Sermon - February 21, 2010

Year C – The Year of Luke – Lent 1

St. Paul wrote these words to the Romans, "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart." Jesus said, "Man does not live by bread alone.

I want you to think about something with respect to Jesus' temptation. The first temptation Satan gives Jesus is the one that has fascinated me the most. Turn stone into bread. When I was a boy I vividly remember this temptation. I tried to imagine fasting for forty days, and the thought of hot fresh bread sounded wonderful. I knew would have been a terrible temptation for me.

As I grew into an adult, I could see that this temptation struck at the heart of human sin. As I have long said, the tragedy of sin is that we throw away what is valuable for what is fleeting. This is true of every sin we commit. It is true of every transgression. We throw away what is valuable for what has no value. Think of Tiger Woods; he has lost his prestige, reputation, and worst of all his family for something silly and fleeting. It is the story of Adam and Eve who threw away the Garden of Eden for a piece of fruit.

In this temptation of stone to bread, Satan is trying to coax Jesus into throwing away all that he is simply for a loaf of bread. Satan plays on Jesus' hunger, his weakness, in order to have him destroy what he is here to do. He wants to do to Jesus what he did to Adam and Eve.

It is here that a comparison begins that I find compelling. When Satan begins his temptation in the garden, he says to Eve, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" In other words, he is putting doubt into her mind.

Now, notice what Satan does with Jesus in the wilderness. "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." The word "if" always raises a question of doubt or uncertainty. Think about it: "If you really love me…" "If you want me to be happy…"If you were like the other parents…" “If you really are that good, then show me." The word "if" always raises a question of uncertainty or doubt.

"If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Satan is back to the same kind of temptation given to Adam and Eve. Should Jesus eat, as Adam and Eve ate, Satan has caught Jesus in his temptation. However, unlike Eve, and unlike Adam, Jesus resists. He cites the Word of God in response to Satan, "Man shall not live by bread alone."

There is another image tied to eating, sin, and bread, and that is the wilderness. Jesus is in the wilderness when he is tempted. For the Israelites, the wilderness is the image connected to their roots. It is almost like the image of "amber waves of grain," for us. Only, with the Israelites, the wilderness is an even deeper and more powerful image. The wilderness goes to the roots of what it is to be an Israelite. The Children of Israel wandered the wilderness for forty years. It was there that they became a people and a nation. It was in the wilderness they received the Law of Moses.

While in the wilderness, however, the people were always driven by their sin, temptation, and lack of trust in God. They clamored for bread. In the wilderness and in the clamor for bread, the people of Israel failed to be faithful. They wanted to throw away their freedom, the promises God made with them, and the Promised Land all to run back into slavery so they could eat the bread, fruit, and vegetables they had eaten in Egypt.

In the temptation account, Jesus is again doing what the Israelites or humans could not do. He is faithful. In a sense, he is reclaiming the wilderness. Instead of a place marked by unfaithfulness, Jesus will be faithful in the wilderness. He tells Satan, "Man does not live by bread alone."

The image of bread continues. When Jesus is finished with his time in the wilderness, he begins his ministry. As he goes about the synagogues of Galilee, he will feed five-thousand people with bread. Jesus will also break bread as he begins the Lord's Supper and Holy Communion on the night of his betrayal. The thing, through which he was tempted, becomes the means by which he reveals himself to the world and continues to be with us in, with, and under the bread of Holy Communion. Jesus is the bread of life upon which we feed and live. He is the bread of life that frees us from our sins. He is the bread of life that breaks the bonds of bondage to sin and death that trap all mankind.

This past Wednesday we opened the gate to Lent and struck out into the desert spaces alongside Jesus to begin the Lenten season. Ash Wednesday calls upon our humanity. It reminds us that we are but dust and to dust we shall return. It reminds us of our own fragility. Today’s scriptures call to mind the many ways we are called to live out this Lenten season as well as our lives.

In the reading from Deuteronomy we are called to live with thankfulness. The Psalm, calls us to trust in God’s mercy, to take refuge in the Lord.

Finally Paul calls us to humility. He tells us that the Word is near us on our lips and our hearts. He tells us that "There is no distinction between Jew and Greek,” all who confess faith in Jesus Christ are reconciled to God. We are not saved by works or by merit, but simply and wholly by that grace that comes from Christ who faced Satan and overcame him. This is the Christ we confess. He is the Lord we proclaim and in whom we trust.

"The word is near you,

on your lips and in your heart"

Man does not live by bread alone, but by the very Word of God. At the end of the Lenten season there is a triumphant entry, a table where bread is broken through which Christ says he will always be with us. There is also a cross and a tomb waiting for every one of us. However, for now, in this Lent time, simply look, and know that the Word is so very near to you, “on your lips and in your heart,” each one of us carrying Christ to each other for we are fed by the bread of his body and freed from our sins through him. Amen.