1Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, \u201cIf you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.\u201d 4But he answered, \u201cIt is written,\u00a0 \u2018One does not live by bread alone,\u00a0\u00a0 but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.\u2019\u2006\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, \u201cIf you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,\u00a0 \u2018He will command his angels concerning you,\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 and \u2018On their hands they will bear you up,\u00a0 so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.\u2019\u2006\u201d 7Jesus said to him, \u201cAgain it is written, \u2018Do not put the Lord your God to the test.\u2019\u2006\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, \u201cAll these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.\u201d 10Jesus said to him, \u201cAway with you, Satan! for it is written,\u00a0 \u2018Worship the Lord your God,\u00a0\u00a0 and serve only him.\u2019\u2006\u201d 11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him (Matthew 4:1-11, NRSV).<\/p>\n
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In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/p>\n
Well welcome to this Service of Holy Communion on the First Sunday in Lent.\u00a0 Many of you were here on Ash Wednesday as we began the season of Lent, our 40 days of repentance, prayer, fasting, and works of love leading up to the joy of Easter. But having just come back from a pastor\u2019s retreat two weeks ago, I thought I\u2019d start this morning with the story about the four pastors who were on retreat together in a cabin.<\/p>\n
One night around the fireplace they decided to share with each other their biggest struggle, their greatest temptation.\u00a0 \u201cMy temptation is food,\u201d said the first, \u201cI\u2019m always thinking about what to eat, I\u2019m always gorging myself in secret, it\u2019s really unhealthy, it\u2019s really a problem.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh that\u2019s nothing,\u201d says the next pastor. \u201cMy temptation is gambling, online, at the track, I didn\u2019t even write a sermon last week, I was so busy betting on the ponies.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cMine is worse,\u201d says the third. \u201cI sometimes can\u2019t control the urge to drink, I once even broke into the sacristy to drink the Communion wine, I need to get help.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell mine is worse than all of yours,\u201d says the last.\u00a0 \u201cMy temptation is gossip, I just can\u2019t keep a secret at all. And if you don\u2019t mind I\u2019m just going to step out and make a few phone calls!\u201d<\/p>\n
Lent is the time for us to admit the hard truths about ourselves, to come face to face with the real me, the real you, which is often unpleasant, exposes our sin and need, and is hard for us to see.\u00a0 And so it\u2019s also a time to entrust ourselves to the only help there really is\u2014to God\u2019s merciful care\u2014and to rely on his power as we seek to live lives of faith towards him, and fervent love towards one another.<\/p>\n
Our first lesson this morning tells us the story of the original temptation, the story of Adam and Eve and their fall from grace. God created humankind in his own image and likeness, we\u2019re told, and gave us everything: all of creation to use and to take care<\/p>\n
of–every tree, every fruit, everything we needed he generously provided. \u201cBy the way,\u201d God said, \u201cjust don\u2019t eat of that one tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day you eat of it, you shall die.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe knowledge of good and evil,\u201d which is the ability to be like God, to be in charge of it all without him, to have it all and to know it all, to be him without him!<\/p>\n
And so enters the serpent, the old tempter, with a seemingly innocent question: \u201cDid God really say that?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAre you sure?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m sure he meant something else, why not just have a little taste?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAfter all, you could be like God!\u201d\u00a0 Which is a funny temptation, because that\u2019s how we were made in the first place, lovingly created in God\u2019s image and likeness, given everything, so the tempter tempts us with what we already have! How often does the tempter tempt you with what you already have been given?\u00a0 How often does the tempter appeal to your own insecurities, your wants you think are needs, knowing which buttons in you to push, offering you a counterfeit version of what\u2019s already yours?!<\/p>\n
Eve took and ate, Adam gladly accepted and ate, they both got what they thought they wanted, but when their eyes were open all they saw was their own nakedness, their own separation from God and each other, and they were ashamed.\u00a0 Every time we try and be Lord of our own life, it always seems to end in the same way,<\/p>\n
doesn\u2019t it, with us naked, alone, and ashamed. The fall of Adam and Eve is the story of each one of us, and the story we and heirs to and reenact in our lives over and over.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s another story today, a story of the great undoing, of the great reversal of the fall.\u00a0 Today in the Gospel reading, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted.\u00a0 For God is at work undoing the disaster of the fall, where Adam and Eve and you and I have failed, Jesus has succeeded, and he will turn the fall down into a raising up, he will turn disaster into victory, turn hell into heaven, turn death into life.<\/p>\n
Jesus fasts for 40 days and 40 nights, the original Lent, and at the end he was famished.\u00a0 \u201cThen the tempter came to him,\u201d the Bible says. The tempter, the devil, the evil one.<\/p>\n
