Finals

Luke 4:1-13; Psalm 91; Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Lent 1

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

26 When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, ² you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. ³ You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” ⁴ When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, ⁵ you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. ⁶ When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, ⁷ we cried to the Lord , the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. ⁸ The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; ⁹ and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰ So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord , have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. ¹¹ Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.

Psalm 91

¹ You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, ² will say to the Lord , “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.” ³ For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence; ⁴ he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

⁵ You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, ⁶ or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday. ⁷ A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. ⁸ You will only look with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. ⁹ Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, ¹⁰ no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.

¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. ¹² On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. ¹³ You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. ¹⁴ Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. ¹⁵ When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them. ¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.

Luke 4:1-13

4 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, ² 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. ³ The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” ⁴ Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” ⁵ Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶ 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. ⁷ If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” ⁸ Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” ⁹ 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, ¹⁰ for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ ¹¹ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” ¹² Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” ¹³ When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

The Sermon

When Mark tells this story, as usual he doesn’t have much to say about how it all started. “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” And just like that, it’s on to final exams for Jesus.

But a doctor knows better. Angels waiting on you, in this life anyway, usually means something less like lunch-in-15-minutes-or-it’s-free, and more like they waited around with you to make sure nothing goes really terribly wrong, and if it does, you hope they will swoop in immediately to the rescue. In this life, it’s either angels or vultures and by the end of forty days in the wilderness, you can imagine there were plenty of both looking down on the starving figure of Jesus.

A physician will have something to say beyond a quick description of the circumstances. Luke the Physician knows that you don’t go into the wilderness for 40 days and get table service. “When the forty days were over,” he said, “Jesus was famished.”

Temptation is a lot greater when you’re starving. The real test for Jesus doesn’t come during the 40 days in the wilderness; the more vulnerable time for him is when those 40 days have come and gone and your body is aching, your stomach is screaming for relief.

A doctor knows all about that, and a good doctor pays attention to it.

So it’s interesting then that Jesus does not seem—according to Matthew, Mark or Luke—to have any trouble at all coming to his conclusions, articulating his faith, and passing the final exam.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t in charge of writing how this must have happened. I don’t think I’d be very good at gospel writing. But I would think I was good enough at it, which is why I would have told it like this:

“The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’

And Jesus, doubled over in pain from the blisters on his torn, tired feet, looked at the stone, and as he gazed upon it, the stone seemed like a mirage, which vibrated before him, and soon took on the dimensions of a steaming loaf of fresh bread. He knew—he remembered that taste—all he needed to go with it was a handful of water from the stream, and he could take that bread, and feeling the warmth, he would effortlessly crack it in two pieces, and the gentle, aromatic steam of fresh bread would fill his nostrils; and he would tear off one small bite and put it in his mouth, and it would melt, flaky and fulsome, on his tongue; and he could be satisfied at last. But no, no, he must draw up all his strength, stretching the limits of human endurance, just one more day, just one more hour, he had to deny himself; and from somewhere deep within him, from behind his parched lips, his starvation-distended abdomen, his sun-withered mind, he said, in a famished and dying whisper: “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”

See, I would have thought that was great. But Luke doesn’t say anything like that—Luke, the Physician, the expert of the human body, who understands the psychosomatic relationship between body, mind and spirit, whose m.o. is to investigate everything carefully and write an orderly account, so that the truth would be known.

You know what Luke says?

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.” ⁴ Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”

At least according to Luke—and to both of the other evangelists who tell this story—Jesus did not hesitate, falter, vacillate, or struggle with his response.

In the most vulnerable, weakened, famished moment of his adult life to this point, Jesus not only articulated but chose truth over falsehood, chose faithfulness over self-gratification, chose humility before God over self-glorification.

The devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; if you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”

And, see, I would have said, “And the devil went, ‘D’oh!’”

“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.’”

And the test was over.

For Jesus, fully human, fully God, it appears easy, even though he was famished.

Perhaps we can look at it as inspiration, that no matter what our circumstances, how greatly we are tried or tempted, there is no time at all, no excuse and no reason, why we should ever not choose for truth, choose for what is real and beautiful, choose for God.

It’s not our place to guess whether or not it was easy for Jesus. One thing we know for sure is it’s not easy for us.

In Lent, we give ourselves the same kind of challenge. Some give up meat and strong drink, some give up chocolate (which, I am told, is much more serious, almost in a category with golf).

Others take on a special ministry, and for forty days, regardless of whether they get tired or they just become apathetic, they stand by that commitment to do that one special thing, because they told God they would, and if Jesus can be faithful on our behalf regardless of the cost to himself, we can be faithful to forty days of spiritual discipline.

But we who follow Christ have chosen to give to God the best that we have at all times—the firstfruits of our labor; the best of what we can do; the most faithful decisions we can make; the actions that demonstrate loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves, not just for these forty days, but for a lifetime.

I commend to you the spiritual discipline of Lent. However you choose to observe it—self-denial; extra mission work; deep introspection—I commend it to you as time set apart and sanctified.

And I pray that, in these forty days and at all times, you will be able to say to God, “Now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord , have given me.”

This Lenten season and always, may we commit to being the people and the church that God created us to become.

And may God command the angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

Keith Grogg

Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church

Carolina Beach , NC

February 25, 2007