Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

Luke 4:1-13

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I will admit it. I am a addict. No I am not addicted to drugs, alcohol, or anything else like that. But I am addicted to sin. Everyday I wake up, intending on not committing a single sin, not breaking the law of God, but somehow temptation wins and I sin. Every single day, whether I outright sin or whether I do not even realize it, I sin and this causes my addiction to increase. Just like everyone sitting in this beautiful sanctuary, I am addicted to sin. I might get to lead worship, wear these beautiful vestments, and administer the sacraments in which Jesus reveals himself to us but I am no better than any of you sitting in this congregation. We are all addicted to sin.

But is it our fault? We are tempted every day by the grand illusions of this world: the almighty dollar calling us to spend, spend, spend and demanding that we solely concentrate our time on obtaining more and more of it, others live in fear that their problems with controlled substances such as cocaine, heroin, nicotine, and alcohol will finally catch up with them causing them to commit irrational behaviors and actions, and for others the desire for power rules there lives with the desire to only obtain more power causing them to trampling over anyone or anything in their path. The list could go on and on. Temptation to sin and turn our back on God and God’s will is everywhere. Even Jesus was not immune to devastating and life altering temptation that sin has brought into our world.

But what do those temptations means for us today? Jesus was tempted with food, power and prestige, and finally the temptation to control the power of God--to ultimately control God’s will. But what we need to look at today is, “Why did Jesus do it?” and “How did Jesus do it?” We will come to the second question in a bit. Why did Jesus need to be tempted? Jesus is holy and righteous as he is. God claimed Jesus at his birth, at his baptism, and as we will find, even at his death. Why did Jesus need to be tempted (and, I might add, suffer) for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness?

Would you believe, to fulfill a commitment between him and God? In these three temptations: food, power, and the possibility to become more powerful than God, Jesus shows his alignment with God and not with the devil. As one author wrote, “ In the Old Testament and in subsequent Jewish tradition, fidelity to God was proven in the midst of testing--whether by the direct action of God, through difficult circumstances, or by the direct activity of the devil...[In this text], the devil seeks specifically to controvert Jesus’ role as the Son of God by disallowing the constraints of that relationship [and] ...by rejecting [the relationship] outright.” The fate of not only the world but the fate of God’s will for God’s people rides on Jesus’ ability to say NO to the devil, to reject Satan’s Will and to stay in alliance with God.

Going even deeper, Luke’s mentioning of the number 40 and the location of where the temptation took place (the wilderness) ties in the connection between the Old Testament and the fulfillment of God’s will for us. Think about it, The Israelites wondered in the desert for 40 years because they gave into the temptation of a gold idol. They were not able to resist the temptation put in front of them, but Jesus did. Even the texts Jesus cites against the devil are from Deuteronomy. This temptation that Jesus felt and overcame did for us what humanity could never accomplish in the sight of God. The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness and even then, they could not be seen as righteous in the eyes of God. But in Jesus, righteousness can be and has been obtain by a man of flesh and bone, who was born of a virgin, and has proven to us and God that he is the Son of God.

But how did he do it? We have a pretty good idea why he did all of this but how did he not succumb to temptation? To answer this, we need to look at that very first line of the text. “Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness” (Luk 4:1 NET). Did you catch it? “Full of the Holy Spirit” and “led into the wilderness by the Spirit.” Jesus is led into the wilderness not on his own accord or Will but by the Holy Spirit. Luke is an author who uses the passive voice when when talking about Jesus’s actions. In the passive voice, someone else is doing the action. For example, lip singing to a song or cruise control on a car. But when Luke uses the passive voice, he is using a divine passive voice showing readers that Jesus is not working alone but rather is an agent of God.

This is not the first time nor will it be the last time that the Holy Spirit will enter the scene in Luke’s gospel. There are twelve times in Luke’s gospel where Luke mentions the Holy Spirit and in each time, the Holy Spirit is the one doing the action or event.

What does that means for us? Does that mean that with the Holy Spirit we can do anything? Well in a way, yes but we will always fail to overcome temptation. We are sinful creatures. Remember, we are all addicted to sin. We all desire the things of this world that we cannot have--wealth that we could never earn; power and prestige of unlimited rule; and the ability to control God/the ability to know just as God knows. This is all sin and is revealed to us by God’s law. What do we do? Even filled with the Holy Spirit, we fail and sin. We are condemned. There is nothing more we can do. What now?

When we ask these questions, we must always, always remember their is Jesus. There is always Jesus who will save us. You see, Christ did not just stay in the water at his Baptism, Christ did not just stay up on that mountain with the great prophets of the past. No my friends, Christ left the water filled with the Holy Spirit, Christ left that mountain fully transfigured so that he could enter the wilderness, enter our lives, and reveal God’s glory to the wilderness. There is a wonderful line in song that says, "Our love is not a victory march. It is a cold and broken hallelujah." The idea that a God, our God, would leave their throne, their power, their ability to control everything in the universe to enter our lives, our wilderness, is completely shameful image for us to imagine. But that is the Gospel. Jesus enters into our wilderness to turn our love into a victory march--to turn our hallelujahs into a warm and complete song. This Lent, I encourage you all to reflect on who you and even on all the temptations you cannot turn away from, but always remember that Jesus is the one who sets us free from our captivity to sin and temptations. What we could never accomplish has been accomplished and has been fulfilled today by the one filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus. Only God could overcome the temptations of this world and the devil. God is the only one who can save us. Let this be our prayer always that Jesus remain with us even when the temptations seem to great, when the devil rears his ugly face, when the wall around us come crashing down in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.