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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Our text for this morning’s sermon comes from the gospel lesson, Luke chapter 4. You may be seated.
The old evil foe now means deadly woe. Deep guile and great might are his dread arms in fight. But for us fights the valiant one whom God himself elected. Ask ye, who is this? Jesus Christ it is, of Sabaoth Lord, and there’s none other God. He holds the field forever.
Similar images of warfare and battle come up frequently during Lent and Holy Week and even into Easter. Here are just a few lines from hymns that may be familiar to you: “Sing my tongue the glorious battle, sing the ending of the fray.” Or around Easter, these words: “It was a strange and dreadful strife when life and death contended.” Or “The strife is o’er, the battle done,” or “Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous.”
These hymns depict battle scenes as if a war is raging, a cosmic conflict between good and evil, between sin and grace, between death and life, between God and our old evil foe, Satan. Other hymns during the church year may bring to mind our own presence in this battle, words like, “By all your saints in warfare.” And so we find ourselves in Lent, reflecting on this battle, this warfare, between the forces of goodness and light and the forces of evil and darkness.
Our gospel lesson for today is sort of an opening melee in our Lenten reflection on this battle, the devil tempting Jesus in the wilderness, this first confrontation between Jesus and Satan during Christ’s earthly ministry.
Now, this wasn’t the first time that Satan had sought to bring to nothing God’s plan of salvation. Through the evil King Herod, Satan had worked to preempt any of this ministry from ever happening in the first place by ordering Herod to kill all the boys under two years of age living in Bethlehem. A cruel, an evil, a cowardly opening move to be sure. But here it’s a face-to-face meeting, mano a mano, if you will, both sides armed with words. Satan’s words against God’s. Here we witness Satan trying to convince Jesus to deviate from the plan, deviate from the will of his Father.
“Jesus, this would be so much easier if you would just fill in the blank.” Really? This is going to be successful? Throwing words, throwing some of God’s words twisted, throwing them back at God? What was Satan thinking, do you suppose? The New Testament tells us repeatedly that the demons know who Jesus is; this is God. How could Satan be so foolish as to think he could defeat the Son of God with a battle of words?
Now some question whether or not Satan really knew who Jesus was at this point. Perhaps Satan’s just sort of feeling out his foe. And when you think about it, Satan has a pretty good track record. A pretty good track record of turning these flesh-and-blood humans against God. He turned the first humans against God with just a few well-chosen words. Satan used their senses and their minds and their wills against them. The fruit of the garden looked pretty good to eat. And if it makes us as wise as God, well, who wouldn’t want that?
It wasn’t that hard for Satan, it seems. Not too hard to turn these flesh-and-blood creatures against their creator. He’d been doing it for a long time. So perhaps, just maybe, this Son of God would be no different. I wonder if Satan assumed that this whole incarnation thing was just a huge tactical blunder, a misstep to become part of the creation, the creation that so easily rebels against its maker. Perhaps Satan thought that it’s being flesh and blood that makes them susceptible to me. Anyway, he thought it was worth a shot. If he could turn the Son here and now in the desert when he was weak, perhaps the war would be over before it even began.
Consider what are the nature of these satanic attacks. The first temptation, it isn’t really a temptation to sin, is it? Jesus is hungry. How bad could it be to make a little bread? It’s easy enough to do. It’s certainly not a sin to have a bite to eat, but is that why Jesus came? To use his power to take care of himself? He would not make himself bread to eat there in the desert. He would, however, feed 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish. He would, however, give his life and become the bread of life for us and give us his body to eat and his blood to drink.
Consider the third temptation, throwing himself down to let the angels catch him. What’s wrong with that? He’s the Son of God. After all, he will be taken care of. That’s the angel’s job. Prove it. Show it. What is Satan’s plan here? The question is, what kind of Savior is this Jesus going to be? If this is really the Son of God, is he going to use his power for himself to produce impressive-looking tricks, or is it for a higher purpose? Is he going to demonstrate through random acts of the supernatural how great he is? Or is there something else that he’s come to do?
