The First Sunday in Lent
Prepare for Worship Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Gospel, “*Jesus ate nothing during those days, and when they were ended, He was hungry*.” Dear Christian friends: *I. Worship Prepares You for Your Week* Many Christians think of Sunday worship as an important beginning for the rest of the week. More than one Christian has told me that missing worship on Sunday makes the whole rest of the week feel imbalanced and out of whack. If each Christian’s daily tasks of Monday through Saturday could be thought of as a journey through a spiritual wilderness, then God’s Sunday-morning preaching of the Word and His Holy Communion are a time to gather provisions for the journey. Load up while you can! Consider also the ongoing benefit of Baptism: When we hear the invocation and make the sign of the cross upon ourselves at the beginning of worship, we are essentially returning to the font. Baptism is continual a new beginning. Baptism is a very good place to begin *everything*—including the rest of the week. The Scriptures of God teach us to think that worship is indeed the best starting point for our weekly journeys into the wilderness. Today’s Gospel is a prime example: “*Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness*.” · Why was Jesus returning from the Jordan? He had gone to the Jordan to be baptized. That was the beginning. That was worship: God the Father spoke concerning His Son and a visible gift from the Holy Spirit was added. After the worships service at the Jordan, “Jesus returned from the Jordan”—just like you and I go home after worship. The wilderness journey quickly followed, along with its increasing weakness, repeated temptations and sustained struggle. · So, too, you and me: By thinking of our worship as the beginning of the rest of our week, we get to think of ourselves as always leaving the Jordan with Jesus and always traveling with Him in the desert. Such thinking would allow us the continual confidence that we shall always be with the Lord; that we leave here and go nowhere our Lord has not already gone; that our week faces us with nothing our Lord has not already faced; and we live daily by the same strength and power in which our Lord Jesus likewise lived. What is that strength and power? It is the strength and the power of the divine Word. As Jesus repeatedly said in today’s Gospel, “*It is written*.” *II. Your Week Prepares You for Worship* For all the benefits of thinking about Sunday worship as the best beginning for a survivable week, today’s Gospel suggests something more. Today’s Gospel allows us to flip the equation, so to speak. In addition to thinking of worship as good preparation for your week, it might also be helpful to think of your week as good preparation for Sunday worship. Why should we think of our Monday-through-Saturday lives as preparation for worship? Because “*Jesus ate nothing during those days, and when they were ended, He was hungry*.” The point of our Lord’s hunger is NOT that you and I should quit eating. The point of our Lord’s hunger is to display for us His utterly human weakness—exactly the same sort of weakness in which you and I likewise live. What happened when Jesus “*was led by the Spirit into the wilderness*”? The same thing that happens to you and to me when we enter our weekly wilderness: there Jesus got emptied; there He became uncomfortably exposed; there He felt overwhelmingly tempted to trade the promises of God for a quick sensation of comfort. Let’s run through that question a second time: What happened when Jesus “*was led by the Spirit into the wilderness*”? God the Spirit place our Lord Jesus into such a position that His only hope was the eternal word of God. “*And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written*.’” God the Spirit place our Lord Jesus into such a position that His only hope was the eternal word of God. Should we not think the same way about ourselves? Should we not hope and pray that our merciful God would likewise exert Himself for us? Not many of us miss a meal very often, but we each face certain temptations and undeniable weaknesses on a daily basis. The struggles we endure might compare—at least in some small way—to the temptations and weaknesses faced by our Lord. Departing from Sunday worship, God the Spirit leads each of us into our own places of Monday-through-Saturday exposure and confrontation. Today’s Gospel allows us to think that it might be God’s the Spirit’s good and gracious will to empty us, and to use our daily lives as a way of getting the job done. Why would God the Spirit wish to lead us into the wilderness? *Preparation for Worship*: · By emptying us in a similar way that our Lord got emptied, God the Spirit prepares us to be filled. Jesus said in today’s Gospel, “*Man does not live on bread alone*.” He will later declare in His most famous sermon, “*Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied*” (Luke 6:21). When His mother Mary heard the divine Word preached to her, she sang with joy, “*My soul magnifies the Lord! He has filled the hungry with good things*” (Luke 2:53). · By allowing us to feel exposed by the wilderness of our lives, in a similar way that our Lord was exposed in the wilderness, God the Holy Spirit prepares us to welcome the cover and protection of the Lord. You prayed the Promise of God in the Introit for the Day: Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place— the Most High, who is my refuge—no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. We would not know the danger unless we could see and feel the danger. We would not long for protection without first realizing our need for it. Shiver for a while in the wilderness, and soon you will hold the blanket of God’s promises very tightly, unwilling to let go. · By allowing us to realize there are other possibilities for our devotion—just as the devil offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world—God the Holy Spirit again prepares us for worship. Look at it all glitter! If you have lived more than a few years in this world, you have already learned that nothing outside of these walls ever keeps its luster and beauty. Solomon was correct: “*All is vanity and a striving after the wind, and there is nothing to be gained under the sun*” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). Or, as we sing in the hymn Abide With Me, “Change and decay in all around I see.” Christ Jesus saw these things before we did. *III. Prepare for Worship* Boil it all down, and what do you and I receive from God in this place? We receive everything that was taken away from us during the week. We live continually in sin so that we may thirst again and again for the forgiveness that is yours now in Christ, and shall never be taken away. We face death every day, and in so doing, the certainty and the hope of the resurrection rises new for us every morning. We struggle and contend with one another and no one likes it—but the strife puts us into a position where we each receive the peace of God which surpasses the greatest things our minds can comprehend. Everything our Lord face in the wilderness ended up turning His attention back to the divine Word. He has done that so you also may be able to do it. For Jesus, for you and for me, everything will always rest on three little Words: “*It is written*.”
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