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A great High Priest who was tempted as we are

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Sermon for Invocavit

2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

It says in the book of Hebrews: Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Those words look back, in part, to today’s Gospel, where we watch Jesus, our great High Priest, enduring the temptations of the devil during His forty-day fast, being in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. And as a result, we can now approach God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, as someone who can sympathize with us in our weaknesses, as someone who, through His victory over temptation, both earned for us mercy (the forgiveness of sins) and gives us the grace to withstand in the day of temptation.

After His Baptism, where Jesus, our great High Priest, was anointed and placed into office by God the Father, He was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. His being tempted was an essential part of God the Father’s plan for Him. Not that God tempted Him; the devil alone did that. But since the devil had had so much success against the human race, going all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, it was essential that the Son of Man also be made to confront the devil, to see how He would do. Would He stand? Or would He fall, like the rest of mankind has always done? If He stands, He is qualified to be the great High Priest who offers Himself as the sinless sacrifice for the sins of the world, and who will forever stand before God the Father as the one priestly Mediator between God and man, between God and sinners. If He falls, at any point, then mankind belongs to the devil forever. There is no other plan for our salvation.

Let’s walk through the three temptations that are recorded for us in the Gospel.

The first temptation is a temptation to doubt God’s goodness. It comes at the end of Jesus’ forty-day fast. He’s hungry, starving, even, and the devil tries to take advantage. If You are the Son of God. You’ll notice, the devil begins two out of the three temptations with that “if You are the Son of God” condition. It was about 40 days earlier, when Jesus was baptized, when, you remember, God the Father spoke from heaven and proclaimed, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” “Well, if that’s true,” the devil implies, “then You should get some special privileges, like tapping into Your power as the Son of God to turn these stones into bread for Yourself. Wouldn’t that be nice? You haven’t eaten in over a month, right? You could have food right now, this very minute. You’re entitled to it. Right?”

It’s eerily similar to the devil’s temptation of Eve in the Garden, where he tried to convince her that she deserved to have that piece of fruit that was just hanging there in front of her eyes. God had no right to keep it from her. She was entitled to it—even though God had given her all the other fruit in the garden, and every possible gift and blessing was at her fingertips, except for this one thing that God hadn’t given her: the forbidden fruit.

Hasn’t the devil approached you in similar ways, holding forbidden fruit before your eyes, tempting you to doubt God’s goodness, trying to convince you that you’re entitled to things that God hasn’t provided for you (in spite of all that He has provided for you), persuading you to become discontent with what you have, to believe that, somehow, God owes you? “Don’t focus on Him. Focus on your hunger! Focus on your need! Steal, if you need! Fight, if you need to! (Forget the fact that the fruit is forbidden!).”

Turning stones into bread to feed Himself was forbidden to Jesus. He was sent to live in humility, like the rest of us. He was expected to depend on His Father for providence, just like the rest of us. He knew it would have been “cheating” to use His divine power to provide for Himself. Now, Jesus could have argued with the devil. But, instead, He chose to answer the temptation very simply, with the written word of God. It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Moses spoke those words to the Israelites, reminding them why God had caused them to wander in the wilderness for forty years: And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Jesus, too, had to be humbled, and tested. But unlike Israel, He never complained. He never grumbled against God. He waited patiently for His Father to provide, and so He passed the test and defeated the temptation.

In the second temptation recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, the devil tempts Jesus to doubt His Father’s word—just as he had done with Eve in the Garden of Eden. He took Him up to a high point on the temple and said, If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down! For it is written, ‘He will put his angels in charge of you,’ and, ‘In their hands they will lift you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ Yes, the devil can use God’s word. He can pretend to go along with what God says. That should serve as a sobering warning for us, because many people use God’s word today for evil purposes, just as the devil did with Jesus. The devil didn’t quote Psalm 91 to get Jesus to trust in His Father. He quoted it so that Jesus would doubt His Father and put His Father’s word to the test. Would He really keep His word and send His angels to rescue Jesus, if Jesus jumped down from the temple? Only one way to find out!

