Luke 4:1-11: Our Lenten Journey
Introduction: Lent has been well characterized as a journey. During Lent, we travel into the wilderness with Jesus, knowing his promise that a land of our own lies ahead. We began this journey when we were baptized, just as in the Ancient Church catechumens during this time prepared for their Baptism at the Easter Vigil. And we continue this journey every day—in season and out—when we return to our Baptism in daily repentance.
But if that isn’t rigorous enough a journey, we should remember that our Lenten journey will engage us in a life-and-death struggle against the forces of death itself. We are only the foot soldiers, trudging behind. Before us goes our champion. Yet we make the journey too, and truly
Our Lenten Journey Is a Journey to War.
I. Our journey is a replay of Israel’s journey to war.
A. God acted mightily in Israel’s past.
1. To war against the Egyptians (Ex 14:14).
"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
2. To war against the Amalekites (Ex 17:8–16). When Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.
B. Jesus’ battle against temptation does perfectly what Israel failed to do when attacked: trust.
C. The story of Israel is our story, our history.
1. The story of people of under attack.
2. The story of people struggling to believe.
3. The story of those who have died in battle and risen with Christ.
II. And we cannot escape the warfare of our journey.
A. For Christ, there was no avoiding the battle.
1. No one can short-circuit the suffering, not even Jesus, the Son of God.
a. Jesus is tempted to doubt his identity. Verse 3, “If you are the son of God…”
b. Jesus is tempted to bypass the road to the cross.
Verse 5-7, Offering Jesus earthly authority and glory, the says, “If you then worship me, it will be all yours.”
2. For us, Jesus did not take the easy way out.
a. God had not promised to protect Christ from the cross and suffering.
b. There would be no Easter without Good Friday.
c. Jesus clung to the Word and trusted God.
Mt O, cling to the Word, Christ, your Head. I’m not even an apostle. But I do preach as one, for our Lent mid-week services. Then you will hear how even Peter the Apostle of power, could not take the easy way out. Neither will we.
B. The Church must follow Christ to war.
1. The great paradox of Christianity.
a. Christ’s greatest glory was in dying in battle on the cross.
b. Christ defeated Satan by allowing himself to be killed.
2. We, too, share the paradox of Christianity.
a. In Baptism, we receive the sign of the cross from the hand of the Father.
b. Daily we drown the old Adam and rise in the new man, Christ within us.
III. Even going into battle, we sing, for we see victory.
A. Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness foreshadows victory over Satan on the cross.
B. The Introit—Psalm 91, the soldier’s psalm—enlists us in the battle of Lent.
1. The battle is raging, but we fear nothing.
a. For in sending his angels, God assures his foot soldier: “When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation” (Ps 91:15–16).
b. We sing this song in trusting faith.
2. This is a song of Christian life under the cross.
C. The traveler also sings: “My song is love unknown, My Savior’s love to me, Love to the love less shown That they might lovely be. Oh, who am I That for my sake My Lord should take Frail flesh and die?” (LSB 430:1).
Conclusion: We know the goal of our Lenten journey: it is into battle, to the cross, but it is also to victory.
The battle is our participation in Christ’s death, struggling daily against Satan’s assaults. But the victory is our share in Jesus’ resurrection, won for us when he overcame Satan’s temptation and suffered death. We have this victory in the new life of Holy Baptism. And we have the armor to fight on to this victory in our communion with Christ and all his saints in his Supper, the heaven on earth we live in the Divine Service, the new Jerusalem.
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