Obedience and Trust in God's Promises

March 9, 2025 - The First Sunday in Lent

Almighty God, by the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds so that as the word is read and preached this day, we might truly hear your truth and know your will for us. Amen.

Please be seated.

Good morning. I'm Jeff Wilhelm. I am a priest here, also a parishioner, and I am sitting in for, or standing in for Father John, who is ill. So... that explains me.

This is also the first Sunday in Lent, but Lent officially began on Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. Many of you were here for our imposition of ashes, and it made me think back to my first Ash Wednesday service as a priest. After the service, on my way home, I happened to stop at the drug store, and the clerk kept giving the eye like... giving me these strange looks. Finally, I said, "Oh, it's Ash Wednesday." She goes, "What?" I said, "It's Ash Wednesday. Lent." ... "What's that?"

Lent, I discovered at that moment, is a mystery to a lot of folks, even a lot of Christians. You see, only about 27% of all Christians in America observe Lent, mostly Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians. So, why do we observe Lent? Why do we bother? I think the purpose of Lent can be summed up in the words of the Psalm that we recited together on Ash Wednesday: "Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me."

Create in me a clean heart. We could look at Lent as a spring cleaning of the heart, a scrubbing of the spirit and the soul. A time we wipe away the layers of indifference to injustice and the exploitation of others that have built up over the past year. A time to clean out our ears so that we might more clearly hear Christ's call to service. A time to fully open our eyes to the world so that we're no longer blind to human need and suffering.

Every year we set aside 40 days for this task, this hard work of Lent. Why 40 days, you wonder? The 40 days of Lent mirror Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the wilderness that we read about this morning. And 40 days symbolizes Israel's 40 years in the wilderness on their journey to the promised land.

This morning, as we begin Lent, we each embark on our own Lenten journey. We will follow Jesus' example, spending 40 days pondering, reflecting, and contemplating that Jesus suffered and died for us. And what meaning that has in our lives today.

Our scripture readings this first Sunday in Lent are all stories of temptation. Our reading from Deuteronomy is Moses' farewell address to the Israelites as they are about to enter the promised land. And Moses warns them of the temptations they're going to experience in Canaan, how they'll be tempted by the new and different customs they're about to experience, tempted by the new religious beliefs and practices they're about to experience.

Of course, there's a practical reason behind Moses' warnings. Strict adherence to its own customs is the way that Israel will remain differentiated from the Canaanites in this new land. It is how Israel will define itself. It is how they will set themselves apart, how Israel will establish itself as a nation.

Now Moses instructs the Israelites how they're to behave. First, they're to bring offerings to God's sanctuary, the first fruits of the harvest, not the leftovers, not the bruised fruits nobody wants, the first fruits, the good stuff, the cream of the crop. This is Moses' reminder that the land and the bounty are gifts of God, from God to them. Moses also instructs the people to confess their faith by reciting the history of their people to remind Israel who they are and where they came from. To remember their ancestors were wandering Armenians who settled in Egypt and became a mighty nation, but they were enslaved.

And God heard their cries and brought them out of Egypt with a terrifying display of power and with signs and wonders, Moses says. Earlier in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses describes the wilderness of Israel as a great and terrible, arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. And it was during their 40-year sojourn in this terrible wilderness that Israel came to understand its call, to comprehend what it meant to be God's chosen people. So in religious traditions, the wilderness came to represent a place of revelation and transformation, a place of searching and self-discovery.

In today's Gospel, Luke tells us how Jesus went into the wilderness on his journey of searching and revelation. Jesus' purpose was to discover how he was going to fulfill his vocation. Now remember where we are in Jesus' story. Jesus has just been baptized. Today's reading begins, Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan. That's the river Jordan where he was baptized.

And this is the very first thing Jesus does after his baptism. Right after God identifies him as "my son, you are my son." At this point, what Jesus is going to do with that is unknown. He hasn't formed his ministry yet. He has performed no healings. He has performed no exorcisms, no miracles. He has no disciples. Jesus is a blank slate at this point.

