Saint Luke's Lutheran Church

The NPR program "Rewind" with Bill Radke backs up and takes another, rather satirical look at the news stories from the past week. Each segment of the program is introduced with the squeaky sound of a tape rewinding in a recorder. I hear the same sound when I read today's Gospel lesson. For the past two months we have read in the Gospel of Mark how Jesus taught with authority and healed the sick, and then last Sunday we saw him transfigured on the mountaintop. Today's Gospel is a rewind - a rewind that takes us all the way back to the beginning of the gospel about Jesus the Christ. Today we are back at the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized - a story that we read just eight weeks ago. And today we are back to the Mark's summary of Jesus' message, a summary that we read just six weeks ago. Sandwiched in between these verses is the Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. That is what the first Sunday in Lent focuses on.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus' ministry is very fast-paced, almost breathless. Events happen one right after another, as Mark uses the word "immediately" 29 times in the first nine chapters. So Mark does not waste any words in laying out the things that happened. He tells the story of Jesus' baptism in three short verses, and the temptation of Jesus in only two. Mark does not tell us anything at all about these temptations. There is no suggestion that Jesus should turn stones into bread, no dare to dive off the pinnacle of the temple, and no offer to turn over all the kingdoms of the world. Nor are we told how Jesus responded to these temptations. All Mark says is that Jesus was in the wilderness forty days and that he was tempted by Satan. Mark leaves us to assume that Jesus resisted them, even as he leaves it to others to describe Satan's tactics.

Mark doesn't give a preacher much to go on. So it is rather tempting for pastors to try and fill in the gaps. I want to resist that temptation - at least for today. Let's focus on what Mark does tell us - as brief and concise as it may be. He says that the Spirit drove Jesus out or cast him out into the wilderness. In the Bible, the wilderness is always a dangerous place, but it is also the place where God teaches and trains his people. It is a place of spiritual retreat and of spiritual formation. So the wilderness is not a place to be avoided, but it is a place to be approached with caution. The world out there is littered with spiritual wildernesses. We cannot avoid them, for they are a part of the world we live in, but we do not need to go out there alone. We can go with the Spirit of God and the ministering angels.

Mark says that in this wilderness, Jesus was tempted by Satan. Here we have the two antagonists in this story - not just the Temptation story, but the whole Gospel story: Jesus and Satan. Satan, otherwise known as the Devil or the Evil One, is recognized throughout the New Testament as constantly working against God and against God's people. That's what the name "Satan" means - "adversary." Satan is God's enemy, and that makes Satan our enemy as well.

Lutherans today don't talk a lot about the Devil. That is rather surprising since Martin Luther talked about him all the time. Luther not only talked about the Devil, Luther talked to the Devil, much the same way Jesus did when he said, "Get away from me, Satan!" There is even a story about Luther waking up in the middle of the night at Wartburg Castle and sensing the Devil's presence so strongly that he picked up an inkwell and threw it at him. If you visit that castle today, the tour guide will show you the ink spots on the wall in the corner. Historians are not convinced that Luther actually did this, but whether it is true or not, it is clear that Luther experienced Satan's presence and temptations in his life in a very strong and personal way. Luther was very aware of Satan's power to corrupt and to destroy.

There are those today who do not believe in the Devil - at least not in a personal way. They think that the term "Satan" refers more to a power than to a person - that Satan is just a personification of the evil at work in our world. I suspect that Satan may have started this rumor himself. The French poet, Pierre Baudelaire, who was no stranger to temptation and sin, once wrote, "The Devil's most beautiful ruse is to convince us that he does not exist." Mark, however, suggests that there is more than evil in our world. He speaks about the Evil One - a spiritual being loose in our world who is intentionally stalking us and trying to separate us from God. How does he do it? Through temptations.

Here is where it is tempting for pastors to go to the three temptations recorded in Matthew and Mark and talk about how much our temptations are like the ones Jesus faced. I am not going to do that. Mark may be right in not giving us the details, because in one sense our temptations are really not like the ones that Jesus faced. Satan, at his best (and he's always at his best), does not ply us with off-the-rack, ready-to-wear temptations. No, the temptations that he offers are custom made, personally tailored to fit the contours of our individual lives and designed to appeal to our own personal tastes. The things that were the most tempting to Jesus are not the most tempting to us. And the things that are most tempting to us were not the most tempting to Jesus.

That is true for all of us as well. Some of us are more tempted by sex and others by self-righteousness. Some of us are more tempted by greed and others by pride. Some of us are more tempted by the alcohol and others by money. Some of us are more tempted by ambition and others by laziness. On top of that, our vulnerability changes over time. What tempts me the most today is different from what tempted me the most when I was a teenager, or when I was thirty. Satan takes all of these things into consideration.

This Satan is at work everywhere, but he is especially diligent where the people of God are trying to establish the kingdom of God. There is a warning here. The warning is that Satan is not only at work in those places and in those people whom we consider to be exceptionally evil, but also among us. It was not the prostitutes, the tax collectors, and the public sinners but the pious, law-abiding Pharisees whom Jesus called children of Satan. It was not his enemies but one of his own disciples, Peter, whom Jesus called Satan himself.

This is the warning, but there is also a promise. The promise is that Satan will not prevail. The one who went out into the wilderness to take Satan on resisted every temptation of the Evil One. Then he came out of that wilderness and declared, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." Jesus defeated Satan in the wilderness. Jesus defeated sin on the cross. Jesus defeated death in the resurrection. That was not a personal victory. He did that for us. Jesus' victory is offered to us. This is the good news that Jesus calls us to hear and to believe.

Even though we do not always resist the temptations we face, the good news is that there is forgiveness. Even though we are no match for the Evil One, the good news is that we do not face Satan alone. Jesus does not just tell us to resist temptation; he also gives us the power to say "No." Jesus does not just call us to repent - he gives us the power to turn our lives around. Amen.