As you heard just a few minutes ago, our Gospel lesson for this first Sunday in Lent is St. Luke’s account of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Last year the Gospel lesson for the first Sunday in Lent was St. Mark’s account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Two years ago the Gospel lesson for the first Sunday in Lent was St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Since we use three-year lectionary of Scripture readings, next year our Gospel lesson for the first Sunday in Lent will cycle again to the temptation account from the Gospel of Matthew, followed by Mark’s account again in 2012 and Luke’s account in 2013 and – well, you get the picture. Every year we begin the season of Lent by focusing on Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is one of those “Bible stories” that many of us learned at a very young age in Sunday School. We think we know it so well that we can just zip right through the details and move on to something else – perhaps a Bible story that is not repeated year after year after year. If we know it so well, then do you wonder just a little bit why we repeat it so much?
During the liturgical season of Lent, we reverently prepare for Christ’s death on the cross on Good Friday, followed by His resurrection from the dead on Easter morning. But the plain fact of the matter is that Jesus had to suffer and die on Good Friday because we are hopeless and helpless sinners. Until we both understand and acknowledge our sin, we can never understand and acknowledge our need for a Savior.
And to understand the true depths of our sins, we need to have a thorough understanding of an old-fashioned concept that goes by the name of “temptation.”
Like “sin” and “hell” and so many other words of Scripture, the word “temptation” pretty much gets ignored by modern society. It’s not a word that we say very often. And when we do say it, we often use it in a pretty trivial manner. For example, if I eat a donut – especially a chocolate donut – I may be faced with the temptation of eating a second doughnut, even though I realize that that eating the first one wasn’t very healthy for me. Or if I’m running late, I may be faced with the temptation to speed a little bit – or even speed a lot – to get somewhere on time.
But the fact of the matter is that temptation is serious business. As Christians – as sinners – as human beings – we face temptation every day. We’re tempted to do the things that are not pleasing to God. We’re tempted to do things that are specifically forbidden by the Ten Commandments. No matter how hard we try – no matter how hard we pray – the temptations never stop coming at us. Sometimes we feel like temptations are a crushing weight on our shoulders, something more than we can possibly bear. In the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “And lead us not into temptation,” and we know that Jesus died for our sins – but no sooner do those words escape our lips than we’re faced with another temptation.
In Luther’s Small Catechism, we are taught that Scripture applies two meanings to the words “tempt” and “temptation.” The first meaning refers to the testing of our faith, which God uses to bring us closer to Him. In James chapter 1 we read, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
The second meaning of “tempt” and “temptation” focuses on “the attempts of our spiritual enemies to lure us away from God and His ways.” And this is where we see the true focus of our Gospel reading. In the three temptations that Luke describes, Satan is doing his best to lure Jesus away from “God and His ways.” He doesn’t succeed, of course – but he tries mighty hard to get the job done.
Let’s go back for a minute to the very first temptation – the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan, in the form of a snake, arrives and begins to tempt them with food – just as Satan tempted Jesus with food – but in this case, the temptation focuses on the food that God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat. The word “Satan” means “deceiver,” and here Satan subtly deceives Adam and Eve into thinking that what God told them wasn’t really true. “Did God actually say,” Satan asks – and immediately, the doubts are planted. Satan goes on to state that when God told them that the penalty for eating the fruit would be death, He wasn’t telling them the truth. “You will not surely die,” he tells them. And before they realize what they are doing, Adam and Eve believe Satan’s lie that God has actually lied to them. He puts a wedge of distrust between God and His creation.
He tries to do the same thing with Jesus in the wilderness. We know that Jesus has not eaten for 40 days – so he’s hungry. He’s very, very hungry. And what Satan does here is suggest that there must be something wrong with the Father’s love since His “beloved Son” was hungry. After all, God provided manna in the wilderness when the Children of Israel were hungry – shouldn’t He be doing the same for Jesus? So he tells Jesus to distrust His Father and take charge of the situation. The implication is clear – God’s not going to take care of You, so You need to depend on yourself for food rather than God. Put Your physical needs ahead of Your spiritual needs. Just go ahead and turn this stone into bread and everything will be fine.
The second temptation is really no different. Following His death and resurrection, Jesus told His disciples that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” but Satan is suggesting that Jesus can shortcut all of that suffering and dying stuff. Don’t wait, Satan is suggesting. Make it easy on yourself. Don’t trust God to give you authority over all creation after you go through all kinds of pain and agony – just bow down and worship me, and I’ll give it all to you right now.
And then the third temptation. If you really are the Son of God, then jump off the top of the temple and let’s see if God really cares for You. The drop is only about 500 feet, so let’s see just how far you can trust God. Take a dive off the top of this building and let’s see if He really will send His angels to save You. Or are You afraid to take the plunge because You don’t really trust God?
Just like he did with Adam and Eve, Satan tries to deceive Jesus into believing that God isn’t who He says He is and that God won’t do what He says He will do. He repeatedly tempts Jesus by suggesting that Jesus needs to forget about doing the will of the Father. Instead, listen to my suggestions, Satan is saying – do what You want to do and not what God wants You to do – and I can give You anything You want. I can give You the world. I can give You everything.
We need to stop and consider that being tempted, by itself, is not a sin. This sinful world, our sinful flesh and Satan himself constantly attack us with all kinds of sinful suggestions and we can never escape them. But the temptations are not actually sins until the sinner decides to take action and commit the sin. If someone tempts you to steal something, you haven’t sinned until you actually decide to commit the act and then do it. So when Jesus was tempted, He remained sinless because he never acted on the temptation – He only rejected on it. Instead, He reacted with the most powerful tool that God could possibly give to Him and to us – the clear words of Scripture. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Our Gospel lesson concludes with these words: “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.” Although they’re not so clearly identified, it is clear that Satan continued to tempt Jesus throughout His life and ministry. In fact, when Jesus hung on the cross He was still being tempted to save Himself and come down from the cross. The soldiers, the onlookers and even the religious leaders all tempted Jesus, saying things like “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” and “Let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” But just as Jesus resisted temptation in the wilderness, He resisted temptation right up to the moment of His death. Until the moment of His death, Jesus was still quoting words of Scripture. Until the moment of His death, Jesus put His trust – His total, absolute trust – in God His Father.
As Christians, we have a tendency to summarize our salvation by tying it to the shedding of Christ’s blood that took place on the cross at Calvary. But Jesus’ temptation reminds us that our salvation is also tied to Jesus’ victory over temptation that took place in the wilderness. To put it another way, we are indeed saved by the shed blood of Jesus, but this is only true because that shed blood was innocent of all sin. If Jesus had even once given in to temptation, then His suffering and death would have been meaningless for us.
Jesus was already accomplishing our salvation when He was battling Satan in the wilderness. Jesus was actively fulfilling God’s Law and was battling every sin that we battle. The difference is that where we have failed and continue to fail, Jesus was victorious. Jesus is our Savior, not just in His dying and rising from the dead, but also in His perfect obedience to God’s Law and God’s will.
In the wilderness, Satan attempted to lure Jesus away from God and His ways. In our wilderness of sin, he attempts to lure us away from God and His ways, too. Sometimes – often – we will fail. But Jesus never failed. Jesus has overcome every temptation on our behalf. Jesus never doubted the will of His Father – but obeyed that perfect will in every respect. Because of Christ’s obedience, God forgives our sins and gives us salvation. As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”
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