O Lord, we do not live by bread alone, but
by the grace of your Word made flesh ✠
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
We mark the season of Lent not because we like doing traditional things, not because we are melancholy, not because we are particularly reverent. From the earliest days of the Church, followers of Jesus have recognized that Easter is most fully celebrated and appreciated when it has been prepared for. Forty is a significant number for Jews and Christians – it’s the number of days that the rain fell when Noah was in the ark, the number of years the Hebrews journeyed from Egypt to the Promised Land, the number of days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted. Forty is a number of completeness, signaling that the proper amount of time has passed. And so forty days before Easter, we begin preparing for it with Lent – a season of examination and honesty, when we name the inevitability of Death, the pervasiveness of Sin, and our utter reliance on God to sustain us.
There
are a lot of ways to do this – to have a holy Lent. Some people like to give
things up such as alcohol, chocolate, or social media. Others like to take on disciplines
like reading Scripture, serving the poor, or praying. At St. Luke’s, we’re
mostly inviting you to use more of your time to draw closer to God. Time is the
only non-renewable resource there is, and so it is the most valuable. Whether it
is Morning and Evening Prayer during the week, the Sacrament of Confession and
Eucharist on Wednesdays, group studies on Wednesday evenings, walking the labyrinth
on Sundays before or after worship, or midweek meditations on Wednesdays at 12:30
– Lent at St. Luke’s is about spending time with God to contemplate our lives –
how they are aligned with Jesus’ way of love and where we are out of tune with
the notes of God’s grace.
As
far as the sermons in Lent go, my goal is to prepare us for the glory and newness
of Resurrection life by looking honestly at the culture of death in which we
find ourselves. Yes, we are all mortal and will die. For a fuller treatment on
that topic, I’d refer you to the sermon I preached four days ago on Ash Wednesday.
But death isn’t only what happens when our organs stop functioning. Life is a
gift from God, and when that gift is squandered, we find death. When we pursue
things that lead us away from the Lord of life, we live in the shadow of death.
When we stray from the way of love, we miss out on the abundance of life that
God intends for us. Partisanship is death. War is death. Greed is death. Being
mean and petty is death. Lying is death. Not doing things that bring us closer
to God is death. So when we don’t pray, don’t give, don’t serve, don’t read
Scripture, don’t come to church, we are creating more space for death.
For
us to celebrate the gift and glory of the new life given in the Resurrection at
Easter, we have to be honest about our death-wielding, death-dealing, and
death-denying culture. In the readings each Sunday in Lent, death is present,
and so my plan is to both point out that death and then direct us to how Jesus
gives us abundant life as an alternative.
Today,
we have three different types of death in the reading from Luke. Every first
Sunday in Lent, the Gospel reading is about the temptation of Jesus. The version
changes, but every year we hear from Matthew, Mark, or Luke about how Jesus
spent forty days in the wilderness after his Baptism at the Jordan River being
tempted by the devil. Now what or who the devil is would be a whole other sermon,
so let’s not spend too much time on this point. The word “devil” means “slanderer.”
The devil is an idea, system, or person who gaslights you, who accuses you
falsely, who invites you into conflict, who is a menace to you receiving God’s
blessings, who calls you to join in slandering God, who brings us into the
valley of the shadow of death. And, to be very clear, that devil that we run
into most often is the one we see in the mirror.
In
the wilderness, Jesus encounters such a devil. For us, wilderness generally
means a forest or wooded area. But not in Israel – there, wilderness is a
desert. Jesus is in a place devoid of much life, a place where people die of
thirst, hunger, heat, or beasts. Now, there are two things to keep in mind
about what happened in the previous chapter in Luke. Jesus was Baptized and a
voice came from heaven and said “You are my Son, the Beloved” and then Luke
records the genealogy of Jesus, which will I will not read in full. It concludes
with “son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.” Keep this in mind as
we consider the temptation narrative – that Jesus has been declared as God’s
beloved Son and that he is a son of Adam.
We
do need to be very clear – this is a story about Jesus, not us. This story is
not recorded in Scripture so that we will know how to resist temptation or
avoid the wiles of the devil. Never, ever try to go head-to-head with evil on your
own. You will lose every single time. The devil has more endurance than you,
the devil is smarter than you, the devil knows you better than you know yourself,
the devil is craftier than you are, the devil is stronger than you are. And, as
we see in the third temptation, the devil can quote Scripture quite well. The
temptation of Jesus shows what has been done for us, not what we need to do.
