The First Sunday in Lent-Year C
Sunday, March 9, 2025
The Rev. David Wilcox
Given at St. Mary Magdalene, Belton
Each year, on the first Sunday of Lent, we hear one of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ fasting in the desert and temptation by the devil. It is fitting that this is the Church’s choice for the beginning of our Lenten journey since our next few weeks will mirror, in a small way, Jesus’ forty days in the desert. Like Jesus, during this season we are invited to enter our own desserts, our own wilderness and come face to face with our temptations, our brokenness and our sin.
I don’t know about you, but over the years I’ve heard a lot of sermons on the first Sunday in Lent that go something like this: Jesus was tempted in the desert and could resist temptation. Let’s all be like Jesus was and use these three helpful methods to resist temptation during Lent.
The problem with this approach, in my opinion, is that it completely misses the point of what this passage is all about. It’s not a magic formula of resisting temptation on our own. It’s instead pointing us to the One who suffered, resisted temptation, and ultimately died for us. This passage isn’t about you and me resisting temptation at all, it’s about who Jesus is, and what it means for him to be the Son of God.
When we think of temptation in our own lives, we often think of the temptation to eat chocolate or engage in some sort of unhealthy behavior. However, Jesus’s temptations after being in the wilderness for 40 days were quite different.
First, the devil tempts Jesus to turn a stone into a loaf of bread. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing in and of itself, but the devil is playing on Jesus’s weakness – he’s starving after having no food for forty days. He’s tempting Jesus to use his power for instant gratification. This temptation, along with the third one, begins with the devil saying, “If you are the Son of God.” The word “if” in Greek in the first and third temptations isn’t a hypothetical, nor is it a kind of short-hand for “whether,” but more like “since” or “given that.” Given that you are the Son of God. The devil isn’t questioning Jesus’s identity or trying to make him doubt that he’s the Son of God, he’s trying to get him to use his power in a way that isn’t in line with his actual mission as the Son of God. Instant gratification results in a reward, but the reward is temporary and smaller than the ultimate prize. The devil offered Jesus instant glory without the suffering of the cross.
In the second temptation, the devil tempts Jesus by offering him all the kingdoms of the world if he will only worship him. The word “if” here is hypothetical. If Jesus only worships the devil, he’ll give him authority over the kingdoms of this world, and their glory. The devil actually had the authority to do this but again, the gratification would have been temporary. Jesus knew how things would shake out at the end – that ultimately, he would rule over the world’s kingdoms at the last day. But it wasn’t his time yet. The devil offered Jesus instant glory without the suffering of the cross.
The devil then tempts Jesus a third time by taking him to the roof of the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where Jesus’ ministry culminates in his passion and resurrection appearances, and where the church will begin. Now the devil returns to “if” in the first sense: given that you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here and show me and all of Jerusalem what you got. Provoke God’s action in your own interest at the Temple — as the Psalms themselves intimate that you are God’s own precious concern. Jesus, however, is not interested in being Son of God in a way that vindicates him here and now in the presence of the Temple and of Jerusalem itself. Like the first two temptations, the devil offered Jesus instant glory without the suffering of the cross.
This passage isn’t a magic formula for resisting temptation; it’s about who Jesus is. Today’s collect helps frame this text in a very helpful way: “Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save…”
You and I will face many temptations in our lives with Christ, but God knows our temptations. He knows that we cannot possibly resist temptation like Jesus did. But despite our brokenness, unworthiness, and repeated mistakes, God offers his unconditional grace, love, and forgiveness to us through his Son, Jesus Christ, the only One who has ever been able to resist temptation.
The question the Devil asks Jesus in the wilderness is not Are you the Son of God but What kind of Son of God are you? Will he be like Adam and turn away from God? The Gospels tell us that the answer to that is a resounding no. The powers of evil will have no sway over him, Our Lord resisted the temptation to avoid the horrible death on that tree that he knew awaited him and chose instant gratification instead. As St. Paul said,
“being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
In this Lenten season as we spend this time in the wilderness of our hearts and come face to face with our temptations, our brokenness and our sin we are invited to repent and return to the Lord…the Lord who resisted temptation as only God can do…the Lord who then died for us sake despite our unworthiness. Repent and return to the Lord. For he knows our temptations and our brokenness and our sin and he loves us anyway. Put your trust in him because you do not have to face, or overcome these things alone. Jesus is journeying through this desert with us, he has overcome the tempter for us and he is there to help overcome our temptations, to heal our brokenness and to forgive our sins. Amen.