Hasn’t the devil tempted you in similar ways to doubt the word of God? Did He really create the world in six days, as He said? Was the world really destroyed in a flood? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? If only you could find some proof, something tangible, something scientific! Or, maybe worse, he uses God’s word to lead you into false belief, as he tried to do with Jesus, so that you misinterpret God’s word, so that you end up believing something that God never intended, and then stake your life on it. He never intended, for example, for His promises of angelic protection to lead His children to needlessly endanger their lives.

But Jesus, our great High Priest, knew His Father’s word well enough to stand up to the devil’s temptation. It is written again, ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’” Again, He was quoting Moses, who was warning the Israelites not to repeat their past sins of testing the Lord, as they did early in their journeys when they angrily demanded that Moses give them water to drink—as if God had to prove His faithfulness by giving in to their demands. Jesus refused to do such a thing. He would trust in His Father’s word and in His Father’s faithfulness—blindly, if necessary. Nothing His Father said could ever be false, could ever be wrong. And so He passed the test and defeated the temptation.

Finally, the devil tried to get the Son of Man to abandon God altogether so that He could have everything a man could ever want—riches, power, fame, and fortune, the world itself—and have it easily at that, without having to work for it or earn it, or suffer for it, just by switching sides from God’s side to the devil’s side. All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

Hasn’t the devil approached you with similar temptations? Have the job or the relationship that you want! Have the pleasure you desire! Have the approval of men that you crave! For once in your life, stop worrying about what God wants. You do what you want! You take what you want! All you have to do is set aside the First Commandment briefly.

Jesus would have none of it. Go away, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ And so Jesus endured every temptation and passed every test. He met the requirement of sinlessness and so became our great High Priest.

Now, since our great High Priest faced temptation just as you do, since the whole purpose of His incarnation was to become the sinless Substitute for sinful mankind and thus to become the perfect Mediator between God and man, since He has now conquered the devil and death itself, Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, to Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Mercy Seat of God, that we may obtain mercy. Come to God with your sin, with your shame, with all the times you’ve given in to temptation, and give it all to the great High Priest! He has already suffered for your sins and offered Himself once for all as the sacrifice for them, the sacrifice that God the Father has accepted. Come to the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ, and you will obtain mercy from Him, even the forgiveness of your sins.

And, as forgiven children of God, Let us come boldly to the throne of grace…and find grace to help in time of need. You will be tempted again. You will be tempted throughout your earthly life, tempted as Jesus was tempted, tempted to stop listening to God and to listen instead to that other voice, the voice of the devil and his demons, the voice of the unbelieving world, the voice of your own sinful flesh, nudging you away from God’s commandments, prodding you toward sin and shame and disgrace. In such times, turn boldly to the throne of grace. Remember how your great High Priest used Holy Scripture to withstand temptation, and equip yourself ahead of time with the word of God, so that you have that mighty weapon at your disposal when you need it the most. Pray to your High Priest. He will understand your struggles, will sympathize with them, and will offer you all the help you need to stand strong for Him, as He once stood strong for you against the devil and against all the powers of hell. As it says in Hebrews, Since we have a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Amen.

 

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The Son who gets it right

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Sermon for Lent 1 – Invocavit

2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased. God the Father’s words spoken straight from heaven at Jesus’ baptism were still ringing in the air as the Father’s Holy Spirit led Jesus from the Jordan River out into the desert, where He fasted for forty days and forty nights. You know who else is called a “son of God” in the Bible? Adam, for one. In Luke’s genealogy of Jesus’ ancestry, Adam is called the “son of God.” And he was, in one sense: by direct act of creation. You know who else is called a “son of God” in the Bible? The people of Israel. God says of Israel in the book of Hosea, When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. Israel was God’s “son” by God’s act of creating them and nurturing them as a nation—as His chosen people. Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil, and they fell into sin. Israel was tempted by the devil, too (though less directly than Adam and Eve were), especially during the time they spend wandering around in the desert on their extended journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. And Israel fell into sin over and over out there in the wilderness. About Adam, about Israel, the heavenly Father could not say, “With this son of mine I am well-pleased.” But about Jesus He could and did say it.

