The 40-day season of Lent – a time of prayer, reflection, fasting, and repentance – leads up to Easter’s celebration of Jesus’s resurrection.
According to the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert wilderness before beginning his public ministry. During his wilderness time, Jesus endured and fought off the temptations of Satan.
Jesus finds himself in the kind of circumstance in which evil sees an opening, and each of us has been there, too. The devil is, if nothing else, an opportunist. And that’s just the point: Jesus was one of us and thus the devil could look for vulnerable moments of opportunity to get at Jesus same as evil does for all of us.
This morning’s story of “The Temptation of Jesus” can result in our admiring Jesus for his willpower, but it also offers a narrative of hope for all of us. If Jesus could get hungry the same as the rest of us (and for the exact same reason), then perhaps he resisted temptation in the same way — by tapping into the same power that’s available to the rest of us. In that case, Luke 4 provides not just hope for Jesus but hope for all of us, as we, too, are tossed about on many rough seas of temptation.
In this Lenten season of our lives, it’s well for us to remember how titanically Jesus struggled with sin every day of his life. But there’s also an important take-away: If the devil continued to look for more opportune times to get at even Jesus, we can assume as believers today that we are being stalked no less certainly.
True, as people of Pentecost we have a major advantage now in having the Holy Spirit dwelling right within our hearts, giving us a power to resist temptation that is wonderful. But let’s never assume that where sin and evil are concerned we face nothing but smooth sailing in life!
We live every day by the riches of God’s grace. We’re lost without it. So, please listen to the Word that God has spoken.
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.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.'”
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'”
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'”
Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'”
When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. (Luke 4:1-15)
To be sure, God has established a binding covenant with every living thing on earth.
That covenant promises that in Christ Jesus we are justified – made right, freed from shame and guilt, even as the evil one continues to test and taunt. Hungry and thirsty to the point of death, in our weakened and weary state, you and I go where we don’t want to go, with perfect obedience in our hearts.
In a few moments, we will sing a hymn that paints a picture of communion with God in which fear and gloom have disappeared, and delight and joy saturate our existence. However, this attractive life is not free – you and I must totally surrender control of his life to God, and commit to trusting obedience of God’s wishes, as the final stanza says – “what He says we will do, where He sends we will go.”
When we walk with the Lord
in the light of his word,
what a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will,
he abides with us still,
and with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Not a burden we bear,
not a sorrow we share,
but our toil he doth richly repay;
not a grief or a loss,
not a frown or a cross,
but is blest if we trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
But we never can prove
the delights of his love
until all on the altar we lay;
for the favor he shows,
for the joy he bestows,
are for them who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Then in fellowship sweet
we will sit at his feet,
or we’ll walk by his side in the way;
what he says we will do,
where he sends we will go;
never fear, only trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
With great devotion, the first Christians observed the days of our Lord’s death and resurrection.
And it became the custom of the Church that, before the celebration of Easter, there should be a 40-day season of spiritual preparation. During this season, converts to the faith were prepared for baptism. It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins and had separated themselves from the community of faith were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to participation in the life of the Church.
In this way the whole congregation was reminded of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the need we all have to renew our faith.
So, following in the footsteps of those early saints and sinners, you are invited, in the name of the Lord and his Church, to begin a holy observance of Lent – through honest self-examination, meaningful penitence, heartfelt prayer, and sacrificial giving.
You are invited to strengthen your disciplines of reading and meditating on the Word of God, and to make a new beginning toward walking in newness of life through Jesus Christ.
You are invited to sing out with confidence, hope and assurance before the Lord, our Creator and Redeemer.
Amen, and amen!
“Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the first Sunday of Lent, February 18, 2024, at First Prebyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee, C.S. Lewis, Laurence Hull Stookey, and Robert E. Webber inform the message. The video, “Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the first Sunday of Lent, February 18, 2024, at First Prebyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee, C.S. Lewis, Laurence Hull Stookey, and Robert E. Webber inform the message. The video, The Suffering Savior: The Covenent, is by The Skit Guys.