He's a Liar, He's a Liar! Satan's Pants are On Fire! - Luke 3: 1-13

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I’ve heard people claim, over the years, that Jesus’ temptation wasn’t real. After all, He is God. James chapter 1 tells us that God not be tempted and He also will not tempt anyone else. It is part of His immutable and unchanging character. So, since Jesus is God, and God cannot be tempted, ergo, Jesus’ temptation was a sham, a fake, a phony demonstration of goodwill among humanity. But, remember, Jesus is also fully man. While in His divine nature, true, He can’t be tempted, in His human nature, Jesus was as vulnerable to temptation as you and me because He set aside the full use of His divinity. That is important, so important that the writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus, who is our Great High Priest, is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. So, when you read this morning’s Gospel narrative of Jesus being tempted, it was both a necessary thing for Him to be tempted, and it was a true, genuine temptation.

After 40 days of not eating, Jesus was truly hungry. It wasn’t a pretend hunger. If you’ve ever been in a position where you’ve gone any length of time without eating, you know how it weakens both your body and your mind. You know the Snickers commercials on TV about making bad choices when “hangry”? There is a truth to that. So, when satan choses this as the opportunity to begin the temptations, not only is Jesus completely human, He is weak and (humanly speaking) vulnerable.

The ancient world often spoke of the person in three aspects – body, mind and spirit. Satan attacks us when and where we are most vulnerable, body, mind and spirit. He does that with Jesus – body, mind and spirit.

He temps Jesus’ in His body. With Jesus being hungry, the temptation is to turn rocks into bread. Imagination is powerful. Simply the suggestion would trigger the memory of fresh baked bread making the mouth water. So simple; such an easy to Jesus’ weakness and growling belly. Just a word, one word, and bread would appear and the belly would be satiated.

The second temptation tempts Jesus’ mind and the human desire for power and authority. If Jesus were to bow to satan, just for a moment, then Jesus would be given all power and authority over all that can be seen. The famous gameshow phrase was, “All this can be yours, if the price is right.”  For satan, the price of power was to simply worship him – a quick bow, a whispered, “yes,” and it would be OK.

The third temptation was against Jesus’ spirit. In the previous two temptations, Jesus’ riposte against satan was to turn to the Scriptures and trust His Father’s will and word. So, this time, it is as if satan says, “Ok, Jesus…prove it. Show me what you got. Jump off the temple pinnacle. You’ll be fine, won’t you? After all, the Bible – which you are fond of quoting – says Your Father will command angels to guard you, so you don’t even stub your toe.”

Imagine I placed in front of you a single small piece of your favorite sweet treat. If you can resist the temptation of eating that delicious, single, sweet morsal for fifteen minutes, you can have the entire extra-large serving. It’s an experiment in delayed gratification. A nibble now, or a whole serving in a short time. Which would you chose? Would you succumb to the short-term temptation or fight it for the greater reward? I don’t know what you would pick, but I can tell you that based on research, it’s not as easy as it first sounds. According to a series of studies first done in 1970, and then repeated several times since then, most gave in to the temptation, taking the quick and easy reward instead of resisting for the greater reward. Those who successfully resisted temptation did so by means of distraction – singing songs, playing finger games, even taking a nap – anything to resist the temptation besides sitting and staring at the forbidden bite and hearing its siren song.

I tell you this to help you understand what was going on behind the scenes in this temptation. It wasn’t just a temptation of body, mind and spirit. It was a temptation of trusting the Father’s plan of salvation. Jesus was practically still dripping with baptismal water and the Father’s words, “You are my beloved Son,” were still ringing in His ears when the Spirit led Him out into the wilderness. Already, Jesus knew His purpose. Even there in the wilderness, the Cross was already on the horizon. He was to be the once-for-all perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. He would be the culmination of all sacrifices. He would be holy, sinless, fully submitting to the Law and God’s Commands, doing what Adam and Eve and the entire nation of Israel would never do: obey. He would be the Second Adam; He would be Israel reduced to One. His holy and sinless blood would be shed as the propitiation, the appeasement, for the wrath of God against sinners. The wages of sin that is death would be paid in full by Jesus. “For God so loved the World,” begins and ends with “You are my beloved Son.”

But Satan wanted anything – anything – that would distract Jesus from accomplishing God’s plan to save the world and mankind. “If you are the son of God,” was a repeated theme. Do you really trust your Father? You’re going to have to suffer and die for these people? You love them and want to rescue and redeem them, and they are going to treat you like garbage and you will die the most horrific death that no one will begin to comprehend. If you think this temptation is tough now, Jesus, just wait until you’re on that cross. Think about yourself!  Let’s make things easy, now: make some bread; grab the power for yourself; show me what you got. It’s quick, it’s easy. No muss, no fuss, no suffering, no cross. Satan wants Jesus to look at the now: fill your belly now, rule the kingdoms now, show me who you really are now. All this can be yours, and you don’t have to go the way of the cross.

The way of the cross is never the easy way. There are no shortcuts to the cross, to redemption, to salvation.  That was part of mankind’s trouble since the beginning, Adam and Eve wanting a shortcut to be like God, to know good from evil; Israel wanting to satisfy the hunger now in the wilderness, to eat, drink and be merry, just like everyone else.

In each temptation, Jesus returns to the word of God. He doesn’t add to it, like Eve did in the Garden. He doesn’t subtract from it, like satan does in his mis-quotation of Psalm 91. It’s interesting: satan omits four small words: “In all your ways.” “He will command His angels concerning you, in order to guard you in all your ways.” There is only one way Jesus must go: the way of the cross. There, He will again be with out the Father’s protection. Instead, He will face the Father’s rath. The Son of God and the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth, will perfectly resist all temptations and endure until it is finished.

