In today’s Gospel text for the first Sunday in Lent we have an epic showdown. A match between God’s hero, “His chosen One” and the Lord of Lies. One is perfect and innocent, the other is evil personified. In many ways it is a rematch of the contest between the serpent and Adam in the garden. Except this new Adam was God even as He had real human flesh. But this human flesh of Jesus was continually assaulted by the devil for 40 days in the wilderness during which time, He ate nothing to nourish His flesh. The first Adam had a full belly and yet was tempted to eat that which was forbidden. In eating the forbidden fruit he discarded God’s Word and discarded His responsibility to His bride and He fell, thinking only of Himself. This New Adam, Jesus, survived for the 40 days of temptation with an empty belly but physically and spiritually sustained by the power of the Word of God as He thought not of Himself, but of His bride, the Church whom He had come to redeem.
For this reason, Jesus had been led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. In these three temptations which Satan tried on Jesus, we see the methods that the devil uses in dealing with all people, even today. He uses variations of lies: causing doubt, twisting truth, and claiming power and authority which is not his. We also see in this text how the Devil’s lies are to be countered.
The devil first appeals to the easiest target, that of the human flesh and its biological and fleshly desires. Our bodies need food and drink to live, and that necessity and hunger is not in itself a sin. But Satan made hunger into a challenge to Jesus in the weakness of His hungry human flesh to abuse His Divine power and thus fall into sin. The devil said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread”. He challenged the reality of Jesus’ identity and purpose. He was really asking Jesus, “Are you really the Christ, the Son of God? Prove it. While you are at it, do something for yourself, just this once. It will be ok. and then reap the benefits of making your own bread.” The temptation to sin was that the devil didn’t just tempt Jesus to eat, but he tempted Him to take the easy way out, to stop trusting His Father and to abuse His power by using that Divine power not in service of others but in service of Himself. Had He turned the stone into bread, the very first miracle Jesus performed would have been for Himself. This was contrary to the purpose of His incarnation as He said to His disciples later: “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28
Jesus answered by quoting the Scriptural truth which is at the very heart of living by faith, even in the midst of difficulty. “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
The next two temptations are in some ways variations on the first temptation. The devil next tempts Jesus again to question the care of His Father by saying “test Him, test Him Jesus. See if He really will come through.” Since Jesus answered with Scripture to the first temptation, the Devil (also an expert in Scripture) misuses Scripture. He quotes Psalm 91, a psalm of comfort and assurance of God’s care and love. Just as He did in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, He twists the Words of God forcing His own evil interpretation upon it in an attempt to make God’s Holy Word profane, to create doubt, to challenge God as though we should challenge and test God. To this Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16 that we are not to put God to the test. To put God to the test is the same as unbelief.
Finally, The devil showed in a moment of time all the glories of the kingdoms of this world, and just straight up lied, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, worship me and it will be yours.”
This authority had not been given to the devil to give to anyone else, but the devil once again was challenging Jesus to take the easy way out. See how the devil emphasizes and confuses how one receives authority and glory. The Devil assumes authority by trickery and assertion as though by declaring something to be true, that it becomes true. Thus, the Devil promises to give Jesus authority by submitting to the Devil, this would have made Jesus a slave to escape His current and future suffering. The devil was really pointing ahead to the suffering of the cross and saying, “Jesus you don’t have to go through all that rejection and pain and anguish to redeem the world and become king through death and resurrection. I can give it to you now.” Jesus in answer rightfully pointed to the fact that authority and glory belongs only to God.
The devil, the world, and our flesh use these same methods in tempting and seducing us to evil. When we are suffering poverty, anxiety, or any hardship or we witness it in the world, they whisper “Why would a loving God do this? Are you sure you belong to God? Does God still love you? What good is the message of Christ in all this suffering? Why don’t you just let yourself go and do what you want for a change? You feel an urge, go ahead and act on it, feed yourself, look out for yourself, because God won’t. Seize power, grab authority, test God”.
In this way, the devil continues to lead people away from the truth of God’s love and salvation in Jesus Christ to his false gospel of self service and unbelief. He isn’t as worried about those who already are in unbelief and have rejected God. He confirms them in their unbelief and sinful practice to be more resistant to God’s Word: to be effective apostles of his lies that lead to damnation. His main joy is to debase that which has been redeemed, to cause Christians to lose face in the court of the world’s opinion, and lose faith, and cause disunity within the Church.
We so often willingly and willfully fall into his snares and seductions. When temptation comes how often do we just give in? How often does the devil tempt us to doubt God and His Word and we do? “Did God really say?” Satan asks and our itching ears respond to his voice. We end up not believing that God’s Word is powerful and effective to do what God says it will. We think the church cannot grow unless we alter God’s Word to dress it up, dumb it down, to make exceptions so as to not offend the world or our own flesh. We test God and His Word in unbelief and skepticism.
Opportunities for doing the right thing come and go with our inaction or our muddling the situation because we think only of ourselves. When we don’t use God’s Word to stand up to Satan and His lies it is because we don’t believe God’s Word and His promises. This unbelief and rebellion is sin. We deserve all the penalty for our sin. Truly we are pathetic, we are sinners who deserve nothing but wrath.
Dear Friends, this is why Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted. He was not tempted in order to understand our weakness, but He was tempted so that Satan’s power could be met and bested. He was tempted in the wilderness for us so we might know that we have a Savior who understands what we are up against. He met temptation without falling into sin, but He does not reject us because we are filled with sin. Instead it is for that reason that He came to earth, to place Himself under the Law, to endure all our temptations to sin which we could not, but without failure. He came so that His perfect flesh would be made a curse for us, to suffer His father’s wrath on the cross to pay for our sins and to redeem His bride, the Church.
Man and woman do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. God calls us today by His Word even as He did at our baptisms, calling us to be comforted in the redemption and forgiveness won for us at His cross and empty tomb in His name. He speaks to us His absolution through the mouth that He has appointed. He gives us faith to hear and believe the words “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” to receive the blessings of His sacrament of the altar, where in the wilderness of our sinful lives He feeds us the bread of life, His own sacrificed and glorified flesh so that we may be filled and not hunger for the things of the world.
God knows that the devil flees at the Word of God, His lies are no match for His truth. The devil will return and try to tempt us again, but we can rebuke him by the power of the Holy Spirit and the name of Jesus and the Triune God. We have a mighty fortress in our God, and when the devil comes attacking us, we can rebuke him because God’s Word is powerful. Because Jesus Christ has saved you and You are His own. He has called you by name, you have His sign of the cross of victory upon you. You can tell Satan to go back to Hell, He has no more power over you by the power of God’s Word. This is why it is so good, right, and proper to be studying God’s Word, to be here receiving God’s Word, to be steeped in the living breathing doctrine of Scripture so that we may not be left powerless. This time of Lent is a good time to pray, study, and allow God to strengthen you in the faith and confession of His name so that you may stand up and refute Satan and His lies: by the good news of Jesus Christ God’s chosen one who has conquered Satan, death, and sin for you and for your salvation. Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas