FEBRUARY 21, 2010  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

The text for our meditation today is the Gospel Lesson for today, Luke 4:1-13. There we read these words:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.' " The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.' " The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' " Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' " When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

Thus far the text.

Dear Christian friends:

"Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil" (Luke 4:1-2). Even after forty days and forty nights, doesn't it seem like this temptation would have been easy for Jesus? After all, He was and is God. He walked on water and multiplied food and raised the dead; surely a little hand-to-hand combat with this already-doomed serpent should have been an easy victory!

Dear friends, that is the point. Jesus' divinity would not allow this temptation to be "a walk in the park." Paul tells us that "Even though He is "in very nature God," Jesus did not consider His co-substance with God and His "equality with God something to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6). Jesus' divinity, with all of its abilities, did not matter to Him, but He considered it very lightly, willingly withdrawing from its use and "being found in appearance as a man" (Philippians 2:7).

This Jesus, that suffered the devil's enticements and torments, was and is truly the Creator of all things. But all of the Creator's mighty power lay dormant within Him, and He refused to exercise it in His own defense. Jesus faced the full blast and fury of His temptations in exactly the same way you face yours: in complete weakness, in poverty of spirit, and in the palpable desire to have that which is not His to have. "After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry" (Matthew 4:2), and self-serving bread raised up from stones was only a word away.

If it should have been so easy for Jesus to resist temptation on account of His divinity, it should be equally easy for you to resist yours. You are, after all, participants "in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), as St. Peter says. You are described throughout the Scriptures as "a holy nation" (1 Peter 2:9), as having been "enriched in every way" and not lacking "any spiritual gift" (1 Corinthians 1:5, 6). You are not only of the same flesh and blood as your Lord, but you are also in possession of the same spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that gives gifts "of power and of love and self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7). So if it should have been for Jesus easy to resist temptation, it should likewise be easy for you.

But resistance is not easy for you, and the Bible will only prove THAT fact which you already and inwardly know: that "death came to all men, because all sinned" (Romans 5:12); and that you and I, along with all other men, "are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). Temptation is not easy to resist because each temptation that you suffer is uniquely crafted for you, whether it is the physical lusts of youth, the material lusts of middle age, or the old-age self-satisfaction of having made your mark or of having taken care of yourself all these many years.

Temptation is not easy to resist because the Tempter never tires of piercing you with his arrows. In fact, as I grow older, I find the arrows only become more deadly, and my desires only more twisted, more insidious, and more damning. Temptation is not easy because I want to sin, even though my sin could destroy my family, my home, my work, my congregation, and my fellow believers.

Do not think for a moment that Jesus' divinity makes His temptations any easier to bear than yours. "He was tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin" Heb 4:15). There may be a lot at stake when you are tempted, but infinitely more is risked when Jesus is tempted. This temptation recorded in this Gospel is a matter of life and of death-your life, and your deliverance up from death. "Death came to all men, because all sinned" (Romans 5:12), but Jesus did not need to sin in order to die. He was already a dead man, and this quite apart from sin! His conception in Mary's womb connected Him so intimately and inseparably to each one of you that you, your lives, would have been more than sufficient to incur upon Him the death penalty. "Death came to all men, because all sinned" (Romans 5:12) and death came to this Man because all those who are apart from Him have sinned. Jesus knew this before He ever entered the wilderness.

Mark very carefully how it is that Jesus endured and overcame the great desires that Satan flung upon Him. He did not rely on His divinity: if He did, this whole episode would be a sham and you would have no reason to trust and cling to Him; no reason to believe that He made Himself like you in every way. Jesus did not rely on His divinity, and He did not rely on His humanity, either, because this, too, would give Him unfair advantage over

Jesus engaged the devil and fought His own temptations with exactly the same tool, exactly the same power, exactly the same infallible, protective and life-sustaining source that He has also given to you: the Word and promise of God. He relied on nothing else because nothing else could prevail but the Word and promise of God.

"Tell these stones to became bread", Satan tempted.

"It is written."

Throw yourself down from this high place." Satan taunted.

"It is written."

"Bow down and worship me-just a little bow would be fine." Satan urged

"IT IS WRITTEN."

Dear Christian, what greater tool and power is available to you anywhere in creation? You better not rely on yourself when tempted any more than Jesus relies upon Himself. You have no great powers to use when faced by the devil and his lies, any more than Jesus did. You must endure your temptations just as Jesus endured His: Not as if it is a walk in the park, but in the realization of the life-and-death consequences involved. You must over come your temptations in exactly the way that Jesus overcomes His-not in self-confidence or personal strength, but only and solely by clinging to the Word and promise of God.

The one and only difference between Jesus' temptations and yours is that Jesus succeeded where you incessantly fail. Ironically, His success arose from the same source as your failure. And what I mean is this: You love you more than anything else, and that is what makes you so willing to give in to your temptations. There is no such thing as committing yourself to doing better or staying focused or ceasing to sin because in the deepest moment of you temptation, you realize that what you want and desire is more important than anything else. Your love for you empowers your capitulation to temptation and your sin.

Jesus' success arises from the same source as your failure. You do what you do because you love you; Jesus did what He did because Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you more than anything else, and His love for you compelled Him to endure, to fight, to overcome, and finally to win for you the victory. For Jesus, there is no possibility for failure because in the deepest moment of His temptations, He realized, He knew that what you needed was more important than anything else. And nothing could ever stop Him from loving you and providing you with exactly what you need.

It was not an easy thing for this Divine Son to subject Himself to such weakness and torture as is described in today's Gospel. It was not any easier for Him to proceed up out of the wilderness and into the waiting city in which He would be condemned to die. Not one single moment of it all was easy, but He willingly and cheerfully took up the task because you mean more to Him than the full exercise of His deity, more than His own, unimaginable sufferings, more than His own death.

Theologians sometimes contemplate the question of whether or not Jesus could have sinned in this or any other temptation. If you say, "No," Jesus could not have sinned because He is God and God is perfect, then you misunderstand the burden of this event. His deity, as I have already said, could not come into play if Jesus is to be for you everything that you are not; if He is to die for your sins and be raised for your justification.

You may, however, confidently confess that Jesus could not, or rather, would not fall prey to Satan's lies. He could not and He would not because His love for you compelled Him not to. It is not by reason of His strength that He endured, but rather, by reason of His love, His love for each and every one of you, that He became for you the very source of your eternal life. It is also because of His love for you, that Christ Is Risen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen