Prayer, Meditation, Temptation
First Sunday in Lent
March 1, 2009
Mark 1:9-15
Before you reject me as a heretic, hear me out. Or rather, I should
say, hear the Word of God out.
Satan is your teacher. You grow in your faith because this is so. You
are able to carry out your call to discipleship because you are taught
by Satan.
Luther had a knack for saying things that seem over the top, and this
is an example. But if you examine the way the Scriptures speak, you
will see that his “over-the-top” statements often are nothing else
than driving home what those very Scriptures teach.
I invite you, then, to hear the Word of the Lord. It wasn’t Satan who
hoodwinked Jesus into that desert to be tempted by him. It was the
Holy Spirit who *drove* Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by
Satan. This is so important for us but we probably don’t realize how
much. God wanted Jesus to enter into the struggle of temptation by
Satan.
What exactly did God have in mind? Jesus is Baptized, something He
didn’t need for Himself. He does this for us. It is God’s anointing
Him for His Ministry and as the Savior. What this Ministry is we find
out immediately upon His coming out of the water. He is driven out
into the wilderness by the Spirit to enter into spiritual warfare with
Satan.
Notice He doesn’t “fight back,” so to speak. He uses a weapon, the
Word of God. But His battle with Satan is not one in which He is
interested in fighting fire with fire. Jesus knows that He will defeat
Satan. But more importantly He knows He will do it at the cross. He
knows He will defeat Satan by suffering, not by beating Satan down.
While Matthew and Luke tell us exactly those portions of the Word of
God Jesus used to respond to Satan’s temptation, Mark doesn’t mention
them. But he does tell us what the Word of God was that was spoken to
Him right before His temptation in the wilderness. The Father said to
Him: “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.” This is the
Word of God that carried Jesus through the temptation in the
wilderness.
Because what this is all about is humility. It’s all about receiving.
It’s not about glory or power. Satan tempts with those things. God
provides for us what we need. Satan places doubt in our minds that God
is holding out on us. But this is why Satan is in the mix in your
spiritual life. Why he, in fact, is your teacher.
Luther knew a little something about spiritual struggle. Having had
been a monk, he had experienced a tradition of spiritual formation
which was designed to capture the experience of ecstasy and
illumination through union with the glorified Lord Jesus. To reach
this goal, a monk ascended in stages, from earth to heaven, from the
humanity of Jesus to His divinity. He would read aloud to himself a
passage from the Scriptures to stir up emotions, move to heartfelt
prayer, and culminate in mental meditation on heavenly things, in the
hopes of gaining spiritual illumination.
John Kleinig, a Lutheran professor says this about Luther:
In contrast to this rather manipulative method, Luther proposed an
evangelical pattern of spirituality as reception rather than
self-promotion. This involved three things: prayer, meditation, and
temptation. All three revolved around ongoing, faithful attention to
God’s word. The order of the list is significant, for unlike the
traditional pattern of devotion, the study of theology begins and ends
here on earth. These three terms describe the life of faith as a cycle
that begins with prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit, concentrates
on the reception of the Holy Spirit through meditation on God’s word,
and results in spiritual attack. This in turn leads a person back to
further prayer and intensified meditation. Luther, therefore, did not
envisage the spiritual life in active terms as a process of
self-development but in passive terms as a process of reception from
the Triune God. In it self-sufficient individuals became beggars
before God.
Satan obviously seeks our destruction. It is not in his enticement or
condemnation of us that he is our teacher. Rather, it is his attack
upon us. It is actually more, it is an attack on God and His Word.
This is what he did to Jesus in the wilderness. It is in temptation
that we actually experience the love of God. Otherwise it’s just
theoretical knowledge. Or an emotional possession. As long as we are
operating by our thoughts or feelings the devil contently sits by. But
as soon as we dig into the Word of God the devil mounts severe
opposition, stirring up misunderstanding, contradiction, and
persecution. This is, as they say, where the rubber hits the road.
It’s why Jesus was driven out into the wilderness to be attacked by
Satan. It’s why we struggle in our Christian lives.
What does this mean? It means that when God Baptizes you He then
drives you out into the wilderness of struggle and temptation, of
being attacked by Satan. He does this because when He gives you new
life He then sustains you in it and forms you into one who is in union
with Christ.
It means that your only hope in temptation is not in coming to terms
with it or understanding it or avoiding it but rather prayer and
meditation. This will produce more temptation, but it will strengthen
you. Dig into the Word of God. Pray the Holy Spirit to guide you. Pray
the Holy Spirit to guard you in temptation and drive you further into
God’s Word when the struggle is intense. Jesus is God, and yet He
didn’t go it alone in the wilderness. Yes, He was alone, but He held
on to the Word. He stuck it right back in Satan’s face. He humbly
received the serving action of the angels to help Him in His time of
trial.
Never think that God has left you in the lurch. As much as Satan will
come after you—and he will—God will all the more give you the strength
you need. Never underestimate how He does it—through His Word, in your
Baptism, in His Holy Supper. The more you seek refuge in these the
more you will be attacked, and the more God will strengthen you. Each
time you are deterred, tempted—the weakness of the Word of God, the
confusion of the Word of God, the unreliability of the Word of
God—remind Satan that you are Baptized. You are the beloved son or
daughter of God. Rush here to receive the Sacrament, you need the Body
and Blood of Christ. Flee to the Word of God.
You will sin. Satan will make you wonder if you are worthy of God’s
love. You will experience troubles. The devil will get you to question
God’s power and His care for you. But the very weakness of God’s Word
is its strength. In it the Holy Spirit will descend upon you and
anoint you with His mercy and love. He will drive you back into the
wilderness of temptation where He will send His angels to guard you
and you will be strengthened. You will see more and more that your
life is bound up with Christ; that there is no true joy and solace
apart from Him and His Word, Him and your Baptism, Him and His Body
and Blood He feeds you with. You will see, and rejoice, that you will
be beaten down but always remain in His eternal care. Amen.
SDG
--
Thanks! God's Peace,
Pastor
--
Pastor Paul L. Willweber
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS]
San Diego, California
princeofpeacesd.net
three-taverns.net
It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything
except where the marks of the Church are concerned.
[Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian]
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