Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: James 1,12-18. Invocavit

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

James 1,12-18 1714

Invokavit (1. Sonntag der Passionszeit) 024 „He will call“

The Forty Knights, Martyrs at Sebaste, Armenia 320

9. März 2014

1. O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey Thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to Thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer 86).

2. »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 who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted: „I am being tempted by God,“ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.«

3. After Jesus’ forty days of fasting, Satan tempted Him three (3) times. Those temptations involved:

I. miracles,

II. religion and

III. power (Nagel 87-88).

In Jesus’ temptations, when everything that is wrong with us hangs on Jesus, He did not sin (87). The Apostle James reminds us: »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 who love Him.« For us, this is a condemnation, for we cannot remain steadfast under trial for any sustained length of time; sooner or later we will falter and succumb to trial and temptation. Satan succeeding in tempting Adam and Eve into sinful rebellion against God’s command, and He continues to deceive men and women every day. We have thus earned the shackles of eternal death and separation from God.

4. In Matthew 4, Satan now sees his opportunity to derail Yahweh’s Heilsgeschichte (salvation history). He attempts to distract Jesus from His ministry as the Christ. For a creature to tempt the Creator to sin is the height of pride, but Jesus does not shy away from Satan’s temptations. Jesus has numbered Himself among us sinners by receiving from John the baptism of repentance, and this means being tempted as we are tempted.

5. Satan first tempts Jesus to perform a miracle. Satan shows his cunning nature: tempt the Son of God to exercise His Divine power. The temptation is not that Jesus turn stones into bread to feed the multitudes, but to turn stones into bread and feed Himself. This is a temptation for Jesus to use His power for selfish means. Jesus could rightly turn stones into bread and satisfy His fasting stomach, but because Satan wants Him to do so Jesus refused to heed his words.

6. Satan then tempts Jesus with religion: throw yourself from the temple heights, for your angels will catch you. Jesus understands Satan’s implication: put God to the test and make Him prove that His Word is true. Jesus responds that neither God nor His Word needs to be proved. God is trustworthy and true, and so is His Word, so there is no need to put them to the test.

7. Satan finally tempts Jesus to worship him and if does then he will give him all the earthly kingdoms under his authority. Of all the temptations, this one is the most enticing. Both Jesus and Satan know why Jesus is here: He has arrived to crush Satan’s head. Satan attempted to divert Jesus from that task, and he offers Him all the wealth and glory of the temporal kingdoms. Jesus could be a Second Solomon whose peaceful reign extends over all the earth. Jesus could have this if He would just subject Himself under Satan. This temptation is most beguiling because again and again Jesus would be tempted to take this divergent path to glory. His Jewish people wanted Him to be be a mighty conqueror who would sweep aside Rome’s legions and restore Israel as a world power with his own king and independent self-rule. Jesus’ own apostles also thought the path of the Christ was one of power, swords and temporal rule. Every time Jesus said He would be handed over, crucified, die and rise again, the apostles did not comprehend what this meant, denied that it would occur and at times tried to stand in His way and push Him onto the path of power and glory. Jesus successfully corrected them, taught them and walked up to His cross, tomb and resurrection.

8. The temptation of religion still beguiles the Church today. We are masters of putting God to the test. If God does X, then I will do Y. We are prone to put ourselves in situations that force God to act. How often do people argue: If God does such and such, then I will believe. Or the reverse: God did not answer my prayer, therefore I will stop trusting in Him.

9. The temptation of miracles still beguiles people today. After feeding the multitudes, John tells us in his Gospel: »Perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself« (John 6,15). Jesus refused to be the people’s miraculous Bread King. Yes, He will satisfy their needs, but He will not be turned into the Divine Farmer who exists only to satisfy the bodily desires of His people. Recall what Jesus earlier told the Samaritan woman He had met at the well: »If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you: „Give me a drink,“ then you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.... Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life« (John 4,10.13-14). Jesus promised to not only be our temporal Provider but also our spiritual Providence who gives salvation and life everlasting!

10. Each of Satan’s temptations against Jesus fall far short of success; they are, in fact, complete failures. Jesus later turns the table on Satan and reverses the temptations back on Satan. The fasting and hungry Jesus is now the Bread of Eternal Life who has rendered Satan to a destitute, starving roaring lion searching for someone to devour and fill his hunger (1. Peter 5,8). Jesus has proclaimed His victory in the very bowels of Hades and now holds the keys to Death and Hades. Outside Jerusalem, on Mt. Calvary, Jesus has thrown down Satan and crushed His head in fulfillment of Genesis 3,15. John saw in his apocalyptic vision this victory where Jesus said to him: »I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades« (Revelation 1,18). Finally, Jesus wrested from Satan all the worldly kingdoms he had boasted to give to Jesus. The Apostle John heard in his apocalyptic vision: »The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!« (Revelation 11,15). Who now bows down and worships whom? The Apostle Paul proclaims: »Therefore God has highly exalted Jesus and bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father« (Philippians 2,9-11). Yes, even Satan, the prince of rebellion, must now confess and bow before Christ Jesus as his God and King!

11. By overcoming the devil’s temptations, Jesus won the victory over him as a foretaste of the great victory He would later win on the cross and in the empty tomb. Jesus has overcome Satan for us on our behalf. Jesus’ victory is our victory, and Satan can no longer prosecuting us before the Divine Judge. John saw it, and it is now a reality: »Now the salvation and the power and the reign of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, who had accused them day and night before our God« (Revelation 12,10).

12. When Jesus successfully finished His time of temptation, »angels came and were ministering to Him« (Matthew 4,11). Those same angels now come and minister to you in both your bodily and spiritual needs, for Jesus sends them to guide and provide for us in this earthly life. Amen.

13. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus, You appeared to destroy the works of the devil; send us the Holy Spirit to guide us along Your holy path during Lent so that by traveling with You to the cross we see the joy of eternal life that is Your pure gift to us. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Soli Deo Gloria

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, March 10, 2014

James 1,12-18. Invocavit

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