“Your Heart and the Temptation of Christ Jesus” Mount Olive Lutheran Church Season of Lent Sunday Sermon February 18th 2024 – Mark 1:9–15

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday February 18th 2024: Season of Lent / Mark 1:9–15 “Your Heart and the Temptation of Christ Jesus.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when He came up out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.” 

The Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And He was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to Him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” 

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends. On Ash Wednesday we heard Jesus teach, “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”[1] In our Gospel Reading today from the Gospel of Saint Mark we are not given all the details about the specific temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness near the River Jordan but we are told that “He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan,” and in the Gospel of Saint Luke—who was a physician—we are told that Jesus “ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, He was hungry. [Then] the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus [who had been fasting over those days] answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”[2] So as we arrive at the first Sunday in the Season of Lent and we ourselves may have begun a fast of some kind to mark the season and prompt us to turn our eyes to Jesus and His cross and passion, it is fitting for us to think about temptation and where better to go than to our Lord to look at His time in the wilderness.

What is the wilderness? A wild and barren place to be sure, but our modern minds are conditioned to strip away the spiritual components of that place. In Scripture it is a place of destruction, a place left in the hands of Satan, a place of spiritual danger, a place of spiritual failure, a place in need of redemption, a haunt of jackals;[3] the belly of the beast, so to speak, like an alcoholic walking into a reception with an open bar, a place where resisting temptation is not easier but harder. Following His baptism when the Holy Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness, we see that Jesus is not being given the easy path just because He’s God’s Son. And so He wanders alone into that place of darkness and danger forging a path for you to follow.

Here’s a questions. Why would Satan know who this man wandering around alone in the wilderness was? Wouldn’t Jesus look like any other man wandering into Satan’s domain? Satan is not omniscient,[4] Satan cannot see into your heart,[5] all Satan can do is observe, watch, and take note. Perhaps the reason Satan knew who this man was was because at the beginning of those forty days when Jesus was baptised immediately the heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove and a voice came from heaven saying, “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased,” this would be an indication that Jesus, for all His humble outward appearance, was not like other men. This was confirmation that Jesus was in fact the long promised Son of Eve who would bruise Satan’s head, the one whose heal Satan would bruise, the one from which all Satan’s bitter hate and enmity towards us and all of Eve’s offspring originated.[6]

Now there are a couple other ways that the demonic forces may have been able to pick Jesus apart from everyone else alive at that time.[7] First the Book of Job gives a picture of Satan keeping tabs on people like Job,[8] so when we think of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth[9] and the later visit of the wise men with their gifts and Jesus’ escape from the murderous King Herod into Egypt[10] there would be enough things to take note of without reading minds or hearts to know one way or another who this Jesus was. Secondly what does Jesus teach about prophets, He says “beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ... Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”[11] Now couple this with what we find in the Psalms “they have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”[12] This is what Saint Paul quotes when he teaches about righteous under the law.[13] So how does this all fit together. Let’s say you’re struggling with with lust or anger or envious or slanderous thoughts or coveting or contempt for authority those sins would all be invisible to Satan because they are internal and Satan is not omniscient, Satan cannot see into your heart, all Satan can do is observe, watch, and take note. Which means Satan will need to see the fruits of your actions: does your lust or anger or coveting or contempt for authority become adultery, violence or murder, theft or active anarchy? Those would be observable fruits, but when Satan and the demonic looked at this Jesus they would see no fruits of internal sin, no active sins to observe, which means they would have to tempt Him to see if He would sin openly. So consider this, here they’ve been keeping tabs on everyone in the whole world and here this guy who has been walking around for thirty years and hasn’t sinned, not once (ding, ding, ding) ‘who’s this guy?’ ‘Ah, but what’s in His heart? Let’s tempt Him and find out!” If Jesus did He would prove Himself to be like all other men who have turned aside, He would have proved Himself to be corruptible like other men, and then He would not be the Son of God; He would just be a guy who’d had a really good run of thirty years and didn’t fall into sin.  

Here like in the Garden of Eden, Satan is saying “did God really say..?” Jesus heard His Father’s Words from heaven when He was baptised and now Satan, who either heard them too, or heard of them, slithers up with his temptations saying ‘did God really say,’ “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased...?” The New Adam, the better Adam, Jesus[14] —who likewise stands in the place of all people—is now, in that wild and barren place, being tempted to fall into sin all over again not with eating a forbidden piece of fruit[15] but by a similar test of faithfulness, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” If Jesus did as He was tempted to do Satan would know the contents of His heart as lacking faith in God and His Word and then Satan would be able to accuse Jesus before the LORD in heaven with being a sinner because, “you will recognize them by their fruits.” On the other hand Jesus’ resistance to Satan’s temptations could mean only one of two things 1) that Jesus was no corruptible ravenous wolf in sheep’s clothing, that Jesus’ heart was pure and without sin, a thought that Satan would not want to admit was true or 2) that perhaps Satan could come up with a better temptation to trip this Jesus up, a thought that would be more to his liking. The first one is the true one: Jesus’ heart was pure and without sin and Jesus’ Father who sees in secret all ready knew the contents of His Son’s heart, He could see what Satan could not see,[16] and when Satan “the devil had ended every temptation,” Saint Luke tells us that “[Satan] departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time.”[17] All through those days of His temptation, all through that time in the wilderness, Jesus was with the wild animals, and His heavenly Father who saw His Son’s actions, and heard His Son’s words, and saw His Son’s heart provided the angels to minister to Him, this is what Saint Mark records for us.

