Christ For You

St. Matthew 4:1-11

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

St. Matthew 4:10  Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan!  For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord…  Jesus was hungry, and the devil offered Him bread.  Jesus was shamed, weak, and tired, and the devil offered Him honor.  It seems as though God the Father Almighty had abandoned His Son in His hour of need, and the devil, quite generously, being quite neighborly, offered to step in and help; “It’s OK, Jesus; just let me be Your god, you know, for just a little while.”  The devil would not ask Jesus to suffer or to die; no, he would be glad to relieve Christ of that duty.  Oh, that devil, he seems so nice.  He just wants Jesus to have a little bread and honor and be spared His suffering.

The devil is a liar!  You cannot have more than one God no matter how many times the devil says that he doesn’t mind.  You will either worship the true God of the Bible, or you will worship the devil.  There are no other choices; there is no middle ground.

And remember this: the devil does not just get the witches and Satanists, he also gets all the undecided, all the fence-sitters, all the luke-warm pretenders, all the spiritualists, all the religionists, all those who worship no particular gods, as well as all those who worship false gods.  His kindly, soft-spoken offer of ecumenicalism to share the stage with the Father is like the SS troops beckoning the Jews into the showers.  He wants Jesus to have bread and honor and to be spared His suffering; and the result would be that men would go without Jesus’ Word.

The devil says to our Lord, “Come on, Jesus; You really shouldn’t have to do this.  It’s not Your fault.  Remember when Israel was in the desert, how they grumbled and complained, and they picked their bread and meat off the ground in their hunger?  Look here, Jesus; don’t be so hard on Yourself.  These stones could become bread for You, pleasing to the eye and good for food.  You have the power to make all this go away, Jesus.  And not only that, You have the right to take care of Yourself.  Be God, then!  Let me have the men.  They’ll never bother You again.  I’ll be their god.”

But Jesus did what Adam, Moses, and Israel did not do.  He resisted.  Make no mistake about it, He is most certainly tempted, but He is not overcome; He does not give in to the temptation; He does not sin.  He suffered in His obedience for their disobedience, and lived perfectly by His Father’s Word.  The Father will provide, and the Son will wait.  Led into the place of temptation by the Spirit, Jesus submitted to His Father; He knew hunger and shame.

And God provided.  But He didn’t provide by removing the burden; He provided by offering Jesus up.  Jesus went silently as a Lamb to the slaughter, without complaint, without bread, without honor, without a friend.  The Father sacrificed His Son in order to give the Spirit to the failures who went before Him: to Adam, to Moses, to Israel.

Jesus Christ went alone to the suffering and death of the cross in order to pay for sins He did not commit.  He turned the other cheek; He allowed evil men to force a crown of thorns down upon His head.  He allowed them to drive what amounts to railroad spikes into His hands and feet.  He let Satan do his worst.  He let Satan have his day.  He let Satan take his price…

But then………..then the price is paid!  The ransom is made.  The sacrifice is complete.  Christ has indeed satisfied the demands of the Law; He has removed the guilt and the shame.  He took up His power.  He burst forth from the tomb and He rose from the dead.
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And His is a greater power than the power to destroy and seek vengeance.  His is a greater power than the power to deceive and tempt.  His power makes no threats.  His power gives no empty promises.  His is the greatest power, because it is the power to forgive!

Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, does not rule with fear and deception; He rules with grace, He rules with love.  He makes citizens for His kingdom by declaring former rebels, former outcasts to be His own dear children, and washes them in the waters of Holy Baptism stained with the blood of His cross.  Indeed, Satan’s fantasy of killing God-in-the-flesh came true, but Satan is not omniscient, he does not know all things, and his fantasy proved to be his very undoing, his utter defeat.  And because of that defeat of the devil by Christ, sinners of all kinds – failures, losers, cowards, and weaklings the world over and throughout time – they have all been set free from their shame and they have been welcomed back into God’s embrace.

That means, dear fellow redeemed, that you are no longer failures and cowards.  You are, instead, beloved of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit forever.  You live out your days in the wilderness of this world in weakness, knowing your hunger and shame, all the time being attacked by the devil.

And by faith you follow Him to the cross, for it is not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God that you live.  And in the Sacrament of the Altar God provides that Word-infused bread as well as His life-giving blood for you so that you do not ultimately go to the slaughter.  In Christ you are never alone.  In Christ your sins are forgiven. He made you His own dear child in Holy Baptism, and you are holy and righteous in His sight; you are innocent and without blame, because He has taken your blame and made it His.

But still, you are not home, not yet.  You still suffer in this world full of sin and temptation; you still suffer in this world full of sorrow and sickness and sadness and death.  And so it is with bread that God gives His Word of life for you, out of His mouth and into yours.  And He does not give bread alone, for that is not enough for life.  He gives Himself – the Word made flesh – in the bread in order that you may persevere and live!  In His holy Word and Sacraments God joins Himself to you in your battle.  He forgives you, He encourages you, He strengthens you, He nourishes you.  He gives you Himself.  He gives you His life.

And this is who the Messiah is.  This is how He gets to be known: He is anointed for a sacrifice, He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.  He is the Lamb that God provides in place of all men.  He is caught in His compassion, His desire is to have you.  He does it all – He hungers in the desert, He carries His own cross to Calvary, He is mocked, hated, spit upon, and beaten by the soldiers – all for you.  For this is what it took – His holy incarnation, becoming man for you, His fasting and temptation, His suffering and dying and rising – all in order to make you His own.

Most certainly this is not the way of power and might.  It is not at all like the imaginary gods made up by men.  It is, rather, the way of weakness, of substitution, of mercy.

And here in Matthew 4, dear friends, is the answer to what tempts and tortures you: Christ for you.  Jesus suffering, dying, killed, and raised for you.  Continue to receive Him in all the ways He wants you to have Him: remembering your Baptism, hearing the Absolution, hearing the preached Gospel, and opening your mouth to have Him put His living and forgiving body and blood into you.  He has forgiven and paid for all your sins, and those sins are not coming back!

And what you suffer now for a time, whatever it is – frustration, weakness, unemployment, fear, anxiety, illness – none of those sufferings are worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in you on the Last Day.

Jesus, the Word made flesh, is your Savior, your Deliverer, your Life.  And that is more than enough.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.