But that doesn’t mean that Jesus got to live a life of luxury and comfort and ease. He didn’t come into the world to enjoy the blessed, glorious reward that a well-pleasing Son of God deserves. He came into the world to step into our place as our Substitute: to be tempted as we are tempted, to suffer as we suffer, and to die as we die, so that His victory over sin and temptation might be counted to us as our victory, so that His suffering and death might be counted as our suffering and death and open the way for us sinners to become sons of God. But that only happens if this Son of God—who is God’s Son by birth in eternity, by miraculous conception in the Virgin Mary, and by choice as His chosen Servant, as Israel was supposed to be—it only happens if this Son of God gets it right, where Adam and Israel, the previous sons of God, and we, the wayward sons of Adam, have gotten it so, so wrong.

And so we find the Son of God, not living it up in a palace, but fasting alone in the desert for “forty days and forty nights.” It isn’t a mere coincidence that the very same phrase is used for Moses at Mount Sinai, who went without eating and without drinking for forty days and forty nights, shortly after leading the people of Israel through the Red Sea, where St. Paul writes that the Israelites were “baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the Sea.” You see the connections God is making, between His son Israel passing through the Red Sea in a sort of “baptism,” and then taking Moses, the leader of Israel, up onto the mountain where he fasted for forty days and forty nights? Connections, so that we understand what Jesus has come to do: to take Israel’s place and get it right where Israel got it wrong.

We see more connections in each of the three individual temptations, which are all, really, just variations on a theme: “God is not good. He doesn’t deserve your obedience. You deserve to be happy.”

First, at the end of the forty days of fasting, Jesus is hungry. So the devil comes and tries to take advantage of Jesus, tries to get him to turn away from God, just as he tried (and succeeded at) getting Adam and Eve to turn away from God in the Garden of Eden, just as he tried (and succeeded at) getting Israel to turn away from God in the wilderness—just as he has succeeded so many times with us.

What was the gist of the devil’s temptation of Adam and Eve? (He only spoke to Eve, of course, but I think this is an accurate summary of his temptation.) “You’re God’s children, right? Why would a good Father put this beautiful tree right here in the middle of this garden and deprive His children of its fruit? You don’t have to listen to Him. You have the right to be happy. Take the fruit!” What was his temptation of Israel? “If you are sons of God, and He’s such a good and loving Father, why would He lead you out into the wilderness to die of starvation and thirst? He’s let you get a little bit thirsty? You deserve better than that! But it doesn’t look like God is providing it, does it? What, He’s given you bread from heaven now, but told you not to gather it up on the Sabbath Day? You go ahead and gather it up. Don’t you worry about God’s commandment. You’re sons of God. You have every right to do what you need to do to be happy.”

That’s basically the gist of the temptation the devil put to Jesus, too. If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread!” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” If only Adam and Eve had replied to the devil like that! If only the people of Israel had trusted in the word of the God who had just rescued them from slavery in Egypt! But instead Adam and Eve looked at all the bounty of the Garden around them and said, “No, it’s not enough. God isn’t good. We’re going to do things our way.” And Israel looked at the great deliverance God had just accomplished for them and said, “What a terrible God! He’s led us out into the wilderness to kill us.” But Jesus is the Son who gets it right. “So what if I’m hungry? So what if My Father has kept Me here in the desert for six weeks? I live by His Word and I serve at His command. I will not serve Myself. I will not depart from His word to do things My own way, for any reason.”

