A preface to this post:
Our hearts are with the people of Ukraine at this time, as they struggle to protect their country and many have been forced to flee their homes. A number of years ago, I visited Ukraine to teach a course at a seminary there. I asked a contact of mine what, if anything, those of us far away could do in the present crisis. He responded, “Thank you very much for your prayers and concern. Here is a link where you can donate to Ukrainian Army: https://uahelp.monobank.ua/.” [If you go to the site, a donation of 1000 hryven’ at today’s current exchange rate is 33.28 in US dollars.] Others may be inclined to show support via humanitarian agencies. The Guardian newspaper recently published links to charitable agencies working to alleviate suffering: “How Americans can help people of Ukraine.”
At the beginning of in Lent in 2009, I was privileged to preach to a group in Ternopil. I’ll share a version of that message for the first week in Lent here. Let us pray for and support one another in all the struggles and tests of faith that this life brings.
This is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6).
In the wilderness, tempted by Satan
What are your temptations in life?
Are you tempted to be greedy, to want more than you have? Are you tempted to be lazy, to do less than you can do? Or are you tempted to be a workaholic? Do you never let yourself rest?
Are you tempted to be judgmental, to look down on other people? Are you tempted by jealousy and hostility? Are there persons that make you so angry you want to hit them? Maybe you don’t actually hit them, but you’ve got a hammer in your heart that pounds and pounds with hatred or envy.
Are you tempted to be lonely? To feel isolated? To feel sorry for yourself? To feel like God has put you on a path that is too often too difficult and doesn’t give the rewards you want?
Are you tempted to be frustrated and afraid—about the state of affairs in the world or in your life or for your church? Do you keep wishing earth would be more like heaven, even though you know it is not (and cannot be)?
We all know what it is to be tempted. We are bombarded with temptations day after day. The devil knows which ones work particularly well on each of us. We are attacked at every point where we are most vulnerable.
You know your own temptations and sins. You could pour out your soul in confession all day long. You’d never run out of unpleasant thoughts and words and deeds to confess, because so very often temptation wins, godliness loses. You are at fault for this failure, that offense, those ugly behaviors, these unkind words, and countless shameful omissions of the many good things you might have done.
You are guilty, as am I. We are like the man in Jesus’ parable, standing at a distance from God, not even daring to look up to heaven, acknowledging our failings and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Think about it: the sins we’ve been mentioning are things that occur to us now, while we are Christians, while God’s Spirit is within us. Yet still we fall or slip or dive headfirst into sin so many times. Imagine the bondage of sin we were in before the Spirit came to us. What great need of salvation there is for every one of us!
And what a Savior we have in Jesus Christ! The first thing he did—the first, immediate task he took up after his anointing—was to expose himself to Satan’s every temptation and overcome them all. He did that for us. As soon as he was identified as the Christ by his baptism at the Jordan River, “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan” (Mark 1:12-13). Jesus went head-to-head with Satan—and not merely for sport. As God, Jesus could trounce the devil underfoot eternally, destroy him absolutely. But the fullness of time had come, and God the Son, “born of a woman, born under law to redeem those under law” (Galatians 4:4,5), was working out our redemption under the law. He was fulfilling all righteousness for us, carrying out every commandment in our stead as a human being. He deflected every temptation, proclaiming the word of God in the face of evil. Thus, in Jesus, God has provided a record of human obedience to his will that is faultless, spotless—“one who in every respect has been tested, as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
What Jesus did in the desert is much more than an example for us to follow. If Jesus only serves as an example to us, our situation would still be hopeless. Who of us can follow Christ’s example and be perfect as he was and is? Christ came not merely as example. Christ is our substitute, our life, our salvation. He did all that he did to atone for us, to provide us with holiness.
The confrontation with temptation in the desert was Jesus’ first official act as the Anointed One, the Messiah. But it was not the only vicarious act he performed as atonement for us. His whole life was lived as a substitute for ours. Every time Jesus obeyed Mary and Joseph when he was a child, he was doing so in our place. Every time Jesus performed an act of love and mercy for the sick, the sorrowful, the demon-possessed, the bereaved, he was doing perfectly all the things we never could do well enough.
The forty days that Jesus spent in the desert at the beginning of his ministry were not the only occasion when the devil sought to distract Jesus, damage him, derail his mission. When this round of temptation was over, the devil left Jesus—but only for a time (Luke 4:13). He would be back. Satan would strike again and again at Jesus—just the same way that the devil strikes again and again at us. As Jesus pursued his path as the Christ on this earth, he set his face like flint and marched on (cf. Isaiah 50:7, Luke 9:51). He marched on all the way till they threw a rough-hewn wooden beam across his shoulders and told him to drag it out to the place of execution. There he was put to death in our place, just as he had lived in our place.
Jesus supplied a record of righteousness for us by his obedience to every moral duty, by his rejection of every sinful temptation. And then he removed the record of shamefulness that stained us by his anguish on the cross. He who had no sin was made to be sin for us—“the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6)—so that “in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Now, when we are tempted, we run for refuge into Jesus’ arms, the one who has already defeated the devil on our behalf, and we find strength in his strength.
Now, when we sin, we return to Jesus, in repentance, to be renewed by his righteousness, to be received by his love, to be revitalized for new life.
Christ is our forgiveness and hope and source of life. Through his victory, we live victoriously. Through his victory, we are given strength to overcome temptations. Through his victory, we are assured a place beside him in eternity.
Thank God that Jesus went out into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He did it for us, and he won that battle for us … just as he has won every other spiritual battle. Because of him, we are blessed “in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3). Our trust, day after day, is in Jesus, who defeated all temptation for us.
Reading for the 1st Sunday in Lent
The Temptation of Jesus – Luke 4:1-13
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
