Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
I will with God’s help
We begin this Sunday our Lenten reflections on the baptismal questions. And this first question frames all the ones that will follow. The rest will focus on specific matters—proclaiming the Gospel, seeking and serving Christ in others, pursuing justice and peace, and caring for creation. But this one sets the tone. It uses the old (and now to many unfashionable) words evil, sin, and repent. The first question is to be kept in mind throughout as we work through the rest. Failing to proclaim the Gospel, failing to seek and serve Christ, failing to pursue justice and peace, failing to care for creation is to succumb to evil. It is to sin. And the only solution is repentance—a 180 degree change of mind and behavior.
And the Gospel for the day in turn frames this question by giving us the story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.” What did Jesus do after his baptism? He fasted. Where did Jesus go after his baptism? The wilderness. Why? To be tempted by the devil. Luke places Jesus’ fasting in the context of his preparation for ministry and mission.
“He ate nothing at all during those days,” Luke continues, “and when they were over, he was famished.” The interplay here is between physical weakness and spiritual strength. What modern readers might miss at this point is the significance of the wilderness. Jesus didn’t retreat from people to seek a quiet place to commune with his Father. On the contrary. The wilderness was the devil’s home turf. After fasting for a long time, Jesus was hungry and ready to face the tempter’s full force. Here, in the wilderness, before he could begin his work, a decisive battle determined the course, shape, and eventual success of Jesus’ mission. The confrontation with the very personification of evil marked the beginning of Jesus’ mission to the world. Jesus headed off to war.
But of course, the war would not be fought in the way we usually think. Jesus fights by God’s rules. Look at Luke’s ordering of the three temptations: the devil preys first upon Jesus’ hunger and exhaustion. “Command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” The devil tries to break the link between physical and spiritual desire. He hopes to distract Jesus from the sources of spiritual strength by turning him to his physical weakness. Jesus refuses to be baited in this way. He returns throughout to the words of Scripture. His true source of nourishment—and ours—is God’s word. This, though only increases the intensity as the tempter moves to his next tactics.
Next the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and opens to him the route of political power: “To you I will give their glory and all their authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.” Finally the tempter offers the path of religious adoration, when after taking Jesus from the mountain to the Temple pinnacle, he says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. . . .” Be who the people want. Be a wonderworker! Compel people to believe by works of power. Be the Messiah of their expectations. Take the easy way.
Jesus never disagrees with the devil. He doesn’t dispute Satan’s authority to make these offers or his power to bring them about. Jesus takes the offers as real, the power of the devil as legitimate, and yet denies the devil his prize. These are alluringly and frighteningly real temptations.
Irenaeus, a second century Church Father, sees here the undoing of the Fall. He plumbs the depths of Paul’s title for Jesus, the Second Adam, by setting the temptation of Adam alongside the temptation of Jesus. Here’s how he presents it. Adam and his wife faced the tempter in God’s garden. Satan, says Irenaeus, came to their place of advantage. He appealed to their bodies (the fruit was good for food), their wills (the wisdom it held was to be desired), and their spirits (in eating, they would become like God). Powerful temptations, but Adam and his wife had every means at their disposal to resist. Their bodies were strong from the good food of God’s garden. Their wills entirely oriented toward the good. Their spirits continually refreshed by direct communion with God. Where they should have won, they lost, consigning themselves and all their children to live under the reign of God’s enemy.
Now Jesus, the Second Adam faces the tempter in the wilderness. Far from a position of strength and relative safety, Jesus took the battle to the devil’s arena. Jesus faced a full frontal satanic assault. Satan appealed to his weakened body (make these stones bread), his will (rule over these kingdoms), and his spirit (perform a miracle). Jesus should have lost. Yet he defeated Adam’s old enemy. And so this man, Jesus, this Second Adam undoes the sin that enslaved human beings. The battle was joined.
Luke wants us to notice that only one human has faced temptation from beginning to end without ever yielding. Only one felt the tempter’s full power to prey upon the weaknesses of the body, will and spirit. And in each case, the human Jesus resists only in the power of the Holy Spirit and only with the words of Holy Scripture and eventually, he is victorious.
Now, recall the question which this wondrous story frames: Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? Without the Gospel for this morning, this question could be misread as a question of moral improvement. “When you do wrong will you promise to do better next time?” And the answer, “I will with God’s help,” might be seen to imply that the onus is on us. Grace will come alongside to help us, but we’ve got to work at it. This pseudo gospel of “work harder,” is false teaching. If we pursue it, will drive us to pride or despair. Pride when we underestimate our sin and overestimate our strength. Despair when we realize our sin and underestimate God’s power.
To save us from both pride and despair, Luke wants us to notice that only one human has faced temptation from beginning to end without ever yielding—and it’s neither you nor me. Only one felt the tempter’s full power to prey upon the weaknesses of the body, will and spirit. Only the human Jesus is victorious. This is the help God gives: not a nudge in the right direction, but living the one faithful human life for us and in our place. By reminding us that our repentance is always and only moving further into a victory already won for us.
The question then is not an occasion for winking at peccadilloes or a merciless self-inventory, but a reminder of the good news that Martin Luther summed up in the second verse of “A Mighty Fortress.”
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he; Lord Sabaoth, his name, from age to age the same, and he must win the battle.