A sermon preached at Trinity-Mount Rainier on the First Sunday in Lent, February 22, 2015.
Tempted and Tested
Readings Appointed
(Genesis 22:1-18; James 1:12-18; Mark 1:9-15)
Last Wednesday, the Church began its 40 day journey towards the celebration of Easter. And in the Church’s tradition, this first Sunday in the Lenten Season recalls the prototype of our Lenten fast: the 40 days spent in the wilderness by our Lord Jesus after His Baptism, when He was tempted by the devil. Often, when we recall this event, we do so thinking of the way this event was reported by Matthew and Luke in their Gospels, where Satan tempts Jesus three times, and through the use of the Word of God, Jesus wins the day over the devil and his desire to derail the mission of the Redeemer.
This year in which the Gospel of Mark is our main companion on our journey through the Christian cycle of the seasons, the Evangelist gives us a slightly different take on Jesus’ temptation—only telling us about in in two verses, and without much detail. Even so, Mark’s account of what happened during Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, along with the other readings which have been appointed for this day help us to reflect not just on Jesus and His temptation, which He underwent for us, but to see ourselves in these words and to discover how our Lord is with us in every time of trial and temptation and aids us in having and gaining the victory.
In the Epistle, Saint James exhorts his hearers to stand firm in the moment of temptation, reminding them that the source of temptation is never God, “for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.” Remembering Dr. Luther’s explanation to the petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation”, Luther quotes James word for word that God is not, nor can be, our tempter. Yet, looking at today’s Old Testament and Gospel Readings, one might think that this might not be true.
The near-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham recounted in our reading from Genesis is one case where one could say that God was tempting someone. Yes, we know that this was God testing the faith and obedience of Abraham, but did Abraham know this at the time? As he and Isaac trudged towards Mount Moriah for three days, what must have been going through Abraham’s mind? Could it have been doubts about what kind of God he was following and serving? Questions about this God who had promised him so much through this son could now ask him to offer him up as a sacrifice. Maybe even Abraham spent those days trying to come up with a way of obeying God yet sparing his son.
And just as God was the instigator of the events in our Old Testament Reading, He is also literally the driving force behind Jesus’ temptation. Mark states simply and quite plainly: “The Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.” With these words, we see the reason that Jesus finds Himself in the wilderness with the evil one: God led and placed Him there. And we are left with the question, “But why?”
We can understand, especially in the light of James’ reminder to us, that God is not the tempter. He is not the one who will cause us to transgress His own Law, thus making God a Lawbreaker Himself. The one who is the true tempter is Satan—the deceiver, the accuser, the father of lies. This is the tempter who was at work in these times of testing of both Abraham and Jesus. It was the devil who wanted both of them to forget the promises of God, to forget the sure Word that God had spoken to them, to doubt the love and mercy of God, and to even doubt what God had called them to be: Abraham, the father of God’s promised chosen people; and Jesus, the very Son of God.
When we see Abraham’s and Jesus’ times of testing in this light, we come to see that it is no different for us. As we continue to live in a sinful world, with bodies still corrupted by the sin of our first parents, and with hearts, minds, and wills which are more often focused on ourselves and our desires rather than on the will of God for us, we are a people who are sorely and constantly tempted by the evil one who has as His desire our ruin, fall, and separation from God. And as we go through our times of testing and temptation, the only question is this: Who will we follow, God or Satan?
The hardest part about these moments of trial is the deep sense of loneliness that it brings. Many times, as we find ourselves being pulled between the good that we would do and the evil that we know we should not do, we feel as if God has left us all alone to figure it all out on our own. We have a sense of what we should do, we seem to know why the “bad things” are indeed that, and yet, we are still at a loss on what to do. In fact, left to ourselves, we know that we will always choose the wrong thing. So, we may well wonder, Where is God when we need Him to help us?
Looking again at Abraham and Jesus, we find our answer to that very question. Where was God as Abraham struggled to reconcile the requested death of his son with the love and promise of God? Where was God as Jesus underwent His forty day temptation in the wilderness? Where is God when we face our own struggles with temptation and with our need to trust in the promises of God when everything seems to point us to think that God has somehow lied or misled us? Indeed, where is God when we need Him most?
Well, God is right there with us. He was there to stop the knife from falling and killing Isaac. He was there to tend to the needs of His Son in the wilderness. He is with us in our moments of trial, assuring us of His never-failing love and constant presence, reminding us always of His promise: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”
Even knowing this and even believing it to be true, we are still often left with more questions than answers, especially the question that asks that even though our God is not our tempter, why does He allow us to be tempted and tested? It does seem that if God was so loving, then He should desire us to be free from hurt and pain. Yet, it is actually in our hurt and pain where we are oftentimes led to see God’s love for us even more clearly. As we come out of our times of our temptation and testing, God is there, ready to comfort us, ready to receive us back through His forgiving love, ready to restore us and our lives into the image and intent He created us to have with Him.
Testing and temptation hurt and they are painful, especially if they move us away from God and His love for us. Yet, temptation and testing can also reveal the great love of God for us, cause us to remember His gracious presence, and assure us of our God’s mighty power to save us and to keep us as His own forever. In the hours of trial that we have faced, let us remember the God who has preserved us from harm and danger and kept us as His own. In the moments of testing yet to come, let us remember the loving God who continues to walk with us, surrounding us with His protecting grace and ever-present with His forgiveness that saves and frees us from the power of the evil one. Yes, we walk in danger all the way. But we never walk alone, for we walk with Jesus, the Victor over sin, death, and the devil and our Mighty Savior in the hour of testing and temptation. For this, thanks be to Christ! Amen!
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