"It Is Written"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man,” St. Paul says. But it seems like there are an awful lot of temptations that are common to man.

What tempts you? Perhaps you experience temptation in the things of the flesh. I don't know about you, but I sure love to eat. For most of us, all-you-can-eat buffets are a trap. All that wonderful-looking food laid out there, just begging you to eat and eat and eat. Pretty soon, one plate turns into two, then three, and so on. We keep eating until we feel like we are ready to burst at the seams. And were we really that hungry in the first place? Was it really necessary, or at all healthy, to stuff ourselves like that? We all experience the temptation toward gluttony from time to time, even it is just that last little piece of pie staring us down from the kitchen counter.

Or perhaps your particular temptation is toward sloth, or laziness. Instead of going outside and playing with the kids, you'd rather just pop in a movie and lounge on the couch half the day. Instead of braving the cold to go and visit the woman who wishes for someone to visit, you huddle up in your nice, warm house and shiver at the thought of even going to get the mail. Instead of showing up to help clean the church, you decide to go shopping in the city. That snooze button looks awfully attractive every morning, doesn't it?

Of course, there is always the temptation so very common to man, and to woman – the temptation of lust. None of us has never been tempted by the desires of the flesh and the search for pleasure. Undressing with your eyes that pretty woman or handsome man that walks past you down the way. Wondering what someone else does behind closed doors. Fantasizing about what it would be like with your particular person of interest, forming those mental images that bore into your head. It is oh-so-easy to be inflamed by lust, sometimes before we even consciously realize it is happening.

As if the matters of the flesh were not bad enough, the devil finds many and various ways to tempt us in our spirits. We are all guilty of sins of the tongue. The Eighth Commandment is ever so difficult to keep, especially when it is just so tempting to talk about what your neighbor is doing with that new car. We get together and gossip about what the people down the street are doing to their house, or what that pastor is doing that we don't like, or what the president is planning to get his hands in our pockets. Putting the best construction on everything and explaining everything in the kindest way is awfully hard for the old Adam to do, especially when it feels so good to be mad and offended.

Perhaps you consider yourself skilled at bridling your tongue, but are you as skilled at reining in your desire for power or control? You are the master of your domain, the maker of your fate – so says the American dream. If you just try hard enough, you will have what you want, be where you want to be, and no one can take that away from you. Until someone stands in your way and tells you no. Until someone disagrees with you. Until disease or disaster cuts off your tightly arranged scheme of control.

Maybe the devil's greatest weapon in his fight against God's elect is the temptation to doubt. “Did God really say?” asked the devil to Eve. “If you are the Son of God...” Satan taunted Jesus. We often fall prey to this device, even without knowing it. It is easy to wonder, what does the church have for me? There is no one here who relates to me, and people don't care about me. I don't feel anything when I go to church, so what's the use. I could just as easily sit home and read my Bible, or watch the televangelists on the cable channels. Do I really need to hear some guy preach at me about how naughty I've been every single week? Who is he to say he forgives my sins, anyhow?

What it really comes down to is this – who is your god? Is your god the Lord of heaven and earth, who knows you better than you know yourself, and who daily and richly provides for all your needs of body and soul? Or is your god the unregenerate, ungrateful old Adam who lives within you and who everyday tries to swim to the surface and retake the beach?

Jesus was no stranger to temptation, as today's Gospel lesson makes clear. The devil came at Him even harder than he comes against you and me, because Jesus was a vastly bigger prize, and a vastly harder tree to fell. But the devil did his best to topple Jesus.

On the surface, the devil tried to tempt Jesus to set aside spiritual concerns and simply satisfy His needs of the body. After wandering hungry in the desert for forty days, the devil told Jesus just to command the stones to become bread. It was an easy enough act for the all-powerful Son of God to do. Surely, making bread is no harder than turning water to wine, and much easier than raising the dead. But Jesus resisted that volley.

Next, the devil took Jesus to the precipice of the Temple, and told Him to throw Himself off and let the angels catch Him. Again, a very easy thing for Jesus to accomplish. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said that He could call twelve legions of angels, a host of 36,000, to defend Him against arrest. Or the Son of God could simply not fall, but alight neatly on the ground. It would have been a simple matter, either way.

Finally, for this round, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and offered them to Jesus in exchange for his worship. It seems like such an easy bargain to gain so much. Dr. Faust sold his soul to the devil for knowledge. Judas sold his for money. He who has the gold makes the rules, right?