And finally, consider the second temptation, to bow down and worship Satan. Now clearly, worshiping anything other than God is a sinful act, but the devil’s approach is a little more cunning and tricky than at first glance. If God really wants to reclaim all the people in the world for himself, which Satan rightly assumes is the plan, wants to release the world from Satan’s grip, Satan’s providing an easy way to make that happen. The devil will give it all up, give up all of his claims, his claims on you and his claims on me, if only Jesus will take this one little itty-bitty step and bow down and worship him. Take the easy way out, Jesus. I’ll give you what you want.
I think many of the temptations we face are equally cunning. I suppose Satan does tempt us to blatant sins sometimes, and sometimes we freely go along, but those sins are usually quite evident after the fact. We often realize those gross sins in ourselves that we’ve committed, or someone who cares about us may point them out. It’s the subtle ones that are more problematic, I think. Often those sins that request God’s glory to show forth in our lives, or those attacks on our understanding of who God is and what his promises are. Those can be much more effective. They may go something like this: if God is really on your side, how does he allow this to happen to you? Or you clearly love God and seek his will; certainly, you deserve more than this from him. Look at all you’ve sacrificed for God, what have you gotten out of it? God loves you, so let’s see him use his power in your life. God doesn’t mean for you to suffer; he just wants you to be happy.
Certainly, God doesn’t mean for you to love that person with their toxic personality. Did God really say that all things work together for the good of those who love him? How can a little bit of water sprinkled on your head decades ago really do anything? Bow down to me, where of course me never looks like a red pointy-tailed demon. Bow down to me, and this situation will be so much easier. Satan wants to change your mind about God. He wants you to look for the easy way out. He wants you to doubt God’s care for you, and when the easy way out doesn’t come, he wants to question God’s love for you. He wants to destroy your faith. Anything he can do to bend your will towards yourself and away from the God who loves you, well, that’s a win in his book.
His warfare against us may be a full-frontal assault from time to time, but more often, I suspect, it’s clandestine, behind the scenes, and subtle, manipulating us in ways we don’t even recognize. But Jesus, he knows better than we do. The way of salvation and the way of mercy is never the easy way out. Jesus didn’t choose the easy way out. He didn’t use his power and glory in the desert, and he didn’t use his power and glory to come down from the cross. He didn’t bow down and worship Satan to forego the suffering, but instead he went the way of the cross, instead of the way of glory.
He would truly free humanity, not by bowing down and worshipping Satan, but by paying the penalty for our sin on the cross. He defeated Satan here in the desert, and he would ultimately and completely defeat him from the cross, not succumbing or surrendering to temptation, but by fighting, fighting that liar with his last dying breath, fulfilling the will of his Father.
And do we see victory all around us? Does what we see in this world just scream out that God has won? It often looks like the war is not going God’s way. We see strife; we see corruption. We see immorality seeming to win the day around us, maybe even in our own hearts. We see death, and death always looks like it has had the last word. When we see death, it looks like death has won, but these are but skirmishes, skirmishes in a war that is already over.
The war has been won for you by Christ. Satan has lost utterly and completely. His power over us sinners is defeated on the cross. Death’s grip on you has been vanquished by the open tomb through Christ’s glorious resurrection. Our victory has been won. The kingdom remains ours; Satan can harm us none. One little word can fell that liar. In our gospel lesson, Jesus defeats Satan in the desert with a word, with his word, with God’s word, and that word is available to us as well.
Paul writes to the Ephesians that we are to put on the full armor of God to withstand the assaults of the devil. We are armed with God’s Word and His promises, the promise that the victory is ours. Satan left Jesus in the wilderness that day and went away until a more opportune time. That time would come, that time when the world and even Jesus’ closest friends would forsake Him, a time when Jesus would feel forsaken by the Father Himself.
And Satan and his temptations will come upon us at times that Satan deems to be opportune, and Satan may win a battle against us here and there, but Christ’s victory over him is complete. It’s done. It is finished. The war is over. Satan has lost. The victory is yours. Continue to turn in repentance and faith to the one who has won the victory for you.
Ask ye, who is this? Jesus Christ it is, of Sabaoth Lord, and there’s none other God. He holds the field forever.
In Jesus’ name, and the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
