Lent 1, Feb. 29, 2004
Text: Luke 4:1-13
As I was meditating on our Gospel reading on Jesus’ temptation, I asked myself, “Why is it that God allows Satan to tempt us as he did His own Son?” The answer is that temptation affords us the opportunity to demonstrate our faith.
Our first parents back in the Garden of Eden were given that opportunity. They were confronted with the suggestion that they could become like God, knowing good and evil, if only they would eat from the tree God had told them not to eat. They could have retorted that they were already like God, created in His image and that they already knew what was good and evil: That it was good to trust and obey God’s command and evil not to do so. God had given them paradise but when they had the opportunity to demonstrate their gratitude and trust in God they failed.
The same can be said of Israel whom God had freed from slavery in Egypt. With a mighty hand God led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army sent to recapture them. God even promised that He would be their God and always take care of them. Now how do you think the children of Israel showed their gratitude as they wandered through the wilderness? Instead trusting Him to provide for their needs they began to grumble against Him.
And what about us? I know how easily I get frustrated and grumble when things do not go my way. As we look back to how we respond to temptation, we see that we are like the rest: When tested we often fail to love and trust God as we should. Together with Adam and Israel we deserve nothing but God’s anger and displeasure.
It is for this very reason that God became man, so that He could save us. He became one of us. He became the second Adam, the second Israel. He redoes Adam and Israel. He was tempted as they and as we are, but He came out victorious. He did not do it to show off that He could do it better than us. He did it for us. He overcame temptation for us, that His victory over the Devil might be our victory over the Devil. He is the victor over every temptation and sin, which has ever or will ever assail us that we might participate in His victory.
There is something stunning but also reassuring in discovering that Jesus experienced temptation. We might expect him to be “above it”. But if that were so, he would be “above us”, and so unable to relate to us. As to the character of the temptations, they are targeted on a single point. Their design and purpose is to demolish Jesus’ capacity to be the agent of God’s salvation. Hence they share a common insinuation: “If you are the Son of God.” It seemed to be a no-win situation. If Jesus complied, He had crossed over and sided with the Devil. If He declined, his divine Son-ship was open to question. From Jesus’ perspective each temptation was a challenge to his fidelity to God’s word and will. Was he God’s obedient servant, carrying out God’s purposes, not his own?
He was tempted in every way just as you and I are, yet without sin. In His temptation to turn stone into bread, He was tempted not to trust in God to provide Him with what He needed, but to provide it for Himself right now.
The Devil tempts us in the same way, that we might not trust Him who teaches us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” nor believe that He hears us and will provide us all that we need for this body and life. Jesus was tempted not to trust in God’s Word, but to save Himself and become a bread king. But this isn't what He was sent to do. He wasn’t sent to save Himself. He was to give His body as the bread of life for the world that whoever would eat His flesh and drink His blood would have eternal life.
In His second temptation Jesus is offered the easy route to obtaining the kingdoms of the earth, without the suffering of the cross, if only He will bow down and worship the Devil. Again, our Lord was tempted not to obey the Father who had sent Him to give His life as a sacrifice for sins, but to do it another way, the way of glory, not the cross. But giving into this temptation would only have made Christ a slave to the Devil, who does not own the world, but has usurped control over it. No, the Lord would not worship the devil. He would deliver the world from Satan’s power through the weakness of the cross.
Finally, the devil tempts Jesus to throw Himself from the top of the temple. Here Jesus is tempted to put God to the test, just as the Israelites had done in the wilderness, just as we do with God when we want Him to do things our way. The temptation here was to control God, as if He were some sort of idol. But God will not play our games of manipulation. “Your will be done,” not mine, and God’s will was for His Son to go to the cross. Jesus did not show off His power by doing magic tricks, but He hid His majesty behind the suffering and weakness of the cross, where He was doing His greatest miracle of all, taking away our sins.
So how does the Lord answer these temptations of the devil? With the Word of God. To the first where He is tempted to turn stones into bread He answers with the words, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'” (Deuteronomy 8:3) To the second where He is tempted to worship the Devil He answers, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'" (Deut. 6:13) And to the third where He is tempted to jump off the top of the temple He answers, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" (Deut. 6:16) In all three instances Jesus was tempted to act against God's will and choose another way. The Devil's way was the way of glory, but the Lord's way was the way of the cross. For this He was anointed at His Baptism as the Messiah, the suffering servant of God, who would give His life to save us.
It was with the Word of God as His weapon that Jesus overcame these temptations for us. The trouble with Adam and Eve in the garden was that they got their eyes off of God’s Word. They began to doubt God’s Word. Once that happened, the actual eating of the fruit was just the outward manifestation of the lack of fear, love, and trust in God that had taken over their hearts. Jesus, on the other hand, clung immovably to God’s Word. He would not let the Devil wrest it from Him. Jesus kept God’s Word perfectly for us. He was perfectly obedient to the Father, obedient even to the point of death on the cross for us. The last temptation of Christ was to come down from the cross. “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself,” they mocked. This was Satan’s last chance to get Him to act against the Father's will. But for our sake He would not come down. He would not save Himself; He sacrificed Himself, so that through His death we might be saved.
This perfect obedience of Christ has now been given to us. This is what righteousness is: perfect obedience to God's commandments. We were created righteous in the garden, in God's image, but then we lost that righteousness through our disobedience. Christ regained that righteousness for us by obeying God's Law perfectly on our behalf. Paul explains this in his letter to the Romans: “Just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (5:18-19) Now we receive that righteousness of Christ as a gift of God, through faith in Jesus Christ. For Christ's sake God no longer looks at us as unrighteous people, but sees in us Christ's righteousness, His obedience, His holiness given to us through Baptism, the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Now with the help of the Holy Spirit we are enabled to keep God's commandments, not in order to become His people, but because we are His people and because of the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Freed from the threats and punishments of the Law, we are now free to serve one another in love. The Spirit enables us to do this. Now that we have been given the Holy Spirit through Baptism, we are enabled to love God and our neighbour as we ought to, though our obedience is still very weak and will never be perfect, and requires daily repentance and amendment of our behavior. But Christ’s perfect obedience is ours, as if we had kept the Law perfectly ourselves. For Christ's sake God does not count our weakness against us, and He forgives the guilt of our sin.
These are the fruits of the victory of Christ over temptation. He overcame temptation and the Devil for us, taking our punishment for our disobedience to God's Law upon Himself on the cross, and rising again from the dead that we might have eternal life. This was God's plan, and nothing could keep the Lord from accomplishing it. Though we have failed miserably at keeping God's commandments and deserve nothing but punishment, He has made a way for us to become His righteous children through the obedience of His Son, given to us as a gift. During this season of Lent, see yourself for who you are in and of yourself, that you are a sinner. But then see your Savior, Jesus Christ, because it was for sinners such as you and me that He came. He became your sin, that you might become the righteousness of God in Him.
May the Lord who overcame all temptations of the Devil for your sake, now also keep your hearts and minds in His peace. Amen