Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

The Season of Lent began this past Wednesday. Ash Wednesday. Lent is a season of 40 days, leading up to the Easter celebration which begins with the Easter Vigil on Saturday night of Holy Week. The Sundays do not figure in the counting for Lent. These Sundays serve as bookends around the weeks of Lent.

Part of the reason for this distinction is the fact that every Sunday is a miniature Easter. Whatever other theme of the season occurs on a given Sunday, the death and resurrection of Christ needs to be part of the message. Hence, they are not called "Sundays OF Lent," but rather, "Sundays IN – or IN THE MIDST OF – Lent.

The First Sunday in Lent gets its Latin name from the beginning of the Introit: "He shall call upon Thee." The theme of this Sunday is "Temptation Sunday," and the focus is on Christ’s temptation by the devil in the wilderness. Let us see how this theme and the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins come together.

I.

In the Holy Gospel for this 1st Sunday in Lent, St. Matthew recounts the time that immediately followed Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan. After His baptism, in which God the Father declares, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased," the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the Wilderness west of the Jordan and northeast of Jerusalem.

St. Matthew is quite specific as to the reason that the Holy Spirit leads our Lord: "to be tempted by the devil." This is a God-ordained encounter between Christ in whom He is well-pleased and the devil whose rebellion caused him to be tossed out of heaven. After the 40 days the encounter occurs. But why does it occur? Why is Jesus sent by the Father and lead by the Holy Spirit out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil?

This temptation must occur. This temptation is part of the ultimate battle between God and Satan conducted here on earth, over the destiny of human kind. The battle is prophesied in the Garden of Eden on the occasion of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin. Concerning this battle between Christ and the devil, God declares to the devil: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed–her seed being Christ–He shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise His heel."

The opening skirmish in this battle occurs when Jesus is an infant, as the devil attempts to use King Herod to have the baby Messiah killed. God thwarts that effort, which serves to set up this first head-to-head confrontation between Jesus and the devil in the wilderness.

Why must this occur? Because the effects of the fall into sin must be reversed, and as they were committed by the first Adam, under the influence of the devil’s temptation, so they must be reversed by the second Adam, in the face of the influence of the devil’s temptation. This is no child’s play. This is life and death stuff. The battle for the souls of mankind is occurring.

II.

The devil comes to Jesus with three temptations, each seeking to challenge our Lord’s ongoing role in the flesh. "If You are the Son of God," the devil says to introduce the first two temptations, First, the devil calls on Jesus to satisfy His hunger by His own devices, instead of waiting on God. When that fails, he calls on Jesus to force the Father’s hand out of self-interest. Then, in the third temptation, the devil is a more direct, "All these things will I give You, if You will fall down and worship me."

In all three temptations there is the challenge to prove that Jesus is the "Son of God," the Son of the Heavenly Father. What is really going on here? Jesus is already declared the Son of God by the voice of the Father at His baptism, which Matthew and Luke both directly connect with the wilderness temptations.

For Jesus to have to prove, either to satisfy Himself or someone else, that He is the Son of God is to deny the already stated declaration and promise of the Father. This is why Jesus points to God’s Word as the response to the first temptation: what "proceeds out of the mouth of God." There is no "if." He IS the Son of God. The word of the Father says so. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."

Jesus, the 2nd Person of the Trinity from all eternity, has now assumed the human nature, and human flesh and blood. Jesus must save you, and me and all mankind, and He must do it as the God-Man.

Indeed, His saving work is all done in human flesh, as Man. So the challenge of the devil involves the temptation for Christ to simply respond according to His divinity rather than according to His humanity. But, since the fall of Adam and Eve, man’s problem is his own fallen sinful flesh. So it is in this flesh that Jesus comes to save us.

Jesus, as God in human flesh, must face these temptations as the substitute for sinful humankind.

And so the various means that the devil uses throughout history to tempt sinful humans (trusting oneself, tempting one’s God, and desiring the pleasures of this fallen world) must be used here against Jesus, and He must defeat the devil’s temptations over these things. In so resisting the devil, Jesus does this not for Himself, but for us, for you, for me, and for all fallen sinners.

His victory over temptations counts for you, because He undergoes this temptation as your Substitute. All together, what is involved in this temptation is the truth of God’s Word, the saving of sinful flesh by Christ’s work in the flesh, and substitution of His victory for our defeats. That’s what is going on in this event.

III.

If it could be the case that Jesus does these things so that you could imitate Him, do them also, and thus defeat the devil’s temptations, then you don’t need a Savior! Then you don’t need a Substitute. If the issue is what you can do, then you don’t need an Incarnate God – an in-the-flesh God. All you would need then is a role-model (which sadly, is the modern teaching from many pulpits, urging you to imitate your divine role-model), for then you become the victor over the devil’s temptations.

But, you do need an Incarnate God. God’s Word reminds us of the fierce danger that the devil presents, in St. Peter’s inspired words: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour." What is St. Peter’s solution? Take the devil on? Follow Jesus’ patterns in order to defeat him? NO! Rather, "Whom resist steadfast in the faith." The resisting is done by faith in the promise of what Christ does as your Savior, your Substitute, your Incarnate God. That is how the devil is defeated! Not by our efforts at imitation, but by Christ’s actual defeat of the devil during His temptation in the wilderness.

His victory over temptations count for you, because He undergoes this temptation as your Substitute. All together, what is involved in this temptation is the truth of God’s Word, the saving of sinful flesh by Christ’s work in the flesh, and the substitution of His victory for your defeats.

So therefore, in all times and especially in times of temptation and trial, your God is your Father, your true Father, and you are His true child, so that, as Dr. Luther teaches you in his catechism," you may with all boldness and confidence ask Him as dear children ask their dear father." This is most certainly true!