First Sunday in Lent
February 10, 2008
The Rev. Charles Henrickson
What Kind of a Son Are You? (Matthew 4:1-11)
This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
So came the Fathers voice at Jesus baptism. And
again later, at Jesus transfiguration, as we heard
last week.
This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
Yes, Jesus is the Son of God. And we know also from
the rest of the New Testament that Jesus is the Son of
God in a unique sense, a one-of-a-kind sense, in his
very being. As we confess in the creeds, Jesus Christ
is Gods only Son, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds. Were
talking Second Person of the Trinity here, true God,
divine in his very nature. In this sense, there has
never been, and there never will be, anyone else who
is the Son of God.
But in another sense, Jesus did come, he needed to
come, as son of God like others who have borne that
identity. Im thinking here specifically of Old
Testament Israel in its status as Gods son. And by
extension, then, that same status of sonship applies
also to us, the New Testament church. Gods people
have an identity as Gods son, so to speak. The
people of God, together, whether Old Testament Israel
or New Testament church, stand in relation to God as
his son, chosen and placed here on earth to
faithfully and obediently do his will and reflect his
character. Thats what sons do. Or at least, thats
what sons are supposed to do.
And thats where Jesus comes in. Thats where and how
Jesus comes in our text for today, the account of his
temptation in the wilderness. He comes as the
faithful and obedient Son of his Father, doing his
will and reflecting his character. He comes resisting
temptation and overcoming the devil. And its
important--its absolutely essential--that he do so,
for in this temptation experience Jesus will be the
son that Israel failed to be, that we the church fail
to be. And your very salvation hangs on him being
that faithful, obedient Son of God. So in this story,
we will see Jesus answering the devils challenge,
What Kind of a Son Are You?
In Matthews gospel, especially in these early
chapters, Jesus is often portrayed as Gods son in the
way that Israel was. Jesus is seen as fulfilling
Israels history and replaying, if you will,
Israels experience. Jesus is virtually Israel
reduced to one. His genealogy is traced from the
patriarch Abraham through King David, through the
Babylonian Captivity, tracking the ups and downs of
Israels past. His name is called Jesus, for he will
save his people from their sins, and his people
there means, in the first place, the people of Israel.
Thus he is born king of the Jews. Jesus is Israel
reduced to one. Just as, centuries earlier, an evil
Pharaoh had tried to kill off the baby boys of Israel,
so an evil Herod tried to kill Jesus. Just as Israel,
then, came out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, so
also Jesus, after the Holy Family had fled to Egypt,
came out of there and back up into the land of Israel.
Matthew even makes the parallel plain when he quotes
the verse, Out of Egypt I called my son--first
spoken of Israel, now applied to Jesus. Jesus is
replaying the experiences of Israel as Gods son.
Then look at Jesus baptism in the Jordan--well,
Israel too came into the land through the Jordan
River. Now Jesus is doing the same. Jesus is Israel
reduced to one. And so at his baptism, at the end of
Matthew 3, we can hear that Israel reduced to one
sense echoing in the Fathers words, This is my
beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Jesus will
be the kind of son that Israel so often failed to be,
a faithful, obedient son.
This then forms the background for the temptation.
Jesus has just heard the Father say, This is my
beloved Son, Jesus has just come up out of the water
and now is led into the wilderness--just like Israels
experience, when they came through the sea and went
into the wilderness. And now the question is: Will
Jesus do any better than Israel? Israel wandered in
the wilderness for forty years. Jesus is tempted in
the wilderness for forty days. Israel failed the
test, time and time again, showing itself to be a
rebellious son. What kind of a son are you, Jesus?
Now lest you think this is a question of only
historical interest, think again. For the experience
of Israel is our experience, too, as we will see. We
too fail the test. Therefore, if we are to have any
hope at all, it will have to be found in this Son who
does stand the test.
The first temptation: And after fasting forty days
and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came
and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command
these stones to become loaves of bread.
The temptation here is for Jesus to use his sonship
for his own advantage, for his own benefit and
comfort, to serve himself, when God had something else
in mind. This was the same sort of temptation that
Israel had faced centuries earlier. When they went
out into the wilderness, the Lord wanted Israel to
trust in him to take care of them. Instead, they
grumbled and complained: Would that we had died in
the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and
ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out
into this wilderness to kill us with hunger. Israel
failed the test. They did not trust the word of the
Lord.
How about us? Are we more interested in serving our
belly than in serving the Lord? Do we grumble and
complain about how God is not taking care of us as we
think he ought? God, why arent you providing for me
the way Id like? I deserve more. I deserve better.
Cmon, get with it, God! We fail to trust Gods word
of promise, and we get all caught up in serving our
own desires and our own pleasures. Like Israel, we
too fail the test.
Now how does Jesus do? What kind of a Son are you,
Jesus? His answer tells us: It is written, Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
comes from the mouth of God. What kind of a Son is
Jesus? Just what a son should be. He trusts in his
Fathers goodness. He trusts Gods word of promise.
He will not use his sonship to serve his own belly.
Where Israel failed, where we fail, Jesus prevailed.