There was another angle to the devil’s temptation of Adam and Eve. “God has just recently created you. You’re the crown of His creation. You’re His son, Adam. Do you really think He would let you die just because you took a bite of fruit? You will not surely die. Try it! Test Him and see!” The devil used the same angle with Israel, even though he didn’t speak to them audibly in the form of a serpent. “God has brought you out of Egypt and has promised to lead you to the promised land. So clearly He will put up with it if you speak your mind to Him. You don’t see any water at the moment? You’d better let God hear about how unfair that is! Go ahead! Order Moses to give you what you want! God will understand. Test Him and see!”

That’s basically the gist of the temptation the devil put to Jesus. If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down! For it is written, ‘He will put his angels in charge of you,’ and, ‘In their hands they will lift you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’” If only Adam and Eve had replied to the devil like that! If only the people of Israel had trusted in the word of the God who had just rescued them from slavery in Egypt! But they grew impatient with God. They thought they had the right to make Him prove His goodness, to make Him fulfill His promises on their timetable, in their way. They thought they could get away with testing God. They were wrong. But Jesus is the Son of God who gets it right. “I don’t need to test the word and promises of God. I don’t need to see His deliverance. I trust in His plan. I trust in His will. And you, devil, will never shake me from that trust!”

There was yet a third angle to the devil’s temptation to Adam and Eve, related to the others. “What do you want? Knowledge? Pleasure? Power? Godhood? You can have it all if you just ignore God and listen to me!” His temptation to Israel was similar. “If you want to make it safely through this wilderness, if you want to be provided for, if you want victory over your enemies, and prosperity, and safety, and comfort, what you really need is a god to go with you, a god whom you can see, a god who doesn’t make demands of you. So make that golden calf and bow down to it! It’s much less terrifying and demanding than that judgmental, invisible God who thundered down His Ten Commandments to you!”

And likewise, the devil held up to Jesus the world for a prize. He showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” If only Adam and Eve had given the devil such a reply! If only Israel, had said such a thing!

If only you and I had replied like that to the devil every time he came around with his temptations. And whether it’s the devil himself, or the unbelieving world, or our own sinful flesh doing the tempting, it doesn’t matter much in the end. They’re all on the same side. There are different angles of temptation, different twists. But in the end, they all come back to the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. But every time we dare to disagree with God’s handling of the world, or with something He says in His word, every time we covet something God hasn’t given us or stew in anger at Him over something He has given us, every time we fail to trust Him and His goodness and love, every time we ignore God’s word and take matters into our own hands, doing what we want to do because we think we have some divine right to be “happy.” It’s that attitude, and the sinful actions that flow from it, that plunged our race into sin and death and into the devil’s kingdom in the first place. It’s that attitude, and the actions that flow from it, for which you all, we all, need to repent.

Then look at the beloved Son of God, how He responds to the devil’s temptations. He suffers as He’s tempted, but He doesn’t budge from His devotion to His Father’s word, from obeying His Father, from trusting in His Father, from His willingness to suffer anything, even death, rather than disobey or displease His Father in heaven. He was the Son of God who got it right.

And He got it right for you, so that He might qualify as the sinless Savior and Substitute that you needed, so that, by being the perfect Son of God—and Son of Man!—He might one day offer His life on the cross in your place, giving His perfect life up to His Father in heaven as the price of your admission into God’s family.

Yes, Jesus, the true Son of God, was the Son who got it right. And He shares His sonship with all who repent and believe in Him. As Paul writes to the Galatians, For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And as Paul writes to the Colossians, God the Father has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Cling to Christ Jesus, the sinless Son of God, and the Seed of the woman, whom the Father sent to crush the serpent’s head. And then, as sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, learn from Him to trust in God at all times, to take up the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Learn from Him to rely on God’s goodness and grace, even if He tests you in the wilderness for a time. Learn from Him to use the word of God as a mighty weapon against all the devil’s temptations. And, through faith in Christ Jesus, you will one day hear with your own ears the same words that Jesus heard from His Father: This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased. Amen.

Source: Sermons