Lent 1
Mt.
4:1-11
2/17/13
It was another thrilling ending to
the Super Bowl two weeks ago as the Baltimore Ravens made a defensive stand at
the goal line in order to hold on to victory against the San Francisco
49ers. In recent memory the Super Bowls
have been one great game after another, so much so that it hard to believe that
there was a time when Super Bowl meant “super blowout.” Year after year there was the huge hype for
the Super Bowl, and year after year one team just destroyed the other in a game
that was completely boring by the second half.
Denver Broncos quarterback John
Elway was on the wrong end of three of those blow outs in the span of four
years between 1987 and 1990. In 1987
Elway and the Broncos lost 39 to 20 to the New York Giants. The next year the Broncos were back in the
Super Bowl where they lost 42 to 10 to the Washington Redskins. And then, two
years later in 1990 they played in the Super Bowl and lost 55 to 10 to the San
Francisco 49ers. It is the nature of the
position that quarterbacks get the credit when success occurs and the blame
when there is failure. John Elway became
a poster boy for Super Bowl futility. He
was saddled with the shameful label that he wasn’t able “to win the big one.”
The Broncos fell on hard times and
in 1992 their long time coach Dan Reeves was fired. A new era began a few years later as Mike
Shanahan became the coach. With him
arrived a new running back, Terrell Davis, and a new zone blocking scheme. In the waning years of his career Elway was
no longer asked to be the gunslinger who carried the team. Instead the Bronco’s power running game set
up his effective passing.
In 1998 John Elway and the Broncos
were back in the Super Bowl as underdogs against the Green Bay Packers. However, this new version of the Broncos won
an exciting game 31 to 24 and gave Elway his first Super Bowl ring. They
returned to the Super Bowl the next year and won again. Elway then retired after winning back to back
Super Bowls. He completely changed his
legacy as now he is remembered as a Super Bowl champion quarterback.
In our Gospel lesson today we see
Jesus Christ being tempted by the devil.
Our Old Testament lesson is intentionally paired with the Gospel for
there we see Adam tempted by the devil and sinning in the Fall. Here at the
start of Lent we see these two figures involved in spiritual conflict – Adam
and Jesus. Like John Elway and the
Broncos, the first time around there is dismal failure. Yet in the second encounter there is a significant
change as Jesus Christ wins the victory.
This victory points forward to the final victory which Jesus has won in
his death and resurrection. And like
John Elway, this victory has completely changed the legacy of all who believe
in Christ.
Our Gospel lesson begins by saying,
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the
devil.” The word “then” is very
important because it links the temptation to what has just happened. What has taken place is the baptism of Jesus –
an event that we observed during Epiphany.
There Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. As he emerged from the water the heavens were
opened to him; the Spirit of God descended like a dove and came to rest on him;
and God the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The descent of the Spirit upon Jesus and the
words of the Father identified Jesus as the Servant of the Lord – the One who
would be the suffering Servant. In his
baptism Jesus Christ stepped into our shoes and took his place for us.
Now immediately after this event in
which Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit leads Jesus into the
wilderness for a reason. He leads him
there into order to be tempted by the
devil. Jesus Christ has begun the
mission to take humanity’s place. He
goes to set right what has gone wrong.
In order to do this he must face the devil’s temptation to ignore the
Father’s will. And he does all this
because the first time around, things didn’t turn out so well.
We hear about that first time in our
Old Testament lesson. Created in God’s
image as the perfect complement for one another, Adam and Eve lived in complete
fellowship with God as they dwelt in the paradise he had created – the Garden
of Eden. God had made them masters and
stewards of this creation as they lived in perfect harmony with one
another. He had given them only one word
– one thing by which they showed that they were creatures and he was the
Creator. He told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, because if they did so, they would die.
The devil came to Eve in the form of
the serpent with a plan. He had come to
make Eve doubt God’s word. When Eve
corrected him and said they could eat of any tree, just not the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil or else they would die, he said, “You will not
surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and
you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The devil said that God was holding out on them – that Adam and Eve
could become so much more. And Eve
believed him. When Eve saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a
delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she
took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to Adam who was with her, and
he ate.
And in that moment they realized the
horrible mistake they had made. They had
sinned and because of that sin everything had changed. The terrible extent of
that change became clear as God told them what things would now be like. The relationship between Adam and Eve –
between man and woman – would now be one of tension and strife. Life would be one of pain and hardship. And life would end – they would die.
This is the life we inhabit. We have
it from the moment we are conceived. We are people who doubt God’s word. We don’t trust him in our lives because we
think we have a better plan and we get angry at him when things don’t go
according to that plan. Our
relationships – and especially our marriages – are marred by tension and strife
because we are too busy thinking about ourselves, instead of what we can do to
support and encourage our spouse. Worse than that, we can’t seem to learn when
to let things go – we hang on to the ways that we think we have been wronged. We ignore the fact that by doing so we are
just making our own lives miserable.
This is the life that the Son of God
entered into in the incarnation. He was
the second time around – the chance to redeem humanity from the slavery of sin
and death. He was like us in all ways,
yet without sin. He wasn’t fallen like
us, but he lived in this fallen world and experienced all of the suffering it
had to offer. And in order to fulfill his saving mission he had to face the
temptation of the devil, just as Adam and Eve had.
He experienced this world’s
suffering. We see this in the first temptation of our Gospel lesson. We learn, “And after fasting forty days and
forty nights, he was hungry.” To which I say, “Yeah, I bet he was!” And it was then that the devil came and said
to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of
bread.” Now there is no question here about whether Jesus is the Son of God or
not. Whenever the demons meet Jesus they
know exactly who he is – they just can’t figure out why he is there and it is
not yet the Last Day.
The devil’s statement really means since you are the Son of God. You’re the
Son of God. You have the power. So use it to make your life easier. Serve yourself. But the devil here is really
playing the same old game – the same plan that he used on Adam and Eve. The
Father has sent Jesus with the mission of being the suffering Servant for us.
That’s what his baptism was all about.
The devil wants the Son to doubt the Father’s Word. He wants the Son to conclude that there is
something better out there than what the Father has given him to experience and
do.
Yet Jesus does
not waiver. He holds on to God’s Word and says, “It is written, ‘Man shall not
live by bread alone,
but by every
word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Next the devil and Jesus are off to
the pinnacle of the temple. The
challenge is, “Do something dramatic that will draw attention to you – the kind
of attention you deserve as the Son of God.”
But this is not what the Father has given the Son to do, and so Jesus
responds with God’s Word: “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord
your God to the test.’”
And finally it is off to a high
mountain where the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their
glory, and says to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and
worship me.” The devil invites Jesus to
submit to him instead of the Father. The
Father offers service, suffering and death.
The devil offers all the good stuff now
with no suffering. But Jesus won’t be
tricked. He won’t disobey. He won’t take
the easy way in order to serve himself. He said to the devil, “Be gone, Satan!
For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you
serve.’”
Jesus, the Son of God overcomes the
devil and his temptations. But this is
merely the opening round of a struggle that does not reach its culmination
until Jesus has arrived at the means by which he frees us from the sin and
death that Adam and Eve brought into the world. Jesus said of the mission given
to him by the Father, “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and
to give his life as a ransom for many.”
On
Good Friday Jesus hangs on a cross. And
there, from the jeering crowds below we hear an echo of the devil’s words in
the temptation – because they really are his
words. They say, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the
cross.” To the very end the temptation
is: Use your power!; Show who you are!; Don’t stay on the course of suffering!
But
where the first Adam was defeated and brought us sin and death, Jesus Christ
the second Adam wins the victory by dying.
He is obedient unto death – even death on a cross. By this death he wins
forgiveness for us. And by his
resurrection he defeats death. He is the
true second Adam because he is the beginning of what we will be when he returns
in glory.
The
second time around has changed everything for us. It has changed our present
because now we are the forgiven children of God. It has changed our future because we are able
to look forward to the day when we will share in Jesus’ resurrection and life
in the renewed creation – in paradise as this creation was intended to be.
But
those aren’t the only thing it changes. It also changes the way we live – what
we do and say. And just like Jesus, this
change receives its foundation in our baptism. Jesus’ saving ministry – his
mission to serve us – began at his baptism.
And it is through your baptism that the Holy Spirit has joined you to our
Lord’s saving work. There you were born
again of water and the Spirit. There, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead
began his work in you – a work that will reach its final conclusion when you
share in the resurrection on the Last Day.
The
Spirit brings the resurrection power of Jesus into the lives of believers so
that as they look in faith towards God’s gift of baptism they are able more and
more to live in the ways of Jesus – to live in the way of service, and love,
and forgiveness. The results may be
imperfect now because until the Last Day we are still people who bear the old
Adam. But as we believe in the Spirit’s
work through baptism and want live as one who is in Christ, he provides the
ability to be “little Christs” to our spouse, our children and our neighbor.
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