Welcome to the Wilderness

 January 17 2021

Luke 4:1-13

         I have been writing messages for Sunday worship services off and on now for around twelve years now and it never ceases to amaze me how the scriptures open up and give guidance and hope to what is going on in our world. The scriptures always have something to say to us, sometimes they speak to our personal belief, sometimes they help us understand who we are as a church and sometimes they speak to what is going on with our living life out there in the real world. As I considered what scripture to use for this Sunday I didn’t go with what the lectionary had chosen for today, the story of Jesus preaching his first sermon in front of his hometown folk and instead decided to speak on what is known as the temptation of Christ. The reason for choosing this story of Jesus in the wilderness over Jesus in his hometown synagogue is that right now it just seems as though there are many followers of Christ who sense that at this point in history that these are testing times. Testing is a much better translation of what Jesus is going to experience out there among the wild things and when we understand this then this story relates better with our real life experience.It just goes without saying that these are testing times for all of us. Next Wednesday marks the one year anniversary of the first Covid-19 case here in America and here, a year later over three hundred eighty thousand people have died from this dreaded disease. Even though we now have a vaccine the disease continues to spiral out of control in many places throughout our country, hospitals are running out of room, doctors and nurses are overworked, nursing homes continue to be hotbeds for the disease. This disease has wrecked the economy resulting in many people unemployed, business being shuttered and hundreds of thousands face evictions. So, yes these are testing times that weigh heavy on our hearts.

         Not only has the disease hit us hard but our political climate has also been stressful to watch and be a part of. We are facing a time of great political uncertainty as we prepare to change the leadership of our country. There are many followers of Jesus that through what they speak of and say on social media appear to be quite anxious, concerned and worried about the future. Like Jesus in our scripture for today we seem to be finding ourselves in the wilderness, in a place of chaos, a place of desolation and hardship. This is why this story of Jesus is so incredibly helpful to us because as Luke records it, Jesus did not just haphazardly find himself wandering out in the wilderness; no, we are told that Jesus was led there by the Holy Spirit. The wilderness, far from being a God-forsaken place is in all actuality a place where God goes ahead of us, a place where God can discover just what is kept in the innermost chambers of our heart.

         You see, the story of Jesus is a re-enactment of an earlier trek into the wilderness by God and his people when after they left the slavery of Egypt and walked through the baptism of deliverance through the Red Sea. There God led them deliberately out into the wild places. God explains his motives for doing so in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, where we read, “You shall remember the whole way God has led you these forty years in the wilderness that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.” So, welcome to the wilderness, here is where God himself has brought us in order that first we might be humbled. To be humbled is to bring us to the point where amongst the chaos we find ourselves in we no longer arrogantly believe that we are in control. The wilderness is the place where when life no longer makes sense we at last yield ourselves to God. What we discover in our humility is the truth that while God opposes the proud he instead gives grace to the humble. The wilderness then prepares us to receive God’s grace, his generosity. But first, as we read in the story of Jesus we have to be emptied in order that God might have a place for that which he desires to give to us.

         As we read in the fourth chapter of Luke after Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, we are told that Jesus fasted for forty days. This was much like Moses who after coming down from Mount Sinai and finding that the people of Israel were worshipping the golden calf, threw down the tablets with God’s commands on them and went back up on the mountain. There Moses fasted for forty days to prepare himself to intercede and pray for the people of Israel so that God might have mercy upon the people who had sinned so horribly. Jesus, having been anointed as God’s new high priest would have also known that he also needed to prepare himself to intercede for God’s people as well. When his forty day fast was over we are told that Jesus was hungry. Jesus, perfectly God was also perfectly human who had, like us, very human needs. This tells us that it is alright for us to hunger, to have longings. We may not have a need for food but we may hunger and long for other things without which life seems incomplete. As we learn from our story of Jesus in the wilderness, it is not wrong to have these hungers, but it is rather how we deal with these hungers that matters. It is when Jesus acknowledges his hunger this is when Jesus hears the voice of the accuser, the devil, say to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” Now, what we find here is that what this testing is about is just what does it mean to be the Son of God. This term,”Son of God” meant more than just one who was begotten of the Father. In the language of the day, Son of God meant one who was rightfully obedient to do what God expected. We hear this in what once again we find in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy. There we are told, that we are to know that as a a man disciplines his son, so God disciplines us. This discipline is God teaching us to keep his commandments, walk in his ways, and to fear him. Yet even knowing this, we still must know the ways of God before we can walk in them. What the devil’s voice speaks about is an alternative way to think about God and his ways. In this first test, the question that is being asked is this: what is it that we need to live and how does God fulfill this need? Is God merely to be the one who provides what we need to eat, our basic needs or is there something more that we need from God? Jesus in his answer makes it very clear that we need more than just food to satisfy our hunger, that indeed we need something that only God can provide. Jesus states the scripture from again, the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, “Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Here we learn that while we are much like the rest of God’s creatures needing food and water to survive, we unlike the rest of God’s creatures also need the voice of God to live. As those who, as we are told in the eighth Psalm, are created a little lower than the angels and not a little higher than the animals, we are created to fulfill God’s purpose for us to be a living image of God. This means that we have an awareness of our existence that no other creature has and it is this awareness of our life and ultimately our death that can cause us, apart from God, to be anxious and worried and fearful. Apart from God, our attempts to overcome this anxiety by frantically seeking more, more food, more everything will ultimately fail. What we need is to first find a place of security, a place of absolute trustworthiness to set our lives upon. This is what we find in the word of God. As it is recorded in the fifty fifth chapter of Isaiah, God tells us that the word that goes out of his mouth will not return to him empty but it will accomplish that which God purposes. God’s word shall succeed in the thing for which he sent it. This is the certainty that we must build are lives upon. So, while God indeed will supply all our needs what we need from God is more than this. We need to hear his word, to find in God the satisfaction for our deepest longing for security, to find our rest in his sure and certain promises.

