SERMON FOR MARCH 1, 2020 THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS (FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT) TEXT: MATTHEW 4:1-11

The order of readings for the liturgical year can be confusing. It begins with Advent, leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus at Christmas. But the texts for the first Sundays in Advent direct us to the second coming before the first has even occurred. After Christmas comes Epiphany, which opens with the story of the magi traveling to see the holy child. The theme for the Sundays of that season is the revelation of who Jesus is. The texts this year included his baptism, the call of the first disciples, the preaching of the Beatitudes and, on the last Sunday of the season, the transfiguration. The consistent theme requires some jumping around in the chronology of Jesus’ story.

Now on this first Sunday of the new liturgical season, Lent, we back up to where we were in early January, when we celebrated the baptism of Jesus. “And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17). Now that very Spirit of God leads Jesus into the wilderness, which in the Scriptures is a place of isolation and danger and promise. Here a person will either perish or be transformed. In this region apart there is literally no escaping one’s demons.

It is striking that God does not put Jesus to the test before acknowledging him as the beloved Son. It is not a matter of him proving himself worthy of this exalted title. God has already claimed him, sealed him with the power of the Spirit, given voice to the love that binds them. Now in the wilderness Jesus has the first defining experience of what this relationship requires of him, keeping faith with the Father who has promised to be faithful, keeping faith for the sake of his human brothers and sisters who fail to do so.

Forty days and forty nights he fasts in the wilderness until, Matthew tells us, “he was famished.” You can’t help but hear echoes of the experience of the people of Israel, who, after the exodus from Egypt, wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Food insufficiency was an issue for them as well. They wondered if God had led them out of bondage only to let them die in this desolate place, with no sight of the Promised Land on the horizon. According to the Book of Exodus, “The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Exodus16:2-3). And the Lord heard their complaint and rained bread from heaven (Exodus 16:4).

The Israelites fell prey to fear and anxiety. They doubted and protested; they challenged God repeatedly. Even their great leader Moses, who joined Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, faltered in his trust of the Lord. The Book of Deuteronomy makes this clear. It records a fateful meeting between God and Moses, near the time of the latter’s death, where God holds his servant accountable for having broken “faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites” (Deuteronomy 32:31).

The lectionary pairs the stories of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness with that of Adam and Eve in paradise for good reason. The contrast between the testing of the first Adam and that of the second is the difference between the fall and redemption. The serpent sought to come between the first humans and God. He created uncertainty in their minds and caused them to question God’s good intention. So they reached for the power the serpent offered and overreached themselves. “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of the fruit your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman 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 her husband, who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened . . . .” The irony is that now they do know good and evil, but that knowledge makes them and their descendants neither wise nor righteous.

Now we come to Jesus, the second Adam, led by the Spirit into the wilderness to confront the one who brought the first Adam to ruin. His opponent taunts him with the words, “If you are the Son of God . . . .” He knows exactly who he is. Jesus’ status as the Son of God is not in question, but the kind of son he will be is. How will he carry out the work entrusted to him by his Father? How will he represent his Father to the world?

The devil seeks to mold his character through his testing. He looks for a point of weakness or uncertainty in Jesus, just as he did with Adam and Eve. He appeals to his vanity and his need: “Change these stones into bread.” You can do it, Jesus, and why shouldn’t you? You’re famished. He encourages Jesus to put God to the test: “”Throw yourself down” and see if the angels rescue you.

Then the tempter makes the same fateful proposal he did in the Garden of Eden — he offers to give what he implies God withholds. To Adam it was the knowledge of good and evil that would make him like God. To Jesus it is unbounded power over all the nations of the earth: “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” As if the kingdoms of the world were his to give! But Jesus is not seduced by Satan’s alternative universe. Once again, he rejects him without hesitation, citing the scriptural commandment to worship the Lord your God and serve only him. At the outset Jesus has faced the temptations his ministry will bring him again and again, right up to the hour of his death, when his enemies mock him, saying, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross . . . . He trusts in God, let God deliver him now, if he wants to, for he said, ‘I am God’s Son” (Matthew 27:40, 43). Jesus does not waver. The devil departs; the ministering angels appear.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin,” the Book of Hebrews tells us. “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:1-16). Keeping faith with God who has promised to be faithful has always come hard to God’s people; unwavering obedience has never even their strong suit. As one New Testament scholar powerfully describes it, we live in “that space between the assurance of faith and when trusting God is the hardest thing we have ever done. . . . “ The season of Lent reminds us that “we are all in the wilderness together, suspended between certitude and suspicion, between truth and distrust, between identity and lostness — and with the good and steadfast company of Jesus and the angels of heaven.” Amen.