March 1, 2020
First Sunday in Lent
Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father
and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Matthew 4:3
And the tempter came and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of
bread."
Throughout this
season of Lent, in our preparation for the Easter festival, we will have Holy
Communion in every Sunday service. Now I suppose that many of you haven’t even
noticed a certain something about our communion services, so let me point out
the fact to you that church is a few minutes longer when we have communion. One
way in which the service is longer is that for Communion services we usually
use the Nicene Creed, and it has a few extra words, not in the Apostles’ Creed.
For instance, when we talk about God The Father, maker of heaven and earth, the
Nicene Creed has these extra words, and of all things visible and invisible.
It’s a little longer, but it does us good to regularly remind ourselves and
remind each other that our faith is this: there is more to reality than what is
visible, what can be seen. In fact, we could even say that there is more real
that we cannot see than what we can see.
The gospel
reading today describes temptation by the Devil. That is usually part of the
hidden, invisible life we live. We don’t usually see the devil, his works and
his ways remain hidden. So we have here an interesting story, an educational
story from the life of Jesus Christ, but more significantly we have here a
warning that there is in the invisible realm a danger. The old evil foe now means deadly woe. Deep guile and great might are
his dread arms in fight. On earth is not his equal.
It is the
devil’s desire to tempt us, to watch us sin, and to bring our ruin upon us. He
wants you to fail.
We are reading
through some selected Psalms these days of Lent. Some of these passages talk
about enemies. Like yesterday, we read Psalm 18, by David, which has these
verses:
Psalm 18:46-48
The Lord lives,
and blessed be my rock,
and exalted be
the God of my salvation—
[47] the God who
gave me vengeance
and subdued
peoples under me,
[48] who delivered
me from my enemies;
yes, you
exalted me above those who rose against me;
you rescued me
from the man of violence.
David was a man
of war. He was a king during a time when Israel had many enemies around them,
and within the kingdom there were enemies, even in David's own family that
fought against him. Can you relate to these Psalms? Do you have enemies? Is
there a Goliath in your life that comes to mind when you pray these Psalms?
Maybe there is. But I think a lot of us have to say, “no, I don’t really have
any enemies that are actively trying to kill me and seek my ruin.” And, if you’re
honest with yourself, you might have to consider that the so-called enemy that
comes to mind is someone with whom you should be reconciled. It is very rare
that we have a situation like David and Goliath, where one side is completely
righteous and the other side is completely wicked. Usually in our conflicts,
there is fault on both sides and the conflict continues because of stubbornness.
In such cases, do not pray against your enemies like David. Pray for
your enemies and hear God’s command to work toward reconciliation. Make things
right.
Ephesians
chapter 6 teaches us how to think about things like this. It says, For our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of
this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
The enemies that
you and I have to pray against are of that invisible realm which we confess and
believe in. Our enemies are against us not just to take our money, or
reputation from us, not just “goods, fame, child and wife”. Our enemies would
seek to destroy our eternal soul.
Considering what
is at stake, we ought to happily take a few extra minutes to receive the means
of grace, the means God gives us to be saved from the devil.
So let’s get
back to Matthew chapter 4 and Jesus temptation by the enemy. Can you picture
the scene? It’s rather easy to picture because it’s described so well. You can
picture this conversation between the devil and Jesus. But it’s strange though,
isn’t it? This is Jesus, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Holy
Spirit is one God, Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and all things,
visible and invisible. Here is the creator, being tempted by a creature.
It’s part of his
humiliation, which we recently studied in the middle school catechism class.
Jesus when he became human, in the incarnation, was in this state of
humiliation. How humiliating it was, to become flesh, and have the weaknesses
of flesh and the temptations of the flesh. The desires of the flesh include
hunger, essentially the desire to stay alive. And with all of the flesh’s desires
comes the temptation to meet the desires in the easiest way, the quickest way. Here,
just make some bread.
Further on, the
tempter suggests Jesus take the easier way out. “Don’t go through humiliation.
Come to my side and receive the glory you want. Not the humility of the cross
but all the glory and power of all the kingdoms of the world.”
Jesus said “no”
to that temptation. And every temptation.
All the way to the cross. The devil in tempting Him so, was trying to steer Him
away from the cross. But Jesus was resolute and kept going the difficult,
painful road to the cross. He would not take the easy way out. He would go all
the way to death, because that’s what He had to do for you. With you in mind,
He had to say no to the devil’s tempting offer.
So you can
imagine the scene with Jesus and the devil. So likewise, imagine the scene where
the devil would work on you next time.
I think a lot of
times Christians feel stupid in times of temptation. They say internally to
themselves. “Oh, come on! I’m a Christian. I’ve been redeemed, sanctified. I
had to memorize the whole catechism! I know better. Why should I be tempted? I
shouldn’t be feeling this way or even considering such horrible things.”
Understand what
is going on. In temptation you are with Jesus, “who in every respect has been
tempted as we re, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
Matthew 4:11,
the last line of the Gospel reading today says this:
Then the devil
left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
Those same angels are looking after us,
invisibly. We say as much every time we confess the maker of heaven and earth,
and all things visible and invisible.
The same angels
and the same faith. Jesus believed that the
cross was the way to go. The devil’s distractions were not worth comparing to
the purposes of Jesus and His Father. Jesus understood what was going on.
So by faith in
Jesus and His cross, understand what is going on when you are tempted. And
remember your Savior.
Hebrews 4:16 --
Let us then with
confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find
grace to help in time of need.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment