Invocavit: First Sunday in Lent, “Encouragement in Temptation” Matthew 4:1-11
Invocavit
First Sunday in Lent, “Encouragement in Temptation”
Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. Matthew 4:10-11 (ESV)
When I first realized how early Easter is this year I was already afraid that something like Wednesday’s snow storm and its impact on our Ash Wednesday Service was going to happen. It’s been 152 years since Lent started this early, and only on Maundy Thursday—March 20—will it finally be spring.
If you are one of the forty-four who were in church while snow slam ’08 raged then you already know that Lent means spring. And my intentions on Ash Wednesday were to connect Lent and Ash Wednesday with thoughts of spring and subsequently spring cleaning. But driveway clearing was more on our minds with all the snow we got that night.
Lent could be called “the spring cleaning for the soul.” For forty days—which correspond with the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness—we’ll make our annual pilgrimage with Jesus to His cross, through His bitter suffering and redeeming death, to His grave, and then on to His glorious resurrection.
The focus of our Midweek Wednesday Lenten services this year will be the great Lenten hymn “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy.” Each time we gather here before the cross we will contemplate another perspective of our Savior’s redeeming love as it is highlighted in God’s Word.
Our Sundays in Lent will carry the theme of encouragement. While Sundays are in Lent—they are just that in Lent—meaning they are not of Lent, and remain the little Easters that they are. We find encouragement in the midst of the sadness and gloominess of the sufferings and death of our savior because we already know the outcome and the joy that comes with Easter.
From God’s Word this morning we are encouraged in the midst of temptation. We get that encouragement especially in hearing how Jesus was tempted by the devil and won. He did not give in; he did not sin.
The Bible says that Jesus is true man, just like us in every way, except that He was without sin. His humanity was not tainted with the sin we inherited from our fathers because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. In that way He is different from you and me, for we are sinners through and through.
But in every other way, Jesus is exactly like us, including the fact that He faced the very same temptations you and I face each day. The difference is that Jesus resisted every one of those temptations, while all too often we cave in to temptation—or even embrace it with open arms. Often times it seems we’d much rather twist the words of Jesus’ rebuke to Peter when He said “get behind me Satan” with our version, “get behind me Satan….and push!”
Because of original sin—which, by the way, is not a clever or creative sin but rather means inherited sin—we are defiled and contaminated by sin from head to toe.
It should not surprise us when we feel dirty and polluted deep within, for we have fouled ourselves not just in what we do but also in what we say and how we think. There is truly nothing good in us when it comes to our sinful nature. Sadly, we are thoroughly blemished and defiled in our sin. Worse yet, by nature we find ourselves disqualified from the presence of God and we stand under His wrath and judgment.
Yet we have an advocate with the Father: Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. He knows the onslaughts of doubt and temptation first hand; He is familiar with every trick of the devil. Jesus bore our sorrows and is well acquainted with grief. He is able to sympathize with us in our weaknesses because He has endured them all Himself and knows every one of them first hand. Despite our sinfulness and rebellion, Jesus willingly suffered and died for us on the cross.
This week it will be Valentine’s Day once again. We’re reminded of all the different kinds of expression of love that there are. True love, we’re reminded by jewelers and florists, costs. Whatever the expression might be, love has a price. A young man proposing won’t buy a cheap ring. The high schooler with puppy love will spend his savings or several nights’ worth of her baby sitting money to buy the flowers or the cute stuffed animal. Parents desperate to cure their sick child will seek out doctors and specialists—regardless of cost.
Our redemption cost God His only Son. Jesus exchanged His righteousness for our sin. He, the sinless Son of God, was made to be sin for us, though He knew no sin, so that we might be made the righteousness of God. All who trust in Christ not only find their sins removed and absolved, but by faith in Jesus they also share in His holiness; before the judgment seat of God they stand just as holy as Christ is, without blemish or defect.
Only the blood of Jesus Christ, the sinless Lamb of God, the pure and holy Lamb of God, could redeem us from the tyranny of Satan. There is a price tag on sin, you see, and that price is extremely high: “For the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)
But Jesus came, this Lamb of God, this Lamb of ours—this pure and holy Lamb—to lay down His life on the cross and pour out all His blood that we might be redeemed.
Still the devil never ceases to tempt us. Once he knows he doesn’t have us—that we are Christ’s and no longer his—he goes on the prowl, seeking to grab us again and devour us. One way he does this is by tempting us; in the same manner he tempted Jesus.
He finds us at our weakest. He puts out in front of us the promise of power and riches. He makes us question whether God really loves us.
And each time he does this we can do no better than to recall the Word of Christ which He spoke on the night He was betrayed: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Christ is the One who has crushed the serpent’s head with His perfect life, innocent death, and victorious resurrection. He knows how the tempter tries to allure and seduce us into gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature.
His Word to us that we watch and pray means that in the hour of temptation he alone makes us patient and enduring.
At that time we can do no better than recall our baptism and remember the flood that has washed away all sins and evil desires and recreated us to live before Him in righteousness and purity forever. He promises to deliver us from all temptation and guide us by His fatherly hand to live as His redeemed children.
After Jesus’ was tempted angels came and ministered to Him. No doubt they brought to Him the comforting and reassuring Word of the Father’s love that had been expressed only forty days before at His Baptism when the voice said, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)
These angels also must have also spoken to Him about the redemption of mankind…of His heavenly mission to the cross and then to the glory of the Father in the salvation of mankind. No doubt he was encouraged by the glory that was at the end for Him as the worthy lamb who was slain.
But mostly there were Words of promise and assurance. Words similar to the many promises that we have in the Bible for us in the hour of temptation, “Lo, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20) and, “Have no fear little flock,” (Luke 12:32) also, “If God is for us, who can be against us” (Romans 8:31) and, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)
During this holy season of Lent, we contemplate the depth of the love of God, our merciful heavenly Father, who loved the world so that He gave His only Son the lost to save. Entering this world in human flesh, Jesus shouldered all the burden of our sin including the temptation we all face and more. He went against Satan in the wilderness and in the garden and finally on the tree of Calvary. That dead tree became a tree of life when he finally defeated Satan once and for all.
It may seem like a long way off until spring—especially when temperatures dip down as low a they did this morning. Even the many weeks before Easter is here may seem to drag out as we hear of all the evil things that were done to Jesus. But keeping in mind that it was for us and our salvation that Christ came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and was made man—to suffer ( including temptation)—and die for us, we are cheered that we have been made His own, to live with Him in His kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
That assurance we have most certainly now—as we will have it most certainly again on Easter Morning—in the truth that He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. Amen.
