Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator and Sustainer, our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, and the Holy Sprit that abides in each of us!

Do any of you remember Flip Wilson?  For those of you who are wondering, “Who the heck is Flip Wilson,” he was an African-American comedian who became famous in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, who had his own award-winning variety show.  He created many characters that he would portray on his show, like Reverend Leroy and, my particular favorite, Geraldine.  Remember Geraldine?  Geraldine was a fine-looking “lady” who often liked to say, “What you see is what you get!”  And then, of course, she was always doing something she wasn’t supposed to do, after which she would say, “Honey, the devil made me do it!”  I liked Geraldine because she always seemed to be able to say or do things that the rest of us couldn’t say or do, and I always liked the way she would blame the devil for whatever she did that was wrong.  Geraldine would always talk about how she had been tempted to do something, and then when she would do the wrong thing she would immediately blame it on the devil.  Isn’t that something we all would love to do, just blame the devil for things we do in our lives that we shouldn’t?

Life is full of temptations, isn’t it?  We are constantly being tempted to do something we know we shouldn’t do.  Do you ever wonder why this is?  I mean, if you think about it, in the sacrament of baptism we hear God’s promise that we’re made clean and we’re forgiven all our sins.  In Article IV of Martin Luther’s Large Catechism, he wrote that Baptism "overcomes and takes away sin.”  If that is the case, then once we are baptized why are tempted in life to turn to sin?  To be honest, I cannot really answer that question.  But here is what I do know:  In the waters of our baptism, God promises that through our faith in Christ we are gifted and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live the kind of life that God desires of us.  We are empowered to live as Jesus lived if we so desire.  We can imitate the life of Jesus if we choose because, as Luther loved to say, “We are baptized.”  You see, after we are baptized, we are called into that life that is life after baptism.  Isn’t that what we heard in our Gospel story today?   “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.”  (Luke 4:1)  After his baptism, Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and he went from there, the place of his baptism (the Jordan), to the rest of his life in the wilderness.  Dealing with the temptations of life is part of being an authentic Christian, and our challenge in this life after baptism is to find the strength and the faith to act as Jesus acted when he was faced with temptations to turn from God.

For most of us, resisting the really big temptations is easy.  I would be willing to bet most of us would think twice about stealing something.  We know it is wrong, and we know we should not do it.  The real problem with temptations is that most of the time we deal in gray areas.  Many of the temptations we face in the world seem harmless.  I have heard statements like, “I don’t see the harm in looking at a porn website; I’m not hurting anyone” or, “I know he is a married man, but it is okay, we’re just having lunch together.”  Life is filled with little temptations that can seem very innocent at first.

When we look at our Gospel lesson today we might think, “Hey, why would it have been so terrible for Jesus to make some bread out of stones?”  Jesus had been in the desert for 40 days, and during that time Luke tells us “he ate nothing at all…” (Luke 4:2).  Jesus was famished; what would have been so terrible about having a simple piece of bread?  And then that second temptation by the devil, what would have been so terrible about accepting the glory and authority over all the world?  Wasn’t it God’s intention for Jesus to have that, anyway?  Don’t we even pray that in the Lord’s Prayer, “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever?”  And that third temptation, what would have been so terrible about jumping from the pinnacle?  Jesus knew that his Father would protect him.  Wouldn’t that just have shown his complete faith in God? 

The problem is that these temptations do not come from God’s Word; they come from someone other than God.  Satan, or the Devil, as Luke calls him, is real, and what makes him so diabolical is Satan uses God’s own words to tempt us.  Satan wanted Jesus to trust him rather than God.  Satan was testing Jesus, trying to tempt Him to turn from God.  Satan was attempting to convince Jesus to focus on Jesus’ own needs, but what we see in Jesus’ response is that he is not motivated by his own needs but rather by God’s Word, which usually leads Jesus to feed others first.  Remember the feeding of the 5000 which comes later in Luke’s story?  Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is not to seek needs that fulfill us, but to seek to live by the Word of God.
 
In the second temptation, Jesus if offered something that he knows already awaits him, glory and power, but his tempter encourages him to seek it now.  In today’s language, his tempter is trying to get him to “sell his soul to the devil” for worldly power.  We, too, have been promised glory and power.  Not as the world views it, but as God promises it in His Kingdom which Jesus constantly reminds us is already near.  This is one of those temptations that I think we, the faith community of Salem, must be careful not to fall into.  As we grow and as we continue to focus on God’s desire for our lives, we must insure that our motives and actions are in sync with the Word of God and not our selfish desires.  Sure, it is good to increase our membership; in fact, Jesus told his disciples to go make more disciples.  But, if our main concern is getting people to come here so we can get more money for our building and operations expenses or if we seek more people just so we can get people to fill the open slots on our teams, then we, too, will have sold our souls to the devil.  Our focus must always be on God’s mission, not our personal needs. 

And now we come to the third test.  For me, this is the test that challenges us to use the Word of God properly.  You see, we can manipulate God’s Word to our advantage or we can allow God’s Word to be what it is, a promise and a gift.  When we use God’s Word to test God, as one New Testament scholar notes, “it becomes an instrument of judgment, judging God and our own faithfulness.”  We have all done this, haven’t we?  You know the prayer, “Oh, God, if you just do this one thing for me, then I will …”  Go ahead, fill in the blanks; we all know this prayer.  But the Word of God is not intended for us to use to test God; God’s Word is intended to be a promise that strengthens and empowers us to live life after baptism so that we can imitate Christ in this world.

As we journey now through this Lenten Season, we must recognize that life is filled with temptations.  There is no easy formula to overcome them, but we must be aware and on guard that Satan desires that you and I turn from God.  The challenge for us is to know God’s Word well enough to know we are listening to the right voice, and to know that when temptations are just too great for us to overcome that we have a God that is filled with grace and forgiveness.  God did not create us to be gods; He created us to be human beings that live in willing obedience to His Word.  “Impossible,” you say!  Yes, it might seem impossible at times, but God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to show us the way, and he sent us His Son to show us that when we do fail His faith in us is unwavering and His love is never-ending.  We will witness that on Good Friday.  Avoiding temptation and rejecting temptation is not impossible, but it is difficult.  In our baptism, like Jesus, we too, were filled with the Holy Spirit.  May we allow that Spirit to be our strength and our guide in all we do, so that we do not use that old excuse, “The devil made me do it!”  Amen.