So he goes into the wilderness on this quest of reflection and self-discovery. And as was the custom in those times, on those journeys, he will eat nothing for 40 days. We read in Luke's Gospel how he was famished. Well, now the devil knows an opportunity when he sees one. And he tempts the freshly baptized, still wet behind the ears, son of God. And he goes for Jesus' weak spot, appealing to his humanness, his physical needs, his hunger. The devil tempts Jesus.

He says, "if you are the son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Now, the devil is a wily character. He's not only appealing to Jesus' physical needs, but also appealing to Jesus' role as Messiah. Because, remember, Isaiah had prophesied that the Messiah would come and he would feed the hungry. So if Jesus can turn stones into bread, all of the world's hungry could be fed very easily, and Isaiah's prophecy fulfilled. So the devil plays on Jesus' vulnerability and on his purity of heart and his desire to do only God's will.

Also notice how the devil casts doubt on Jesus' identity. If you are the son of God, if you are the son of God, like a schoolyard bully. But Jesus resists responding with a quote from Deuteronomy, one does not live by bread alone, a quote which refers to the manna that God provided to the people in Israel in the desert. So here Jesus is doing as Moses instructed Israel, he is recalling the history of his people, his community of faith for strength.

In the second temptation, the devil promises to give Jesus authority over all the kingdoms of the world, if Jesus will only worship him. Again, Jesus resists, knowing that the true power comes only from God and only God is to be worshiped. Jesus turns again to Deuteronomy for his reply, worship the Lord your God and serve only him.

But the devil is not easily dissuaded, and for his third temptation, he takes Jesus to Jerusalem, to the pinnacle of the temple, the very center of the people's faith. Now, notice how the devil turns Jesus' own tactic against him by quoting scripture. "If you're the son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it's written, he will command his angels to protect you, on their heads they will bear you up so that you will not dice your foot against a stone."

The devil wants Jesus to perform a terrifying display of power and signs and wonders, just as God did in Egypt. The devil is tempting Jesus to act like God, to supersede God, to show his independence from God. In fact, I think in all these temptations, that is exactly what the devil is doing, attempting to drive a wedge between God and Jesus.

But Jesus resists temptation, once again, quoting Moses, "Do not put the Lord, your God, to the test." In resisting temptation, Jesus shows us that true faith, authentic faith, is characterized not by exploiting God's promises or by trying to force God to act upon his promises, but by complete obedience and trust in God's promises.

I think it's fascinating the way the story ends.

Jesus has won the battle, but the devil doesn't give up. Luke closes the story on a note of foreboding with one of the most chilling lines in all of the Gospels. "The devil departed from Jesus until a more opportune time."

A more opportune time. We know the devil's not finished. Evil will stalk Jesus throughout his ministry until the devil finally shows up again in Jerusalem, and as Luke writes, Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot.

Today, it seems that, much like Israel, we have entered into a strange land with different customs and new beliefs. A land where people proudly flaunt their Christian identity while completely ignoring everything that Jesus said. It's a strange new land filled with new temptations.

Our baptismal covenant leads us one way, while the powers tempt us down a different path.

Our baptismal covenant calls us to seek and serve God in all people. The powers tell us only if those people look just like us.

Our baptismal covenant tells us to respect the dignity of every human being. The powers say, first make sure their paperwork is in order.

Our baptismal covenant commands us to love our neighbor as ourself. The powers say, we may love our neighbor so long as our neighbor is one of us and not on a verboten list.

It makes you wonder if Satan hasn't found yet another opportune time. In this strange new land we find ourselves in, we are tempted to overlook something fundamental to our faith. Jesus died for us. He died for us for a reason, to take away our sins, to disarm the powers that stand against us and to overcome the evil and death. The good news for us is we face no temptation by ourselves because like Jesus, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we are guided by the knowledge and love of God. And we stand as members of our faith community that stretches back to the apostles.

As we embark on our Lenten journey, we do not walk alone. We walk in good company with holy purpose and with the words of the Psalmist as our guide, "create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

Amen.