First Sunday in Lent
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13
*Many thanks to Rev. Jenna Pulkowski for the outline of this sermon*
Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the Word
who is near you, on your lips and in your heart. Amen
Think a moment about how we usually see Jesus depicted—
primarily in artwork or sensationalized movies.
He’s often shown in a way that shows him off.
He’s tan, smiling or has a gentle expression,
He is clean—his skin, teeth, and clothing show no dirt,
and he looks entirely presentable and acceptable, right?
Most images of Jesus gloss right over the fact that he was,
indeed, just as fully human as he was divine.
During Advent and Christmas,
we boldly proclaim the Incarnation, of God made flesh
and how amazing it is that God would do that,
but in the midst of the angels and shepherds
we don’t always look too closely
at what it really means for the Son of God to have been flesh and blood
And when we think about it more fully we get a little squirmy
Because humanity is too messy,
too gross,
too dirty,
for the Son of God to really, truly be human.
But this is all essential to who Jesus is,
his fragile messy humanity
alongside his shiny clean divinity.
The messy humanity
is why we still included part of the Ash Wednesday service
at the start of our worship today.
Ash Wednesday gathers us together,
gathers us up to remind us of God gathering up the dust of the earth
and breathing life into humanity,
gathers us up to remind us of our mortality—
we cannot escape death,
regardless of our attempts to use
medicine, exercise, supplements,
cosmetics, or mindfulness to stave it off.
And Jesus as human shares our dustiness.
We see this in our gospel for today,
the first Sunday in Lent,
Jesus is in the midst of the timeless human struggle
of identity and mortality
He has just spent 40 days and nights
without food
and probably very little water.
He is without friends or family.
Weak with hunger, I can’t imagine him being all that glowing,
but rather gaunt, strained, dirty, and tired.
He cannot tower over the tempter
who has come to seduce him away from God’s claim
and prove himself as the Son of God.
At the Jordan River,
God claimed him as the Son, the beloved,
in whom God is well pleased.
But the fog of hunger and isolation
would make that hard to remember,
and the tempter is cunning.
He has arrived when Jesus is at his weakest,
and he means to use it to his full advantage.
When the serpent tempted Adam and Eve,
he invited them to imagine being like God—
to leave aside their humanness, and to embrace the divine.
As though they could actually accomplish that shift from full humanity.
When the devil seeks out Jesus,
he doesn’t tempt him with the Divine.
He tempts him with his Humanity.
Jesus IS Divine. God has claimed Jesus as God’s own.
But...can Jesus really be human too?
Can he set aside his rightful power
to experience the fullness of human hunger, pain, and longing?
Would Jesus actually willingly accept the limitations of mortality,
knowing that he was fully divine?
The Tester tests Jesus with doubt over his own identity.
And how does Jesus,
at his weakest point respond?
With the words of scripture,
and not just any words of scripture
but from the communally identifying section of Deuteronomy,
the instructions of Moses to the people
as to how they are to live in the promised land,
the part that starts out: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.”
A verse so foundational that it is still at the heart of Jewish liturgy and worship,
it has it’s own name the shema (hebrew for Hear,)
and it continues on “You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all our might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9
When the tempter tests Jesus over his identity
Jesus doesn’t try to redefine himself,
he goes back to what he knows,
the words that are so important
that they are to be a part of everyday life in community.
It’s his human community,
a community grounded in God,
that gives Jesus the words and the identity
he needs in this moment.
Jesus doesn’t face the tempter alone
but with the whole faith and history of his people alongside him,
and this grounds him so well
that he is able to respond
even when the tempter tries to use scripture with the last temptation.
Notice how the devil pulls out and twists verses from the psalms to suit his purpose,
while Jesus responds from a foundational text,
one used for defining identity.
Now this is not to say that Jesus wasn’t genuinely tempted,
or that he even had doubts about his identity
and what he is to do with that identity.
Jesus’s time in the desert happens
at the beginning of his ministry,
of his journey to the Cross.
He had a lot of time to think, to pray, to wonder,
and maybe even to rage, lament, and call out God for this task.
At the center of our human experience
is the deeply held belief that we have full freewill,
that no one—not even God—MAKES us do something.
But we also know how the world works,
that it is manipulative and demanding
and we often don’t feel like we have any choice.
But with God, we ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have a choice.
Always.
Jesus had a choice,
whether to follow the path that would lead to the Cross,
or to say to heck with it and eat the stones-turned-to-bread.
Even knowing who he is
He chooses self-denial,
to set aside his rightful power,
and instead uses his God-given authority
to tell the devil to go to hell,
quite literally.
We enter into our season of Lent with this text for a reason.
God gives us a choice as well,
whether we will follow Jesus
and his way of peace-making, forgiveness, grace, and love,
or whether we choose our own self-interests,
holding grudges, blaming others for our problems,
and putting resentment before all else.
The season of Lent begins with the reminder
that we all will end our lives in death,
but that the ashes of that death
are a precursor to the resurrection and life-everlasting
that Jesus has made available to ALL of God’s beloveds.
The path of self-denial is a hard one,
And yet,
it is God’s grace upon grace
that fills us up, holds us up, and calls us God’s own good creation.
God’s own VERY good creation.
And we know this through the words of scripture
that our community has made central to our lives together,
to our very being.
As Paul says in Romans “the word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.”
This word is Jesus,
and the saving message of the gospel,
and it is with us
even when we face our own identity questioning,
faith tempting wilderness moments.
This word is there when we call for help,
again as Paul says “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Jesus chose the path to the cross
so that all of humanity could be restored to life,
to overturn the condemnation and brokenness
that the first humans created,
and to turn the ashes into new life,
new dust gathered up and breathed into.
He knew who he was,
who he is,
and who he will always be:
God’s own beloved Son,
God incarnate, Fully human. Fully divine.
The salvation and redemption of all our brokenness.
The defeater of the Tempter. The defeater of Death. Amen.
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