Again, the heart of the devil's foray against Jesus was to make Him doubt the Word and promises of God. Satan knows the Scriptures very well, and is well-schooled in making them say whatever he wants them to say. Likewise, he is just as skilled at obscuring the clear Word of God. Did God really say that? Are you really the Son of God? Will your heavenly Father really do that for you? Do you really want to die for all those wretched humans who don't love you anyhow?

The devil has laid the first volley. Now what happens? How do you respond to temptation? The old Adam in each of us gives in to the temptations of the devil. It is easier to go along with his schemes than fight him. And after all, what the devil promises is so neat and shiny and pleasant, at least on the outside – just like that fruit in the garden. But whatever it is that the devil dangles before you, it is like the apple the wicked queen gave to Snow White – beautiful on the outside, but filled with poison on the inside. Regardless of what the devil promises you or parades before you, it all leads to one place – death. Even one bite, one little dalliance, one more indulgence, seals a death sentence upon your old, sinful, self. And then we blame someone else. The woman you gave me made me do it. The devil made me do it. My genetics made me do it. That's just the way I'm built. If he weren't that way, I wouldn't have to do it.

Repent. Repent of your sin and your weakness and your inability to choose the good. Repent of your desire to appease your own flesh. Repent of your desire to blame someone else for your failings.

Thanks be to God that Jesus did not give up and give in to the devil's temptations. Instead, our Lord Christ relied upon the true and pure Word of God to thwart the devil's schemes. The Words and promises of God are far better than anything we can find in our own flesh. The Word of God stands true. What He has written is so. God's Word is and does what it says. And “'As surely as I live,' God said, 'I would not see the sinner dead.'” What He has written is so – Jesus is His beloved Son, in whom He is well-pleased. It is written that He is the Lord our God and we are His people, and He sent His Son Jesus to make it so. And that is what the devil desperately wanted to prevent.

Jesus came to this earth as a man to experience the temptations common to man, and to live the life of a man, here among the men of earth. He put aside His glory and honor to receive the shame and contempt of those who were opposed to the message of salvation He preached. He set His face toward Jerusalem and journeyed to the cross, despite the machinations of the devil to keep Him from arriving on Calvary. If Jesus had not died on the cross, the devil would have won. Jesus cannot worship anyone, for He is God, but had the devil convinced Him to pack up and go home, we would have been lost eternally. However, Jesus made His way to the Cross, and there He died to take away our sins. He handed Himself over to the servants of the devil, so that He might triumph for good. He endured death on a cross so that through that cross we might have forgiveness, life, and salvation. He endured every temptation common to man, that He might rescue us from any temptation that comes upon us. And then, when it was finished, He rose again to proclaim to us the freedom of our salvation. Jesus rose from the dead through the glory of the Father so that we might have His life, and have it abundantly. He descended into hell to proclaim freedom to the captives there, then rose again to proclaim freedom to us held captive by sin on earth.

So we are free from sin and guilt. But why, then do you still experience temptation? Is it because you don't believe enough? Or is it because you aren't dedicated or wise or pious enough? Is it because you haven't named and claimed your best life now? No. It is because while we live in this world, we struggle as sinners and saints in one body. The effects of sin are still felt, even by the regenerate man. The flood of Holy Baptism daily drowns the old Adam, but he is a strong swimmer. The desires of the flesh corrupt even our best intentions and the temptations of the devil lead us astray from the good that we know we should do. So bottomless is the depth of our corruption that it cannot be fully removed from us this side of heaven. Our guilt is taken away, but we still feel the consequences of our inheritance from our firstfathers.

But we need not despair. Jesus is with us on the battlefield each day. Every morning, Jesus pushes the old evil man back down under the water and drowns him again. Each day the Valiant One fights before us and beside us on the plain. He is our champion, like us in every way, having experienced all temptation, but without sin. Jesus bore our sins to the cross, and so the temptation of the devil only has the power we allow. Through Christ, we have the power to tell the devil what to do with all his shiny promises and sneaky accusations and lies and deceits. For one little word can fell him – the Name of Jesus.

Throughout this Lenten season, we meditate on our sinful condition and remember our need for a Savior. But through all our sorrows and contrition, we never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. After the night comes the dawn. After Good Friday comes Easter Sunday. After death comes life. Glory be to Jesus Christ, to whom and through whom and in whom are all things made new.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.