Göttinger Predigten
Göttinger Predigten im Internet hg. von U. Nembach
First Sunday in Lent , 03/01/2020
A Blessing in Disguise
Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11, by Paul C. Sizemore
Many Christians expect to sing “A Mighty Fortress,” on the last Sunday of October, if they are remembering the Protestant Reformation. Why? Because it was a bold move on Father Martin’s part to nail his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, hoping to provoke some debate among his Roman Catholic colleagues; debate especially on the Church’s practice of the “Selling of Indulgences” 503 years ago.
But maybe you have noticed also that “A Mighty Fortress” has also become adopted, the world-over, as the “Hymn of the Day” on the “First Sunday in Lent.”
It’s appropriate that we sing this great hymn today, because our Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, proved himself to be absolutely victorious in the face of every temptation, Satan placed before him, during those 40 days out there in the wilderness. Jesus was doing exactly what St. Paul encourages us to do: “Wielding the Sword of the Spirit,” which is the “Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17)1
It is appropriate that we give our most humble and hearty thanks to our Heavenly Father on this day—because Jesus as the “Second Adam” did for us what the “first Adam” failed to do! Moreover, Jesus did these things primarily for our benefit and not his own.
(1) Yes, Jesus provides us with a powerful example to follow!
(2) But far more importantly—he did for us that which we never could have done for ourselves—fulfilling the law of God perfectly for us on our behalf!
According to tradition, Martin Luther wrote this great hymn ten years after he had nailed those Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg!
He wrote it sometime after April 22, 1527—because it was on that particular Sunday—as Martin Luther was preaching the Gospel—he felt forced to stop preaching right in the middle sermon— because of a great “dizzy spell” that had overcome him that day.
A few weeks later, when Luther regained his strength and stamina—he wanted the whole world to know—what he wholeheartedly believed—that any strength; any real strength that had ever come to him throughout his life—with which he faced the biggest problems and confronted the greatest challenges that ever came to him in life—was a strength that came to him 100% by the grace of God.
As we read about the temptation experiences of Christ in our Gospel lesson this morning (Matthew 4:1-11), we are told that Jesus was hungry!
Yes, he was God incarnate—God who had taken upon himself our human flesh and blood, but he was also true Man—that is—really human!
Sometimes when people miss a meal or two, we might hear them say—that they feel like they are going to die! So how can we even begin to imagine how Jesus must have felt, out there in the wilderness, after spending forty days and forty nights without food?
Temptation One – Command Stones to Become Bread!
But you see—it is precisely at this moment, when according to Jesus’ human nature—that he was at his weakest moment—that Satan comes to him to tempt him saying: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (v. 3)!
Was Jesus capable of commanding stones to become loaves of bread? Was this within the realm of Jesus’ own miraculous power? Most certainly Jesus could do this—
when we stop and remember that on several occasions, he later fed thousands of people with a very limited food supply, five loaves of bread and two fishes.
Why did Jesus’ resist this temptation?
He certainly did not want to give us the idea that so many people live with today—that so long as our physical needs are being met—that we therefore have 100% of everything we will ever need, to know the joy of our living out a full and “abundant life,” here, in this world (John 10:10)!
Therefore, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3: “Behold, it is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (v. 4)!
This verse that Jesus references is originally God’s command through Moses to the children of Israel—to stop doing something which they had continually done!
This was to stop lodging their complaining against Moses and the LORD God for having brought them out of Egypt, out of slavery into freedom!
Even though the people of Israel tested and doubted God’s care and provision, Jesus as the “New Israel” would not! Jesus would not doubt or become presumptuous with respect to his Heavenly Father!
Temptation Two – Throw Yourself Down from the Pinnacle of the Temple!
Secondly, Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle (top) of the temple and challenged him—to see if he really did trust in God the Heavenly Father to preserve his life in the face of danger as the Second Adam.
Satan tells Jesus: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “’On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone’” (v. 11)!
The second temptation was actually quite simple: “Throw yourself down and let God your Heavenly Father catch you right before splatter your guts all over the ground! And to up the “ante” Satan even quotes a passage from the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures to fortify the foolish challenge he is now setting before the Son of God!
Yes, Satan knows the Bible far better than most of us will ever come to know it—but one of his primary strategies in his constant attempt to wreck our human lives—is to twist the words of Scripture, to misquote the Bible, therefore making it say something that the Bible never intended to say at all!
Therefore, Satan now quotes Psalm 91:11: “He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone!”
