March 9, 2025

Lent 1, Year C

Luke 4:1-13

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Save us as you promised; we will trust your word.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

First, a word about Martin Luther. Because why not, right? It’s a Lutheran Church. You might not know this about Martin Luther, but he never thought he was perfect, and he never thought of himself as some kind of hero, getting out there confidently to fight the bad guys and prove himself to be strong in faith and free of doubt. And he never thought that he was getting better and better, as though Christian life were somehow a steady kind of progress, working out the bugs along the way, getting faith software updates that were an improvement over the old versions. If anything, he was always just honest with himself about his own shortcomings and weaknesses that just kept sticking around, and he was just honest with himself about his own sin. And then, when he troubled by too much temptation or too much of that voice that says “You’re no good,” he would say, “But I’m baptized.” In his Large Catechism he said, “But I am baptized! And if I have been baptized, I have the promise that I shall be saved and have eternal life.” For Luther, that settled the matter. He trusted that love. “I am baptized. And despite all that other stuff, I am already and always God’s beloved child.”

So sing it again: Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Save us as you promised; we will trust your word.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Now back to the wilderness with Jesus. Jesus is in the wilderness, as we heard a few minutes ago. He’s been there for forty days, and he hasn’t eaten or drunk anything. Don’t worry about whether that’s possible; the point is that he’s just really hungry and thirsty and maybe in agony and maybe really bored and wishing he had someone with him and who knows what else. And then the devil comes along – don’t worry about whether that’s a red guy with horns and wings, or whether it’s a voice in Jesus’ head - and he sees this hungry Son of God, and sees this Son of God who might right then want a promise of something bigger and better in life, and he sees a Son of God who’s probably wishing someone would get him out of this desert and save his life. And the devil says, “If you are the Son of God, do these three things.” And Jesus just says, “Nope. Not gonna do it.” And the game of tempting and testing is over.

Do you know what happened just before Jesus was sent off into the wilderness? He was baptized in the Jordan River. We heard about that back on January 12th. After the baptism, as Jesus was praying, the heavens opened, the Spirit came down as a dove, and a voice said, “You are my Child, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” “You are my child.”

Then, right away, Jesus is led off into the wilderness for forty days alone, and when he finally hears a voice again it’s another voice that says, “Someone called you God’s beloved child? If you’re the Son of God, prove it. Make bread out of this stone. Grab hold of all this power I could give you!” “If you’re the Son of God, jump off this tower so we can see how the angels make you fly.”

The devil says, “If you’re God’s beloved Son, prove it.” And Jesus just says, “Nope. I’m not playing that game. I’m not going to try to prove anything to you, and I’m not going to get God to prove anything to me. I’ll just trust God’s word.

I’m God’s Son, God’s Child, God’s beloved.”

It’s easy to see what’s wrong with all these tests that the devil sets out for Jesus. We probably heard it enough times, and we know that it’s true: Jesus, the Son of God, isn’t all about making bread for himself when so many have no bread, or grabbing hold of power and kingdoms and countries when power and kingdoms and countries just seem to cause so much hurt, or counting on divine protection when so so many people seem to have been abandoned by God and their neighbour.

When we see Jesus say no to all these temptations we see that his way of life is going to be one that is lived not by taking from the world to meet his own needs and desires. Jesus’ life is going to be all about giving to the world and giving to the ones around him and even giving up his life so that all might live.

But Jesus is being tempted to something more. His real temptation is not to do bad things; Jesus’ real temptation is to stop believing that simple word that God spoke to him: “You are my Son, my Child, my Beloved.” And when the devil says, “If you’re God’s Son then just do a thing or two to prove it,” Jesus just says, “Nope. God spoke a word that I’m God’s child, and that’s all I need to hear.” So the devil stops the game, and slinks off to wait til the time is right to play again.

We’re settling into Lent now, and we’ll be here for the next thirty-six days, not counting Sundays. (Don’t worry about the math, just trust me…) It’s a season where we’ve talked a lot over the years about repenting, which really just means turning around, changing our mind, changing what’s in our heart. That means turning away from all those things that we do or even just think that harm each other, or hurt the world, or that break our own spirit and break our relationship with God. The not very fancy word we have for all that is sin. We all have some idea where all that sits deepest within us and comes out in what we do or say.

We’re called to turn away from all those things that hurt our relationships, but we know that we won’t get it right all the time. Sometimes it seems like we won’t get it right at all. This thing we call sin has a way of sticking with us, from the beginning to the end; sticking with us like a cold that won’t ever go away. But that really won’t ever go away.

That’s why we come back here and confess almost every week. When we do that we’re just being honest with ourselves, with each other, and with our God. Being honest, kind of set free from just trying to hide or pretend that everything’s OK.

And when we do that, we are returning then to the one who has called us Beloved Children. We return to the God who gave us life, we return to the one who called us into the water of baptism and then brought us up out of water of Baptism and said, “You’re my child. You don’t ever need to prove it. Or earn it. You can trust my word, that you’re just my beloved child.”

And we remember. Maybe we join in the words of Luther again. “I am baptized. God’s beloved child.”

When the world is so wrong, “I am baptized.”

When the world is so wrong, “I am baptized.”

When I did it again, even though I tried so hard not to, “I am baptized.”

When I put myself down again, “No - I am baptized!”

When the world says I’m not what I should be, “I am baptized.”

When I can’t be as thin or smart or rich as the world says I should be, “I am baptized.”

When I’m not getting better, “I am baptized.”

When we see the world that is so beautiful, “I am baptized.”

When we taste the joy of friendship and love, “I am baptized.”

When we settle into the peace and quiet of some solitude, “I am baptized.”

It’s a word that goes with us everywhere. “I am baptized. Beloved Child of God.”

Remember the song?

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Save us as you promised; we will trust your word.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

And then, from here, we turn around and follow Jesus into a world where bread can be shared and not hoarded, where power can shared instead of gathered up by a few, and where we don’t wait for the protection of angels but instead we look after one another. A world that God has also called Beloved. With all those people God as called Beloved.

And there’s one more piece of the story. The heart of the story, really.

Maybe you noticed how it ends: The devil left him, waiting for the right time. The time will come again for Jesus to be tempted, and we’ll hear it again soon enough. When Jesus is on trial, a governor named Pilate will ask, “Are you the Son of God?” And Jesus will reply, “You said so.” When Jesus is on the cross, passersby and religious leaders will say, “OK, are you God’s chosen one, prove it! Save yourself!” And even then Jesus will not play the game. Instead, he’ll remember those words “You are my Child, my beloved,” and will let himself slip away into the arms of the one who calls him beloved. Trusting in the love of that one who said, “You are God’s beloved child. You always will be.”

“You (gathered here) are God’s child, God’s beloved.”

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.

Save us as you promised; we will trust your word.

Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.