Most of us sophisticated, 21st century folks don\u2019t think much about the devil, but when the Bible talks about the devil it never talks about a man with a goatee and a pitchfork and red horns.\u00a0 Instead the Bible is interested in this personal, enticing power, this prince of darkness, this author of lies, this one who subtly and enticingly brings us to question God\u2019s care for us, who knows our vanities and massages them, and through his appeals to our insecurity brings about confusion, despair, anger, violence, bloodshed, corrupting what is best in us, leading us to indifference and hatred of God and each other and his church.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are the Son of God,\u201d the tempter says to Jesus, \u201cif you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seems pretty harmless–Jesus is hungry.\u00a0 No one will miss a few stones.\u00a0 He presumably has the power to make himself some food, so why not?<\/p>\n
Jesus is tempted here to define himself by his own physical needs.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a way you and I are tempted every day.\u00a0 To see ourselves as nothing more than people who need stuff, and depend completely upon ourselves to get it.\u00a0 We are tempted to stuff ourselves and hoard up the food kind of bread.\u00a0 But we also are tempted to stuff ourselves with the green kind of bread, becoming independent self-satisfied kings of our own lives.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the devil wants you and I to define ourselves as\u2014as people who live to get more for ourselves–order some more, buy some more, upgrade some more, fill the void with more. Of course, once you go down that road, there\u2019s never enough, you\u2019ll never have enough bread, and we become like a rat on a treadmill, distracted into running full time for the evil one.<\/p>\n
But Jesus is secure in the fact that God will provide him with the bread that he needs.\u00a0 Jesus quotes Scripture, he knows his Bible: \u201cIt is written, \u2018one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 The thing we need<\/p>\n
most is not a thing, but a Who, God and his Word.\u00a0 Jesus knows this, and for your sake, he overcomes the first temptation.<\/p>\n
Temptation #2:\u00a0 The devil takes Jesus to Jerusalem, and places him high up on the Temple, and says, \u201cThrow yourself down!\u201d\u00a0 The devil has by now learned that Jesus likes Scripture, so the devil quotes some, it\u2019s the song we all love, Psalm 91, \u201cEagles\u2019 Wings.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t you trust the angels will catch you?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The devil is testing Jesus, to see whether he will doubt God\u2019s care for him, and put God to the test.<\/p>\n
And maybe that\u2019s the most dangerous temptation of all.\u00a0 Both for Jesus and for us.\u00a0 For us to wonder, \u201cDoes God really care about me?\u00a0 Little old me?\u00a0 Is he really interested in me, my situation, my hopes, my needs?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t he have better things to do?\u00a0 God couldn\u2019t love me that much, could he?\u201d<\/p>\n
The devil tempts Jesus, and us, to see our lives outside of God\u2019s care, to have us question our identity as God\u2019s beloved sons and daughters.\u00a0 But Jesus answers with Scripture: \u201cDo not put the Lord your God to the test.\u201d Don\u2019t force God\u2019s hand that is already generously taking care of you.\u00a0 For your sake, Jesus overcomes the second temptation.<\/p>\n
Temptation #3:\u00a0 The devil gives Jesus a vision of all the kingdoms of the earth.\u00a0 All the power and majesty of glory in the world!\u00a0 And says, \u201cYou can have complete<\/p>\n
control, have it your way over everything.\u00a0 You can be the master of the universe.\u00a0 And all you have to do is to just bow down for a minute and worship me, the evil one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jesus is tempted with power.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t that our temptation too?\u00a0 To be in charge, to control others, to have it be all about me. And if it takes putting something else over and above our relationship to God, well, that\u2019s just life; you can\u2019t make an omelet without breaking eggs, right?!<\/p>\n
But Jesus won\u2019t do it.\u00a0 He quotes Scripture again, \u201cIt is written, \u2018Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Jesus knows and fulfills that First Commandment: to have no other gods, but to fear, love and trust in God alone. And for your sake, he passes the third temptation.<\/p>\n
We will be tempted this Lent, and we will fail.\u00a0 So we will come face to face with our true selves, our need, and will not always like what we see.\u00a0 But Christ has beaten the tempter, he has undone your fall by raising you up as one of God\u2019s holy and beloved children. And so we can flee to him, trust in him, commit ourselves to him, and rely on his power in our lives: he who can do far more for us than we could ever ask for or imagine.\u00a0 For he did not turn stones into bread, but he will turn bread into his body broken for you, and turn wine into his blood shed for the forgiveness of your sins.\u00a0 He did not throw himself down from a tower, but did give himself in love to hang on the<\/p>\n
Cross for you.\u00a0 And he did not bow down to evil in order to receive all power, but by trusting in God alone has been raised above all things, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.<\/p>\n
Lent is here, temptation is real, but Jesus\u2019 care for you and his power are more real and he is more than able, and will meet you in your life this season.\u00a0 He who loves you, and gave himself for you, will bring you safely through these 40 days, and carry you through every stumble and every temptation, so that together we may enter into that Easter feast that lasts forever.<\/p>\n
And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.<\/p>\n
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