OK, Jesus, the devil says to himself, if youre gonna
quote Scripture, I can play that game too! The second
temptation: Then the devil took him to the holy city
and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to
him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,
for it is written, He will command his angels
concerning you, and On their hands they will bear
you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
Here the temptation is for Jesus to take his sonship
for granted and presume upon Gods promise of
protection. Take a promise out of context, twist it,
and use it as a license for whatever you want to do,
apart from following Gods direction in the rest of
your life.
That temptation had faced Israel before. And Israel
had failed the test. Because the Lord had given them
victory in battle against their enemies, they began to
take that for granted, even when they departed from
his direction. Because you have turned back from
following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you,
Moses warned the Israelites. But they presumed upon
Gods protection, went ahead with their plans anyway,
and promptly were defeated. The Lord is not some
puppet you can manipulate.
Maybe we do that, too, in one way or another. Presume
upon God and take his provision and protection for
granted. Perhaps we presume upon his promise of
forgiveness and use it as a license to sin, which it
was never meant to be. Are we to continue in sin
that grace may abound? By no means! But so often we
think we can put one over on God and take advantage of
his goodness, in order to do as we please. That is
not the way of a good son.
So what kind of Son is Jesus? How did he do when
faced with this temptation? He tells the devil,
Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord your
God to the test. Jesus is the faithful and obedient
Son. He will not do what the devil tempts him to do.
He will not put God to the test by turning a gracious
promise into self-imagined license.
If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. You
know, Jesus faced the same temptation later on. If
you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.
The devil in wilderness and the passers-by at the
crucifixion speak the same type of temptation, and
that is, for Jesus to use his sonship in a way that
God did not intend--in short, to avoid the way of the
cross. Thats really what all these temptations are
about: to get Jesus off his game, to lose his sense
of mission and purpose, to forget what he came to do.
And what Jesus came to do was to do the will of his
Father and go the way of the cross, precisely in order
to save his people--and all people--from their sins.
So now the devil pulls out all the stops. The third
temptation: Again, the devil took him to a very high
mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world
and their glory. And he said to him, All these I
will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.
At the heart of this temptation is the willingness to
compromise, to rationalize, to do what you know to be
wrong, but can make excuses for, for the sake of
personal gain. Israel faced that temptation during
its time in the wilderness, and again, they failed the
test. Remember the golden calf? The Israelites fell
down and worshiped it, because they thought they would
gain something by it. And when they were caught, they
wanted to make excuses.
Do we do such things? Oh, maybe not a golden calf,
but we have our own American idols: money, success,
pleasure. Things that we worship more than God.
Well pay God a little lip-service--gotta be able to
rationalize our idolatry, you know--but were more
interested in the kingdoms of this world and their
glory, whatever our particular glittering idol may be.
Now how did Jesus do on this one? You know his
response: Be gone, Satan! For it is written, You
shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you
serve. No rationalizing for Jesus. He doesnt take
the bait. His kingdom is not of this world. The
worlds glory does not entice him. He stays true to
his mission: to bring in the kingdom of heaven here
on earth, to do the will of his Father, to go the way
of the cross.
Yes, again, the cross is what this is all about.
Jesus is the obedient Son, and he will be obedient
unto death, even death on a cross. When later Jesus
told his disciples he would be going up to Jerusalem,
where he would be handed over to wicked men and suffer
and be killed, Peter began to rebuke him, saying that
nothing like that should happen to him. But Jesus
turned and rebuked Peter and used the same words he
uses here: Be gone, Satan! For Peter was simply
proposing the devils own temptation, which is to
bypass the cross and take the easy way out.
But Jesus would not be dissuaded or deterred. Not by
Satan, nor by Satan speaking through Peter. Jesus
came to do the will of his Father, he came to save us
from our sins by going to the cross, and that is
exactly what he will do. He passes the test, all
three tests, with flying colors. He withstands
temptation, he defeats the devil, here in the
wilderness, and ultimately at the cross.
Where Israel failed, and where you and I so often
fail, Jesus the faithful and obedient Son of God,
Jesus the suffering servant and the Savior of the
world--where we fail, Jesus prevails, and then some.
Now heres the deal. You and I, on our own, are not
strong enough to stand up to the devils temptations.
And he is not only the tempter, he is also the
accuser. He will take our failures and try to throw
them in our face and berate us before God. But my
friends, you have a Champion and an Advocate on your
side! He is Jesus. He beat the devil in the
wilderness, he beat the devil on the cross, and he
beats the devil now, whenever the devil tries to tempt
you or accuse you. So take your refuge in him, in
Jesus! He is the stronger one who has disarmed the
strong man, Satan. When the devil comes around
knocking at your door, tell him to shove off and take
it up with Jesus! Jesus resolve will strengthen your
weak knees. Jesus shed blood will clear your
conscience. Jesus resurrection will lift your
spirits and give you hope to carry on.
What kind of Son are you, Jesus? Answer, coming
from the wilderness: The faithful and obedient Son,
the one who beats the devil. He, Jesus Christ--he is
your traveling companion in the wilderness, he is your
strong refuge in temptation, he is your Champion in
battle, he is your Advocate in heaven.
Charles Henrickson
4749 Melissa Jo Ln
St. Louis, MO 63128
(314) 845-8811 (home)
(314) 779-8108 (cell)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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