What are we to take from this for our lives as Christians? Saint Paul teaches that we, as followers of Christ Jesus, “have the mind of Christ,”[18] which is to say we are to be like “little Christs” in our thoughts and in our hearts and in our deeds, in all our actions; that we are to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, which likewise means that we who are baptised, as He was baptised, will experience our times of temptation. That times of solitude and fasting, will be times of intensified temptation into sin.  Dear ones remember temptation itself is not a sin. And likewise remember what the Book of Hebrews teaches, “In every respect [Jesus] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” We see this in our Gospel reading today and in all the accounts from Scripture of this time Jesus spent in the wilderness following His baptism. This is why He is able to “sympathise with our weaknesses,”[19] notice not “empathise” but “sympathise,” because in every respect Jesus was tempted as we are, yet without sin. So when sin is crouching at the door desiring to control you,[20] when the devil comes with his temptations, when your flesh turns against the mind of Christ in you luring and enticing you by your own evil desires, your heavenly Father will send to you ministering angels and encouragement and strength through His Holy Word. 

Think on what the Saint James in his epistle teaches, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God [says Saint James]. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you [Saint James teaches]. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded [Saint James says to you and me].”[21] These are hard words, just as all calls to repentance are hard to hear, but there is great mercy in them too. Yes, you and I are being called daily to rule over all these enemies that seek our destruction, all these evils that seek to make your heart into “a haunt of jackals,” into a wild and barren place, yes you and I are being called to resist the devil, to resist Satan as Jesus did in our Gospel reading. When you’re honest with yourself, when I’m honest with myself, you and I know that we have failed in this. So when we hear Saint James’ words from our epistle today, “blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those to love Him,”[22] we may be left broken hearted in our failure, ‘how could God bless me an obvious sinner, one who has not remained steadfast in the face of temptations, how would He ever give to me the crown of life, how could He love me?’ Who is the one “who remains steadfast under trial,” who is the one who “stood the test,” who in the end has received “the crown of life,” who has received the love of God because of His perfect steadfastness? The blessed man of Saint James’ epistle this day is Christ Jesus: He is the one who has ever and always been steadfast without fault, He’s the one who perfectly withstood the temptations of Satan, even and especially through the ‘opportune time’ of Jesus’ cross and passion where all the world and Satan was set against Him and He was made to be sin who had no sin, so that your sin would be forgiven and that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.[23]

Dear ones, Jesus resisted Satan for every time you and I have failed to resist; Jesus refused to fall into sin for every time we chose to walk headlong right into it. Jesus’ love for us is genuine. He abhorred what is evil and for your sake Jesus holds fast to what is good.[24]  What does Saint Paul teaches in his letter to the Romans, “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,”[25] and so we see our Lord Jesus do just that, He overcomes the temptations of Satan with the Good Word of His Heavenly Father and with a heart that trusts in His Father above all things. And just as the LORD provided for Abraham in our Old Testament reading today[26] so too does He provide for His Son Jesus and so too does He provide for you in your need. Dear ones “The LORD will provide.” He has provided you with His Son as a fulfilment of the Law, as a blessed example to walk in and as a fountain of forgiveness in a wilderness of temptations, the One who is faithful to us and to His Father. And now when the Father, who sees in secret, looks into your heart, as a Christian, who does He see standing there looking back at Him? Does He see Satan with Satan’s accusations? No, God the Father sees Jesus His beloved Son; with whom He is well pleased. That is who God the Father sees now when He looks into your heart. Amen.    

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Matthew 6:16–18
[2] Luke 4:2–4
[3] Isaiah 34:13; Isaiah 35:7; Jeremiah 49:33; Jeremiah 51:37
[4] Satan is exceedingly “crafty” Genesis 3:1; and before His resurrection and ascension Jesus describes Satan as “the ruler of this world,” John 14:30; and Saint Paul describes Satan as “the god of this world [who] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2nd Corinthians 4:4; and he also teaches that Satan, as one of the rulers of this world, could not see the “secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory,” for if Satan had been able to know and understand it then he, along with the other rulers of this world, “would not have crucified the Lord of glory,” 1 Corinthians 2:6–1. Satan then while a formidable adversary among our supernatural enemies Ephesians 6:12 who may have plans for our personal destruction does not have the luxury or attribute of knowing all things.
[5] Omniscience: what we find in Scripture is that the LORD knows the heart and can see into it, this is not a attribute described as belonging to Satan, Romans 8:26-27, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” John 13:1-30 shows us that Jesus knew the contents of Judas’ heart, that Judas would betray Him and Psalm 139:4 teaches, “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” Omniscience is a Divine attribute of God not one shared by His creation.
[6] Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
[7] “Authority over All Things,” Sunday January 28th 2024: Season of Epiphany / Mark 1:21-28 Here’s another way they would recognise Jesus for who He truly is, “As Saint John says about this Jesus, “all things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” [ John 1:3] That would include all angles which would mean that they knew the only begotten Son of the Father, the Word of God, before they fell from their place of honour among their brothers in heaven. While they don’t like it they recognize Jesus for who He is and they know what authority belongs to Him.
[8] Job 1:6-12; 2:1-6
[9] Luke 2:1-20
[10] Matthew 2:1-18
[11] Matthew 7:15–17, 20
[12] Psalm 14:3, “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” Psalm 53:3 “They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”
[13] Romans 3:10-12
[14] 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, 45-49
[15] Genesis 2:8-9, 15-17; 3:1-19
[16] Psalm 139
[17] Luke 4:13
[18] 1 Corinthians 2:16b
[19] Hebrews 4:15
[20] Genesis 4:7
[21] James 4:6–8
[22] James 1:12
[23] 2 Corinthians 5:21
[24] Romans 12:9
[25] Romans 12:21
[26] Genesis 22:1–18

Photo Credit: Main photo detail of James Tissot's painting Jesus Ministered to by Angels (Jésus assisté par les anges) from brooklynmuseum.