And
what Jesus does for us is to rescue us from the dead situations we find ourselves
and bring us into life. First, Jesus is tempted in regards to physical needs –
hunger in the wilderness. The devil says “You created all that is, if you’re
hungry, why don’t you just turn these stones to bread?” What’s interesting is that
the things Jesus is tempted to do are not bad or wrong, as Jesus will do all
three of these things later. It’s not a question of what, but why. Here, to
turn the stones to bread would signal that Jesus is not relying on God the
Father to be his strength. Later, when it comes to Jesus showing himself to be
the bread of life given for the life of the world, Jesus does turn five loaves
into enough to feed thousands. The temptation isn’t about bread, it’s about trust
in God. We doubt God and take things into our own hands, whereas Jesus’ faith
does not falter.
The
next temptation is about authority – “You can rule all of creation,” tempts the
devil, “if you will simply worship me.” To be clear, Jesus will claim this
authority at his Ascension. In Matthew, we hear Jesus say “All authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of
all nations.” Jesus’ authority as the Lord over all things comes not as a
result of him taking it by force, but after he has been faithful to the mission
given to him. To take a shortcut would mean there is no Cross and with no Cross
there is no Resurrection, and we would be locked out of everlasting life. It’s
not a temptation about Jesus claiming the authority that belongs to him, it’s
about whether or not he has done what he came to do in establishing the kingdom
of God on earth as it is in heaven. We like shortcuts, even if it’s through the
valley of the shadow of death. Jesus though walks the way of God.
The
third temptation is about physical death – “Throw yourself down from the Temple
in Jerusalem.” Later, Jesus will indeed give up his body in Jerusalem so it’s
not that Jesus is unwilling to face death, rather it is that Jesus knows that
God is not to be mocked or tested. Jesus will face death on the Cross so that when
we face death, we do so following him into the way of eternal life.
The
point of Luke writing this story down for us is so that we know that Jesus
trusted in God even when we do not. As I pointed out, Jesus is identified as a “son
of Adam.” We also, are sons of Eve and daughters of Adam. Our ancestors gave
into temptation in eating the forbidden fruit in Eden, and we give in to
temptation all the time. We seek to fill ourselves with that which does not satisfy
us. But Jesus was faithful and obedient to God and gives himself to us as the
bread of life to nourish in grace and mercy.
Whereas
we want to claim authority over our lives, Jesus remains resolute to the great
Creed of faith: “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Our hearts are idolatrous
and lustful and no amount of self-discipline is going to change that. What
Jesus does is to give us his righteousness, so though our hearts are prone to
wander, we remain in the flock of the Good Shepherd who is always searching for
lost sheep.
When
we are so caviler to tell God how God will act, Jesus is faithfully obedient.
We can so easily be tempted to do things that we ought not to do and to not do
things we really should. We think, “Maybe I shouldn’t do that, but God would
forgive me if I did and no one else would know” or we say, “Lots of people aren’t
coming back to church, and God knows my heart, so I’ll plan to come back later.”
Jesus doesn’t tell God what to do, rather he knows that God is the one who
directs his life. We so often choose death, but in Jesus, God gives us life.
Twice
in these temptations, the devil assaults and slanders Jesus’ identity saying, “If
you are the Son of God.” Jesus has just been Baptized and heard the voice from
heaven declare that. But the slanderer comes and says, “Is that really what you
heard?” Jesus is resolute in his identity as God’s Beloved which allows us to
be resolute in knowing that we have been saved by his love.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, a German pastor in Nazi Germany who was killed in a death camp, once
wrote “Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, thou
knowest, O God, I am thine!” Jesus came to be tempted, to suffer, to die, and
to rise again so that we might live in him. Jesus overcame Sin and defeated
Death because we could not. Those are not our battles to fight. Instead, we are
given the life of grace, the identity as God’s redeemed and beloved children to
enjoy and share the gift of love. If there is anything for us to “do” in
response to this story of Jesus’ temptation, it is to see what has been done
for us so that we can focus on the freedom of love instead of bondage to selfishness,
doubt, and fear.
There’s
a story, really more of a photo than a story, that’s come out of Ukraine this
past week that has absolutely inspired me and shows what it looks like to live
knowing that because of Jesus, all shall be well and that we are to persist in
love. It’s a photo of a priest in Kyiv, Ukraine celebrating the Eucharist in a
bomb shelter. A bishop in Ukraine sent out a video message to the faithful
there saying, “Greetings! We survived yet another horrible night. But after
night there comes day; there is morning. After darkness, there comes light,
just as after death there comes resurrection, which we all today radiantly
celebrate.” And because it is not safe for people to be in the streets, clergy
are being sent into the underground and bomb shelters to bring Communion, the
bread of life, to the people. One priest was quoted as saying “Our life is in God’s
hands.”
Because
Jesus has conquered Sin and destroyed death we can be so bold as to do things
like proclaiming the Resurrection in a warzone, like celebrating the Eucharist
in bomb shelters, like embracing the life of grace, mercy, and love that we
have been given.