But wouldn’t you know it! Just like he always does—he misconstrued this Bible passage by omitting the second half of verse 11, where the psalmist writes: “For he will command his angels concerning you—TO GUARD YOU IN ALL YOUR WAYS!”
“To guard you in all your ways”—is not to do something as foolish as to throw yourself physically down to the ground from a lofty place, expecting God to send his angels to catch you; especially without a parachute to slow you down!
Once again, Jesus responds to the devil’s temptation by taking up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Jesus answers Satan directly by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16 to him: “It is written again, ‘You shall not put the LORD your God to the test’” (v. 7)!
I can’t help but wonder if there are not still, sometimes today, when certain people may fall prey to this same kind of temptation—when they find say that their lives are so dull and boring, that
they have chosen to participate in something that in more recent years has become classified as “EXTREME SPORTS.”
They say that they experience a great adrenaline rush, when suddenly, they find themselves “living on the edge,” as they like to characterize it!
Extreme sports are contests and activities that often involve speed, height, a high level of physical exertion and a highly specialized gear!
Perhaps these kinds of extreme sports might involve offshore powerboat racing, wakeboarding, water skiing, air gliding, motorcycle racing, rallying, Motocross and the like!
Temptation Three – Fall Down and Worship Me!
In his third temptation, we are told that Satan brings our Lord Jesus to an exceedingly high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. He then says to our Savior: “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me” (v. 9)!
Brothers and sisters, Satan’s pride here is beyond arrogance! Just think of it, the creature Satan, though powerful and once highly exalted, suggests that he is worthy to be worshiped by Christ and that he would generously give back—what was not his to give away—in the first place, to its rightful owner!
In this temptation, Satan was also tempting Jesus to veer away completely from the cross! And doesn’t this help us to better understand those seemingly harsh words of Jesus to Peter, when immediately after Jesus had told his disciples that it was the Father’s will for him, as the Son of Man, to go up to Jerusalem, to suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, that he would be crucified there and raised to new life again on the third day—that Peter’s immediate response to Jesus was: “God forbid, Lord, this shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22)!
You remember how Jesus responded! He looked at Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matthew 16:21-23).
Jesus was calling Peter “Satan” but was inferring, perhaps, that Satan was now using Peter’s voice as his own mouthpiece!
Brothers and sisters, have you ever had one of those times when something in your life happened to you that seemed to be so terrible at the time, but later came to believe that our merciful God brought some blessing to you out of that bad experience (Romans 8:28)?
Maybe therefore you later said to yourself: “It turned out to be a blessing in disguise!”
Similarly, we call “Good Friday” good, not because we are insensitive to our Savior’s great suffering and passion, but because it turned out to be so good for us and also because the word “good” is actually derived from the word “God” who is always the Source of all good things in this life!
This time of Jesus’ temptations turned to be a blessing in disguise, perhaps for him also, because he emerged from that experience with a deep sense of victory that he had won the battle against Satan on the devil’s own playing field.
But it also is a great blessing in disguise for us too!
Without that experience, the writer of Hebrew could never have written those lovely, comforting and powerful words to us: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15)!
So please let me close my sermon this morning by bringing to your attention an old spiritual song, a “Mountain Spiritual” it’s sometimes called here in the USA, because it was originally sung among those people who enjoyed life in the Appalachian Mountains and who enjoyed that great of “Blue Grass” music.
The song I have in mind today is entitled: “Jesus walked this Lonesome Valley!”
For certainly the first part of this song is true enough!
It goes something like this: Jesus walked this lonesome valley!
He had to walk it by himself! Oh, nobody else could walk it for him; he had to walk it by himself!
This verse does a pretty good job of describing the spiritual truth we have just heard in our Gospel lesson today – the story of Jesus, alone in the wilderness, enduring those temptations of the devil!
But there is another similar segment to this song in that old mountain spiritual that goes like this—and with it I must express my profound disagreement.
That verse goes like this:
“You’ve got to walk this lonesome valley! You’ve got to walk it by yourself! Oh, nobody else can walk it for you! You’ve got to walk it by yourself!”
The good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that this is no longer true for us at all—in our relationship with the Triune God—because of what the Holy Son of God has endured for all of us!
Because of Jesus, his perfect life, his death and bloody, unjust crucifixion, we will never have to go through all the trials and troubles of this life, simply relying upon ourselves!
Listen to these wonderful words from Psalm 139, where the psalmist prays the following words to our God: Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light about me be night!” Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you!
This is also the great truth we sing about in another favorite hymn of many people!
“Have we trials and temptations, is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged! Take it to the Lord! Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer. In his arms he’ll take and shield you! You will find a solace there!”
AMEN