| March 12, 2000 | Driven to Save Us | Mark 1:12-15
(Thanks to Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn for source material for this message)
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text for today is the account of the temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness. Through it we are reminded of the fact that we are, ourselves, tempted by Satan. On our own, we are not able to resist, but strengthed by our Lord, the one who did resist Satan's temptations, we can hold fast to the wonderful truth of the Gospel. Because our Lord was tempted and resisted, He can help us too, resist Satan.
Have you ever known anyone who seemed like they were driven? You know the person. They just can't seem to stop until whatever their task is is finished. It's almost like there is some force moving them, never letting them slow down to rest. Sounds like some of the farmers driving their tractors in the field until 3am. Some people seem like they just can't be satisfied to let things happen, they have to constantly be pushing, ever forward, never behind. There are certain people that cannot be satisfied until the task is done.
That is much like the picture we see of Jesus in our Gospel text for today. When we look at Mark's Gospel on Jesus' temptation and preaching the kingdom of God, it's almost like Jesus doesn't have time to wait for things to just unfold. We see a picture of Jesus as one who is driven, not by some bizarre compulsive behavior, but by God's Spirit for our salvation.
At our Lord's baptism just before our text we see that God had heard His people's cry for Him and for salvation. The heavens open up, and the Father said to Jesus, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." (Mk. 1:11) We spent the last 8 weeks hearing from the Lord what it means for Him to say "You are My Son." And the culmination was last Sunday, when we heard that in the Transfiguration the Father again speaks, also saying this time: "Hear Him." Why Hear Jesus? He knows what is best for you. Hear Him, for He is the one who is driven to save you from your sins.
Only the Messiah could restore us from our sinful nature, and recreate the world as God's good creation. It would not happen easily. Rather, it would be violent. Satan would attack God's Son. He would suffer and be killed in the most gruesome manner. So it is that we move from who Jesus is to what He does for us as His children.
For this battle was not to be fought like we would have it fought. Immediately after Jesus' baptism, He was driven into the wilderness to suffer temptation at the hands of Satan for forty days. He was driven or forced by the Spirit to do this.
Jesus was driven out because this is what we deserved. Yes, the punishment and trials that we deserved because of our sin were heaped upon Jesus. So, Jesus' baptism becomes one of suffering and of death. When Jesus is baptized, in the waters He stands as one of us, and He stands for us. What we deserved, He received.
And notice how quickly the Gospel of Mark moves from Baptism to temptation. This reminds us of our own situation where we move from our own baptism to temptation. When you were baptized, your life became a battleground between God and Satan. Satan will not be satisfied to simply let you go. He's not going to just say, "Ok, God, you won that one. I'll go on to someone else." No, Satan will battle for your soul now more than ever! Satan will use any trick, any scheme that He can to get you to deny who you are as a baptized child of God. He will try to get you to doubt your salvation in Christ.
God knows this, and so He sent Jesus to receive all the assaults and crafts of the devil in your place. The Spirit drove Jesus to the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil for that was His mission for us. God sends down his Son into the world as a mighty warrior who does not inflict suffering, but receives it as the Suffering Servant. Our guilt and sin could not be defeated with a show of might, but only with Jesus taking on the sin of the world, with His life, His death, and His glorious resurrection from the dead.
In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew we see a little bit more of how Satan tempted Jesus. The temptation centered on trying to get Jesus to deny his mission to save the world from sin. Jesus is hungry, and so Satan temps Him to make bread from a rock, and thus save himself. The devil promises "authority" and "glory" to Jesus, just like he tempted Adam and Eve. In the third temptation the devil temps Jesus to worship him, and not the Lord. Where Adam and all of Israel failed, Jesus succeeded. The first of Jesus' battles with Satan was won.
What we encounter in our own Christian life is not unlike Jesus' temptation. How are you tempted? Satan tempts us in many ways. The temptations may come from obvious places or from the not so obvious places. Have you ever been tempted to put family or friends before Christ and the Church? Sometimes the most innocent of temptations are the ones that are the most dangerous. The words of the hymn express it well:
I walk in danger all the way, The thought shall never leave me
That Satan, who has marked his prey, Is plotting to deceive me.
This foe with hidden snares, May seize me unawares
If I should fail to watch and pray. I walk in danger all the way. (LW 391, v. 1)
Satan will use anything within his power to get us to fall away from faith and turn toward him. Maybe we don't realize how hard Satan is working against us. We Lutherans often talk about the fact of the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine of Communion. How often do we talk about the real presence of Satan in our lives, trying to tear us away from the life that God has given us in our baptism?
Perhaps we should take this temptation thing a little more seriously than we do. If the power of Satan is so great that it took the Son of God to defeat him, then perhaps we should look at little closer at the life God has given us, and see how often Satan tries to tear us away from the faith. When you were baptized, you were baptized into a life of suffering, where Jesus and Satan battle for your life. Satan is tempting you constantly to forget what God has given you in your baptism, to turn away, and to turn to the life of sin and death that surrounds us.
This is the mystery of baptism. In your baptism you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God as Colossians 2 tells us. We are hidden in Jesus' baptism, which was one of suffering and of death. At our baptism we were saved from sin, death, and the power of the devil, as Luther puts it in the Small Catechism. But at Jesus' baptism, He was given over to sin, death, and the power of the devil.
That gives us the key to how to look at Jesus' temptation. It was all for us. He was tempted for us. He was tempted for you, fulfilling the Law where you have failed. That is the totality of Christ's work for us. He was obedient, because we rebel. He suffered for us, because we sinned. He died, so that you might live.
Now, we might ask what is the tool that Jesus' used to defeat the powers of hell? It was the Word of God. With every attack that Satan made against Him, Jesus responded with a quotation from the Scriptures, usually the Psalms. We learn just how powerful that Word is. The battle between man and Satan is waging on today, and what is the greatest weapon that the Christian has? The Word of God. This word comes in so many forms: heard, preached, read, and, eaten and drunk in the Lord's Supper. God's Word is what gives you the power to overcome temptation in your life. As Luther wrote in our hymn today: one little word can fell him.
Jesus' temptation was the beginning of the battle He fought against Satan for the entire world. Because He was tempted, and won, we can have confidence that He will never desert us in our time of need. As the Epistle lesson reads: What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? (Rom 8:31-32)
God is for us, and the power of Satan was defeated. As you journey with the Church this Lent to the cross and the death of our Lord, remember what His suffering and death mean for you. It means life, it means salvation, it means freedom from the captivity of sin. All these blessings come from the one who hung on the cross for us, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.