Invocabit (Lent 1), 2024
Rev. Thomas Van Hemert
St. Matthew 4:1-11
Invocabit
February 18, 2024
In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Matthew records the Baptism of Jesus in chapter three of his Gospel. John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River, then all of a sudden, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove upon Him. Then suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” What Matthew records for us is not only the Baptism of Jesus but also the visible presence of the Holy Trinity: The Father’s voice is heard, the Son is visible to the eye, standing in the Jordan as a man, and the Holy Spirit descended upon the Son in the form of a dove.
“Then,” Matthew says, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. To be tempted by the devil. Those of you know have studied English know this phrase to be tempted by the devil as a purpose clause. Jesus came to earth, took on our flesh, was baptized and led by the Spirit into the wilderness for the purpose of being tempted by the devil. He, as a man, must endure and withstand all things that sinful men have endured—every temptation—in order that He might become the most perfect, sinless, and unblemished sacrifice to His Father.
After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus was hungry. Then the devil, which Matthew calls the tempter, came to Jesus and tempted Him three times. The first was a temptation of turning stones into bread. The second temptation was an attempt by the devil to get Jesus to test God. “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” The third and final temptation is, of course, the most ridiculous. “Look at all these kingdoms, Jesus. They’ll be yours if you bow down and worship me.” Then, as we all know, Jesus rebukes the tempter for the third time, he leaves Him, and then angels come and minister to Him.
When it comes to temptation, in general, there are three types of temptation or rather, three sources of temptation. The first is the flesh. The second source of temptation is the world. The third is the devil. When we hear the word flesh, what we mean is our sinful nature. Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden and their sin, what we call “Original Sin,” is passed down to us, since we are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. We also sometimes call our sinful nature our “old Adam.” Our own sinful nature, our old Adam, our corrupt consciences often encourage and tempts us to have all kinds of evil lusts and sinful desires. These come from within ourselves because even though we are, even in this life, saved by grace through faith, redeemed by God in Christ Jesus, we still fight against our sinful nature. This is the exact description that St. Paul gives in Romans 7, which exists between the sinner and the saint within himself.
When it comes to temptations from the world, Luther uses the example in Luke 14 when Jesus noticed how people, who were invited to a meal always tried to pick for themselves the best seat—the seat with the highest honor. And then Jesus tells the parable about how we should choose the lower seat so that when we are told to move up higher, we are seen to be honored. But this example shows how the world tempts us. We want the highest seat. We want the seat of highest honor. We want to be respected, loved, honored, and adored by the world. So, in our pride, we take advantage of what the world offers us and we think, “Well yeah, I would like to be the boss, I would like to have power and authority because then I could wield it over those who have wronged me. Then I’ll force them to respect me.”
The final source of temptation is the devil. Again, Matthew, in the Gospel reading for today calls the devil “the tempter,” because that’s what he is. That’s what he does. That’s the only thing he does—he tempts. Because if he’s going down, you better be sure he wants to take you and as many as he can with him. The devil knows Scripture better than we do, he is an expert at corrupting it, and he has thousands of years of experience. “Did God really say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” Of course not. He lies. He is a liar. Jesus says that “when he [the devil] lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
It must be noted, and it’s quite obvious, that the devil is the one who tempts Jesus each of the three times. Jesus doesn’t have sinful flesh, or a sinful nature like we do. He is perfectly sinless. So when we are tempted, either from within ourselves or from the world or from the devil, in our fallen state, we actually think about it. “Yeah, you know what? I am hungry. It would be nice to turn those stones into bread. What harm would that cause?” “Yeah, you know what? I am curious if God would be true to His word and send His angels to catch me.” “Yeah, you know what? Maybe I’ll just bend the knee once. Then I’ll rule over all these kingdoms and I could actually use my position to do good. I’ll just repent later. Jesus will forgive me. After all, He’ll be proud when He sees all that I’ve accomplished ruling the world.”
We actually think about these things. And even thinking about it, contemplating temptations, or when we daydream about giving into sin, this is actually sin. Because even the inclination to sin, even without actually performing the act of sinning, just thinking about it in our heads is sin. The Reformers call this inborn inclination to sin Concupiscence. We confess that all who are naturally born are born in sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with the inclination to sin called Concupiscence. This inclination to sin is actually sin itself. So it’s completely false to say, “Well I didn’t sin because I didn’t act out on it.” No. You sinned because you actually thought about doing it. You imagined what it would it be like to enjoy your sins, and that is sin itself. So repent.
Jesus is not like us because He does not have Original Sin. He has no sinful nature. He is God in the flesh, perfect and holy. He has no concupiscence. He has no inclination to sin. So when He’s tempted by the devil, “Turn these stones into bread,” He doesn’t even consider doing that because He and His Father are one. He loves His Father perfectly and is perfectly obedient to Him and trusts that His Father will see Him through.
Throughout the Old Testament, while wandering through the wilderness, the people of Israel failed to love and trust in God perfectly. Often, they complained. They sinned against God. They gave into temptation. That’s why they had to wander around for 40 years. Jesus now is Israel reduced to one person and He loves His father perfectly, lives by His Father’s word, never tests Him, and worships and serves His Father only. And it is only in Jesus, Israel reduced to one, through Whom we overcome temptation.
Because we are renewed in Jesus Christ and have become a new creation through His death and resurrection, which we receive in Baptism, we have also this promise, “No temptation has overtaken [us] that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let [us] be tempted beyond [our] ability, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13)
Of course, this isn’t the main point of the reading “Jesus overcomes temptation so we can too,” though this is true, but the main point is that Jesus does this for us because we needed someone to do this for us. We need a high priest who is able to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, and yet is without sin. The sacrifice that would win for us forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation, must be perfect, unblemished, and sinless. So Jesus comes to do everything that we don’t do and can’t do.
And so we hear, and we confess, and we sing the great stanza from Luther’s hymn: “For us fights the valiant One, Whom God Himself elected. Ask ye, Who is this? Jesus Christ it is, of Sabaoth Lord, and there’s none other God; He holds the field forever.”
In +Jesus’ name.