There are two things I want to mention, speaking of temptation. The first is that, as a Baptized child of God, you are called to resist satan’s temptations with all your strength of body, mind and spirit. Your New Adam does not want to sin. But, as Paul laments, our sinful old adam still remains, so the evil we don’t want to do, we do; the good we want to do, we don’t do. Sometimes, it’s in a moment of foolishness and weakness. This is that moment when you look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Why on earth did I do that?” and you have no answer. And, occasionally, the sinful man deliberately and knowingly submits to satan’s lies and lures and deliberately and knowingly sins against neighbor and God. Those sinful moments, whether done in weakness or in stubborn defiance, do not remove you from God’s grace. They can weaken faith, especially continued, unchecked deliberate sin – that is why the church takes seriously the call of repentance for those stuck and trapped in their sins. Thus, we continue to speak faithfully against the sins that conventional wisdom pretends to be “no big deal”: living together without marriage, homosexuality, lying, adultery, cheating by claiming other’s work to be your own, stealing time and resources from work, refusing to repent when Scripture calls sin, sin. But when there is repentance, sorrow for what was done plus faith that trusts the promise of God, the forgiveness won by Christ on the cross is as sure and certain for you as for any other sinner who repents.

But, don’t treat temptation lightly. It is true that being tempted isn’t a sin – after all, Jesus remained sinless while being tempted. Don’t fool yourself thinking you can be like Jesus and stand right up to “the line in the sand” and be just fine. The problem is that the line where temptation becomes sin is blurry, fuzzy, and often slippery. One minute, it’s mere temptation: “Surely, you shall not die.” The next minutes, the sand slips underfoot, “Eve saw it was good and pleasing for the eye,” and temptation gives in to surrender, “and she took and ate.” In your human flesh, you are unable to perfectly resist temptation. That is not an excuse for what you do, but it places you back under the cross. When you sin, and you will, you stand at the foot of the cross where Jesus died for you and for your sins. “Lord, have mercy,” is not just a phrase in the liturgy. It is the fervent prayer of God’s people who seek both His mercy – not getting what we deserve, death – and His grace – getting what we don’t deserve, His forgiveness.  And God, in His grace, forgives completely and fully for the sake of His Son who endured all temptation perfectly for you.

A final comment… Occasionally satan will throw this at you – the same lie he used against Jesus. “If you really are a child of God…” And he will use that to try to overwhelm and burden your conscience of being overwhelmed. He couples that with the unholy trinity of guilt: should have, would have, could have. A child of God wouldn’t have done such a thing. A child of God should not have done such a thing. A child of God could have resisted better. All implying you, by fact of your sins, are no longer a child of God.

We pray the Lord’s Prayer so often that it is tempting – see how I used the word – tempting to pray it on autopilot and not think about what we pray. In the Fifth Petition, we pray for the Father’s forgiveness for our sins, not looking at them, holding them against us, or denying our prayers on account of them. In those simple words, we acknowledge our sins and our unworthiness, and confess them to God. The next petition, the Sixth, is “And lead us not into temptation.” I used to think this meant what I might call gross sins – the kind of things satan threw against Jesus, the quick and easy answer to the “now,” like I’m hungry, so I’ll steal $20 from the till, or I want power, so I’ll do whatever I have to do to get it, or have the attitude that I’m better and more important than the next person in line, so someone better hurry up and take my order for a double decaf moca latte before I go bonkers. Yeah, there is that sense of temptation, but after these years of ministry, I think there’s more to temptation than just this. In the explanation, Luther tells us that “We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice…” Again, I thought false belief meant Islam or Creationism or some such bunk. No; I don’t think so. Satan wants to deceive us and mislead us into the false belief that Jesus doesn’t love me anymore. He wants the world’s whispers of shame to make us think we are unable to be loved. He wants our sinful nature, when our conscience gets broken and twisted, to think that my sins – those sins that make me unworthy to be a child of God – those sins have disqualified me from God’s grace. That leads to despair of body, mind and spirit – what can I do? A broken conscience, curved inwatd on itself, in curvatis se, fails to see Jesus; it only has the feeling that I am worthless, just detritus to be tossed aside like so much garbage of body, mind and spirit. When you pray these petitions together, you not only are praying for the forgiveness of sins, but that satan, the world, or even your own flesh in a moment of weakness does not disbelieve that very forgiveness is for you. “Deliver us from evil!” is the penitent’s cry that we are spared from such temptation, thinking God doesn’t care anymore.

The answer, then, is not to feed the broken conscience and stay curved inwards on one’s own sins and unworthiness. It’s having the conscience released from guilt and shame. This is the blessing of absolution. Instead of hearing your own voice saying “you’re not worthy,” in absolution, you hear the words of God, spoken through the called and ordained servant of the Word, proclaim to you that Jesus died for those very sins that are causing you grief, shame, and deceipt, and are misleading you to doubt God’s grace. There is no greater gift for the broken conscience than to privately confess those sins so that they can be released from you and your conscience – how you see yourself before God, and how God sees you – can be made right and you can again hear those blessed words, “You are my son; you are my daughter. With you I am well pleased.”

You can hear those words and promises of God because God not only cares, but He cared enough for His Spirit to send His Son into the wilderness, to be tempted for you, resisting perfectly, so He could keep the Law perfectly, so He would be the perfect Lamb of God to take away your sins. When you sin, you have a greater Savior. When you fail, you have the perfect Redeemer. When you fall, you have a holy Rescuerer. When the lies of satan become louder and stronger, you have the One who is not only the Way, the Truth and the Life, you have the One who, in His death and resurrection, proved satan to be a liar.

And, if you ever think satan has the last word about your sins, remember the cross where Jesus had the last word: It is finished. Amen.