Sermon for the 1 st Sunday In Lent, March 1, 2009
“ Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. ”
A DESERT is a place with no expectation, it is said. Many words are used for many kinds of deserts, and not all of them describing the great sand pit of the Sahara. Biblical deserts are mostly great tracks of wilderness, uninhabited, unsettled, but which may make good grazing land. Moses was tending a flock of sheep in the desert of Sinai, which was not without grass, but remote from human beings. That was where he saw the burning bush. Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, and immediately he left the company of other people to spend forty days in solitude on the desert.
My wife especially loves the seaside. I have a thing for high mountains. And some people enjoy Palm Springs or Arizona, great tracks of rough, lonely arid beauty. There is a lot of life in a desert. It's also pretty easy to die out there. Water and food are the thing, the reason people don't live so well on the desert, and why there is no habitation. We don't live in Death Valley, or the Sierras, or Point Reyes. But while we live in cities, among other people, it's good to get away from people at times, to enjoy the solitude and peace of the desert. And then there are the people who distrust people, and make their lives on the deserts, live out where the signs says, “No gas or food for the next 120 miles.” It has its allure. But that isn't for me. Some people create a desert wherever they go.
Jesus came away from the crowds and spent 40 days all alone. He fasted and he prayed. He was about to spend the most intensely lived three years any man ever faced. His desert was a training ground for Him, a place to prepare for the battle ahead. It was not a vacation, a rest. He got close to His Father, but He was also left alone to face His greatest enemy. He faced him and he won.
Lent is our time of solitude, facing our enemy, pressing closer to the Father, giving up a crumb of comfort so that we might be ready to fight the battle when we return. We don't leave the city, but our desert is self discipline, a small sacrifice we make to enter the courts of the Lord. We may enrich ourselves through a path of quiet discovery at this time, or we can just live our ordinary lives and miss it. Jesus didn't miss it: He did it all the way. It's possible for a healthy man to fast forty days—others have done it. But you can nearly die of hunger and Jesus was on the edge of starvation when heaven pulled back from Him to let the enemy have center stage. And this is what he said. “So, you think you're God's Son. If that's true, speak to these stone and turn them into bread.”
Jesus was hungry. No doubt of that. And He was God, and as the Son, the Logos , through Him, as the Word of God , all things came to be. But it was always by the will of the Father , by His design, with His wisdom that creative acts were achieved, through the Logos, the Word, the Son. Jesus knew this, of course, and batted this first temptation away with the Scripture: “Man does not live by bread only, but by every word that God speaks.” Look at that correction. Satan knew Jesus was hungry. He also knew who He was—like no one on earth, he knew. Humans would ever doubt Jesus' divinity and it was a careful thing He had to do, to reveal Himself and His Father to men, and yet hide that fact from the rude, unbelieving crowds. Acts of power would reveal Him, but He had to walk very closely with His Father at all times. He couldn't satisfy His own needs. He couldn't punish, for example. I find no acts of destruction or judgment in His life except the fig tree He withered with a word. Yet He is the great Judge of all mankind, of the entire creation. It will be His hour to judge, someday, but this was not the day.
Satan casts doubts at us. The doubts may be about ourselves, but ultimately go to doubts about God, His character, His goodness, His provision for us. If we fear, if we despair, if we suspect Him of enjoying our discomfort or of hating us: Satan rejoices. It was by sowing such a doubt in Eve that Satan gained a foothold in this world: “Did God really say…?” Jesus didn't even address the doubt inherent in Satan's words, “If you are God's Son…” The challenge to use the great Voice for mere bread, to pervert the nature of stones, was met brilliantly. We are to live by more than mere bread. To live , we need all the words spoken by God . At that moment, Jesus Christ was being obedient to a word, brought by the Spirit, for Him to be fasting. First check .
Then Satan tried another ploy. Food wasn't working, so how about glory ? Glory had been Satan's unmet need at the time he fell, and the Son of God must hunger for mankind's worship of Him. It would be right for them to worship Him. Why not test a Scripture they both knew was written about Him? Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple, a high tower overlooking a courtyard filled with worshippers. “If you are God's Son, jump off. You know the verses: His messengers He will command for thee, that on their hands they will bear you up, rather than let your foot strike a stone.” If Jesus had jumped, it would have put God to a test, forcing Him to catch His Son and demonstrating to hundreds of people who Messiah is. They would go crazy. It would set Him up for life. No go. “It is also written, Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test.” A battle of Bible verses was underway, and it is good to know Satan can quote Scriptures. Every cult is created around a Bible quoting heretic. This would have been the Temple jumping heresy . Not only does man not live by bread alone, but man lives by every verse of Scripture, every word and all the words of the Bible. If you take one out and try to make it the entire law, you inevitably violate God's will. Every word . Jesus didn't jump. Check two.
Finally Satan's real need was revealed. He owned our world, lock stock and barrel. We gave it to him, back when we held the keys. Since then, it had been his show, and mankind was always ready to pitch it all away on bread, glory, sex, crime, power, phony spirituality, television, leisure, free money. What's changed? So, these teeming masses were spread out in a vision before Jesus where Satan took Him to the tallest peak. Millions, billions of human beings lived their lives before Him, Chinese, Indian, African, Celtic, modern lands, you and me. Everyone was represented there, and Jesus knew it was for every one of these that He had come. “See them? They're mine. I will make them all yours. I will give them to you as a present. Just bow before me. Give me credit: I've won. This is what you're here for. It's mine. Bow down and worship the Lord of this earth.”
Truly it's been said, Satan “is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” Rev 12:12 His over-eagerness is evident in his tempting of Jesus. How likely is our Lord to fall for this? I don't know. The offer was genuine, in respect to Satan's ownership. It would be easier than going to the cross for us. It would be more complete a success, in that all mankind would then follow the Savior, not only the saints. Jesus loved them all, and wanted them all, many of whom would never believe, never seek or achieve salvation. This was tempting. But c'mon . Recapture lost mankind from the kingdom of Satan by becoming a vassal of Satan Himself? Win the game by losing it? Jesus' indignation is obvious. “Get thee hence,” might not fully convey His anger. Be gone! Get out of here! Beat it! He meant, and He fully had the power to turn the devil into a horny toad or a maggot right then. Restraint forbid Him, but perhaps that was His greatest temptation. In time. In time.
The desert is wherever we can get alone, spend time without daily pressures, daily chores, daily conveniences too. Camping is interesting to many of us because we have to go get water up the creek, cook outdoors over a real fire, dress in freezing air, go to the bathroom where there is no bathroom. Why do we seek such inconvenience? Life becomes basic then. Truth is easier to see. A wide expanse of blue sky is our only ceiling, great rock faces soar above us, creating our walls. Water gushes out of stony creek beds. Fish live in shadowed pools. Silence is possible. We go to a wilderness to still the drumming of the city, the endless throb of civilization's demanding pace.
God loves the city, but only because He loves people. He loves us even more when we come out of the city mentality and seek Him in the desert, even if it's only the desert of Lent, a season of fasting from the world's busy pulse. Joy comes when we get quiet enough to hear His heart beat, sense His readiness to know us and be known by us. Then will we know what Isaiah meant:
“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing… Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water… And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein .” Isaiah 35:1-8 “Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed.” Isaiah 40:3-5
PFH+