         Next, in the story of the testing of Jesus, we read that the devil took  Jesus up and showed him all of kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to Jesus, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then worship me, it all will be yours.” So, once again, the devil is speaking to Jesus about a different understanding of what it means to be a true child of God. Can one consider themselves to be God’s people and in the same breath have actions that mimic the ways of the world? At question is just what is true power and glory. We must also understand  that the reason for desiring to obtain such power and glory is to find a way to secure one’s future.Now, it is perhaps hard for us to imagine that God’s people would be found to be on the side of the evil one but listen to what Jesus tells to a group of Pharisees in the eighth chapter of John, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murder from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks out of his character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” So, here were people who thought they were faithful believers in the one true God who were found out to be instead in the very grips of the evil one, the one who is a murderer and a liar from the beginning. Jesus knew that the evil one was their father because they were people who held murderous thoughts and told lies to achieve their goals. Their lives were much like what is described in the fourth chapter of James, “What causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel. James goes on to say that to live like this is to be a friend with the world and if one is a friend of the world then they are an enemy with God. So, it becomes clear that the test that the devil is giving to Jesus is whether Jesus will bring his kingdom about through force, through the taking of life instead of the giving of life, through the telling of lies instead of being the voice of the truth. This is how the people of Israel, God’s own people believed that they could bring God’s kingdom here on earth, through a violent overthrow of the Roman Empire. Yet, in doing so they would be no different then all of the other kingdoms of this world which lay under the rule of the evil one. No, Jesus refuted the devil, this is not how God’s kingdom comes upon the earth. Quoting from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, Jesus says that it is the Lord God that we should worship, it is God that we should fear and it is God alone we should serve. The word translated as “serve” is a word that is used for priests. This is the way of true glory, the way that finds God worthy of our life, the way that knows there is no higher honor than to humbly serve our God, faithfully bearing his name before the world. When we live like this then we will be part of God’s world transforming plan. Jeremiah, in the fourth chapter of his book understood this when he wrote, “If you swear, “As the Lord lives,”, in truth, in justice and in righteousness, then the nations shall bless themselves in him and in him shall they glory.” This is the way of Jesus, a way that comes through worship and serving God. This is the promised future we find in the seventh chapter of the book of Revelation where we read that a great multitude from every nation, from all tribes, people, languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, the robes of the priests, with palm branches in their hands worshiping, crying out, “Salvation belongs to  our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.” This is the way Jesus knew that the evil one one day would be conquered forever.

         Well, the devil was not finished with Jesus just yet. He took Jesus to Jerusalem to the temple and sat Jesus on its highest point some four hundred feet high. The devil quoting the ninety first psalm, told Jesus to throw himself off because as it is written , “God will command his angels concerning you, to guard you. The hands of the angels will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.” Here again the devil is stating a false understanding of the ways of God.  This false belief held that God is our power we need for self-preservation. Surely, no matter what happens, God will be there to see us safely through it, right? So, go ahead and jump Jesus its going to be alright, God has this, doesn’t he? Jesus’ answer is yet another quote from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy where we are told, “You shall not put the Lord God to the test.” What this means is that if God is supposed to preserve our life then the assumption is that God hasn’t been preserving our life up until then which is completely false. So, every near death scrape becomes a moment when we wonder if God going to show up or not, this is the test we will put God through. God in no uncertain terms rejects being tested like this because it blasphemes his holy name. If the name of God is that he is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness, if this is who God is, his unchanging character, then we never have to wonder if God is going to be there for us. When we know this then no longer have to be concerned for keeping our self safe because we are set free to give ourselves fully to God knowing that no matter what our life is safe with him. 

         When we know that this last temptation happened in Jerusalem we can begin to see that Luke has arranged his telling of the testing of Jesus in this way to point us to that place where Jesus proved the truth that was in his heart, the place called Calvary. There Jesus placed his faith in the will of his Heavenly Father,  the will found in his holy Word. There at Calvary, Jesus found his Heavenly Father worthy of his very life, being the good servant who was obedient even unto death. And there at Calvary Jesus offered up his life, not seeking to preserve his life but rather to give his life as a ransom for many because he knew his life was safe in his Father’s hands. This was proven true when three days later Jesus stepped out of the grave. So, the testing in the wilderness directly connects to the victory of Jesus at the cross.

         And so it is with us as we find ourselves in what perhaps feels like a wilderness experience. The experience of Jesus should let us know that if this is where we find ourselves God is ahead of us leading us into this place. God brings us into these experiences in order to test us, to see just what is in our hearts. God wants to know if we understand that we need more than just the bare necessities to live that to be truly alive we need a relationship with the God who speaks his truth to us. Only his word can offer the security that we crave. It is here in the wilderness that God seeks to know if we are trusting the ways of the world, the ways of force and power to secure our future or are we trusting that this simple act of worship and service to God can be the ways the world is set free from the devil’s dominion.  Lastly, it is here in wilderness that God seeks to know if we have built our life upon his unchanging name, that we live boldly because we are absolutely certain our God is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness even when called upon to carry our cross for him. We live knowing that life is not about self preservation but is instead about the greatest love of all the laying down of our life for others. When we know these truths and live these truths then we also know that we have passed the test. So, stop for a moment and consider just how is it going, this testing of what is in your heart? Do you need to change your answers as to who God is and how you believe in him knowing the true answers that Jesus gives to us? May what God finds within our hearts be pleasing unto him. Amen