Invocabit sermon 2023
The First Sunday in Lent + February 26, 2023 + St. Matthew 4:1-11
Temptations are rarely grandiose. On occasion temptation to a front-page-headline kind of sin comes along. Most of our temptations appear as innocuous choices. Small, daily things tempt us to take baby steps away from God’s Word.
Frequently we should pray the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus teaches us there to ask for help: “Lead us not into temptation.” This takes on urgency once we realize we are constantly under spiritual assault.
Every temptation attacks the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods.” Temptation seeks to establish something else as your god. Temptation urges you to fear something more than God, to love something more than God, to trust in something more than God. Temptation is not confined to big events or moments of crisis; it is the daily battleground of the Christian.
The enemy aims to turn you away from God, to keep you from becoming who God made you to be. God created mankind to be in His image and likeness. He planned for man to progress toward a full and complete sharing in His life and love. Instead of progressing, man regressed. He turned in on himself. That’s the subject of today’s first reading.
In mankind’s fall, God’s image was defaced. The tracing of the cross as part of the baptismal rite depicts what baptism is doing. Baptism marks again God’s image on man, and breathes anew the Spirit into human flesh.
Each temptation presents the baptized with a choice: live as an image-bearer, or rebel. The allurement is to go independent, live as your own god, as our first parents were enticed: “You will be like God.” Seizing what God had not granted, they lost what He had given them.
You’ve wanted that too. Confess it. Most of the time you live for yourself. The appetites of your flesh drive you, the fear of death fills you, the love of money guides you, critical and condemning words form in your mind, murmuring and complaining characterizes you. The thought of living in God’s Word and pleasing Him is often far from your heart.
But that is not who God made you to be. You need not heed the enemy’s counsel. Make no mistake – the devil, Satan, is real, as are the demons. Satan, or Lucifer, was created as an archangel of God. He fell when he sought to exalt himself above God. Both angels and demons are real and personal spiritual powers, and they contend for or against us. The greatest weapon an adversary could have against you would be your ignorance of his existence and plots. But know this also: the devil and his evil angels have no power over you unless your will grants it. So we must ready ourselves every day to face temptation.
You cannot go out onto the battlefield as you are. Seatbelts and airbags are amazing when you crash. A soldier should not be sent into battle without a helmet and body armor. Christians who enter the daily battlefield of temptation unarmed find themselves stripped naked and beaten, like the man left for dead in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Today’s Gospel is similar to that parable. Christ the Good Samaritan makes Himself also the beaten and naked man, or rather, takes his burden onto Himself. Jesus endures the enemy’s attack. Where we have failed so often, where mankind had failed for millennia, Jesus stood resolute. In refusing to use His divinity for Himself—to change stones into bread after fasting —our Lord conquers the sin of gluttony. In refusing to make a spectacle of Himself and leap down from the pinnacle of the temple, our Lord conquers the sin of pride and vainglory. In refusing the temptation to take all the kingdoms of the world without suffering, without the cross, our Lord conquers the sin of avarice, greed. All the snares that bind you, all the obsessions that control you, all the fears that haunt you, all the addictions that destroy you, all the pride that fills you, all the despair that leaves you empty – every one of the temptations that you face, every place where you stumble repeatedly: these our Lord confronted head-on.
His victory is an example for you to follow. But it’s more than that. As your substitute He kept the Law perfectly where you could not; and now He is able to sympathize with you in your struggles and help you.
The powerful Word of God is the armor against the fiery darts of the devil. God’s Word drives the devil away; “one little word can fell him.” Luther explained what he meant when he wrote that line, “one little word can fell him.” The little word is “liar.” That’s what we say to the enemy when he offers us morsels of bread and the petty kingdoms we crave: “Liar! I know your tricks, devil: you offer the world, and give nothing but bondage.”
The enemy quotes Scripture. He is an expert in twisting the Word of God to his own ends. This is the season where Christ helps you fight back.
Lent is the time for you to be armed with the weapons to combat temptation, and so grow into the child of God you were created to be. This whole world is the wilderness of temptation, the “wild-place” of disorder and rebellion. For us, the wilderness is not some barren landscape. The wilderness is where you are most susceptible to attack. It might be the liquor store or a hotel room, but it’s more likely the black rectangle in your pocket that leads you into temptation, along with the irritation you feel at that person who gets under your skin. Wherever you are most vulnerable to Satan’s attacks, that is your wilderness, and that is where Jesus goes, to be tempted by the same temptations that confront you.
What are your weapons in the wilderness? Jesus once said that some demons can only be cast out by means of fasting and prayer [Mt. 17.20]. These are our weapons. Matthew ch. 6 puts fasting and prayer together with almsgiving, giving our money away. The goal in Lent is not to put in the time, then go back to how it was, but to change, to amend our lives. When we get to Easter, it should not be an end to self-discipline, but a new life freed from our old habits and patterns of sin. Today Jesus conquered not just the temptation to sin, but the tempter himself. The enemy has no power over you. Do not allow him entrance into your life. Don’t let him deface the image God marked on you in your baptism.
Cling to the Word. It’s your life. You need your daily bread, but by it alone you cannot live. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” The Eucharist is the bread joined to the Word of God; this is the bread by which you will live and not die. On the strength of this food, which is to say, on the strength of Jesus Himself, you are delivered from bondage, and absolved. The holy angels be with you, and the evil foe have no power over you. ✠INJ✠