This morning, we have a text about Jesus’ Temptation in the desert. The Devil’s temptation of Jesus in the desert isn’t about these peripheral things that we usually associate with temptation. No, he knows just where to point his finger. The Devil knows that at the heart of every temptation is the temptation of all temptations, to distrust the Word of The Lord itself.
When does he strike? At the worst possible moments. At the moments of lack. At the moments when we feel like we have been sucked dry of life.
Parched and dry.
As we begin this season of Lent, we recognize that not everything is always lush and green. Not always in our lives do we experience pure joy of having everything right before you. Like tables set with all of the finest things.
Sometimes, life is dry. No I don’t mean like my sense of humor. It’s dry because it’s like the life has been sucked out of us. Being abandoned in Death Valley. There is a reason why it’s called Death Valley, hardly anything at all can live out there. Only the hard shelled creatures with rough exteriors. Only cactus with needles that poke live in the desert. And sights of water and oases are mirages.
Sometimes, we feel like the way to describe our relationship with God is not like the living and breathing God of life. This can lead us to ask some pretty interrogating questions of God.
Maybe you ask, where was God when I lost my loved one? Or where was God when I needed him most? Or where was God when I prayed for healing and it didn’t happen? Those are all real questions that real people ask and they often demand and answer. And it is in those times, that is when the Christian faces temptation.
The Devil knows that he has to aim his poking finger right at the heart of your life. He knows that he has to point to the word of God itself if he is to succeed in his temptation.
Ancient Israel, when they were out in the wilderness, they were tempted to give up on the Lord’s providence. Over and over again. The Lord the Lord had done this great act of salvation by bringing them out of slavery to the Egyptians. And What happens? They murmur. They complain about not having food and the Lord gives them manna. Even when the Lord continually provides for them with manna and quail from heaven, water from a rock. In those moments, Israel continually fails. God’s own people, the people whom he has saved, these people continually fail to trust that the Lord who saved them will bring them to the land. They worship idols, let alone the golden calf in the place of God. It all culminates when the Lord tells them to go and take the land, but they fear and disobey the Lord. The Israelites in the desert in temptation was a failure on their part.
Our Lord is baptized in the Jordan, He associates himself with all of Israel. He takes on the baptism of repentance that He did not need. Then immediately he is driven out into where? The desert. He is about to live in the place of Israel. There he fasted for forty days and nights. There he is weakened in to the point of exhaustion. What will happen this time around in the desert. Luke set up the question for us this morning, “Will Jesus relive Israel’s failure in the midst of temptation?”
This is when the devil strikes. Round 1) The devil points to his hunger. “Turn this stone into bread.” (dark stomach) Jesus, God in the flesh could create bread if he wished. But he refuses and instead he forgoes the it. Jesus responds, “Man does not live by bread alone.” Man does not live by bread. He lives by the Word of The Lord.” Where Israel failed to trust that the Lord would provide and they grumbled of hunger, Jesus trusts only in the Word.
Round 2) The Devil aims at power claiming that all of the cities of the world belong to him and he will give it to Jesus if he only worships him. Yet, Jesus once again speaks the Word of the Lord, the only thing that sustains. And says even in the midst of this, “You shall bow down to the Lord and Him alone shall you worship.” Where Israel in the desert worshipped other Gods, Jesus will only Worship the true Lord of all.
Round 3) The Devil now twists God’s own word for his purposes quoting Psalm 91. But even here. Jesus speaks the true interpretation of the Lord’s Word. And says, we are not to put the Lord to the test. Where Israel failed and often put the Lord to the test to prove His faithfulness, Jesus trusts in the Lord alone.
Jesus in the midst of his weakness, in the midst of hunger, in the midst of isolation. In the midst of the desert, relives Israel’s history in the desert and He triumphs. Where Israel failed, Jesus succeeds. Where Israel doubts, Jesus trusts. Even in the midst of the parched dry land of temptation, Jesus holds on to the Word of the Lord. It all ramps up to the moment of moments when Jesus again faces temptation. This temptation is where He has been heading all along. He is leading up to the point where he will again be in the dryness of parched life. Only this time, he is going to the cross. Jesus himself cries out, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” He has reason to ask it because he has been faithful. But he takes all of Israel’s sin, even the whole world’s sin upon himself, even the sin of all sins which is disbelief, all of our questions of crying out to God. And yet in the midst of this temptation, He still trusts in the Lord. His lament is in faith. Lament can only be in faith because He has a Word from the Lord that promises life. You see only one is truly faithful through temptation, it is Jesus. And the Lord honors this faith by raising Him from the dead and all that we look forward to on Easter.
Christ has born our temptation and He has been faithful. Our Laments that we cry out in Lent are only laments if they are a matter of the Word that has been spoken over us.
The life that is like a glass of cool water to the parched throat. This is what Jesus brings to those who are in him. Those who are in him are the ones who were drenched in the Baptismal waters that killed sin and raised you with Jesus. That my brothers and sisters IN Christ is You. You are IN Christ because of those waters. When you received them, you received Christ. The one who overcame the temptation of temptations for you.
So that when you face the temptations of your life, you can know that you have one who is faithful. When you doubt whether or not God is present in your life, recall your Baptism. In the dry spells of life when the rain doesn’t fall, in the times when your throat is so parched of thirst for the blessings of the Lord, in the moments when your sin is ever before you, in the moments when you doubt whether God even cares about you. Know this, You always still have the Word. “Though devils all the world shall fill, the Word they shall still let remain.” It spoken to you in such a sure way in those waters of Baptism. Cling to the Word, it alone is like a glass of cold water in the desert of life. As Jesus said to the woman at the well, “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The Word of promise, is that cold drink of water. So who’s thirsty?
