defeated.  Your serpentine head is crushed.  Jesus is my Bread of Life.  I live by His Word.  His power and glory are my salvation.  He commands His very angels concerning me, that I not stumble over the stones of your deception and so fall from His Way, and so that in the end, I come to no harm, but to the inheritance of everlasting life that He won for me.” 

            Fresh from your Baptism, you live here now, in the wilderness, where you will be tempted.  But fear not.  “Though devils all the world should fill, All eager to devour us, We tremble not, we fear no ill; They shall not overpow’r us.  This world’s prince may still Scowl fierce as he will, He can harm us none.  He’s judged; the deed is done; One little word can fell him” (LSB 656:3).  Many have speculated what that one little word might be.  Is it “Christ”?  Is it some particular Word of Scripture?  I suppose both are true and effective.  But Luther later told us what “one little word” he had in mind.  It is, he said: “Liar!”  The devil’s “If” is always a lie.  But as the Incarnate Word, Christ is God’s answer to the devil’s “If.”  Do you want to know what it would be like if God really loved you and wanted to save you?  Look at Christ on the cross.  And now you know.  That is the Truth.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.