1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the mediation of our hearts, be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 1st Sunday in Lent is taken from Luke 4:1-13, it’s entitled, “Christ is With Us,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. First Christmas, then Epiphany, now Lent, soon Easter. All that is about sin. This place, this Christian Church, is here for one reason—for God to expose and remove your sin. That’s the only business of the Church. That’s why you’re here—or should be. The purpose of Lent, of Christ, of the Church is to take away your sin. God’s forgiveness—acting, doing everything—because of sin.
3. Unfortunately, if we don’t think our sin is so serious, deadly, then we don’t really need the Church. We don’t need Christ. What good is a bloody Savior no one needs? So, we end up going through the motions of religion. After all, nothing really happens here that interests us. Some folks redefine Church as a social club or charitable organization—where you can do “nice things” for others who need it. The idea is that we’re all fine and good. It’s the other people who need our deliverance. Well, true. Every neighbor needs your mercy and charity.
4. But if we ever lose sight that we are “poor miserable sinners,” that of all the people in the world, we are the most guilty, the most sinful, the most unclean. That my sin (whether it’s secret or out in the open) drives me out of heaven and into hell forever; that hell is a real, bitter place. If we ever lose sight that we need deliverance from our sin, and our children need deliverance from their sin, and our co-workers, friends, and classmates need deliverance from their sin—if we ever lose sight of the quiet tragedy in us, then the Church has lost its purpose. God put this Church here, in this city, this very place, for you, so he can remove your sin. That’s why he is here now.
5. So a pastor must stand before even all the “good” people who have come . . . and announce what is true about us. That sin has infected you with death. You can’t escape it. It’s festering in your deepest parts, working all the way down and all the way through. Of course, the world—and even we Christians—sometimes defend ourselves, say we’re mostly “good” deep down. But, boy, if we mean it, then the world and we don’t understand sin at all. Sin rots you. It decays. Ever been sick? Mistreated someone—friend or enemy. What grudge are you still holding, even here in this place? Have you ever been rejected and even once known tears? Suffered an accident? These things are not God’s judgment on you for specific sins, but they are signs of the sin that is on all people, all creation, on you. These things cannot happen to sinless people in a pure, sinless world. It’s all residue—sometimes a thick residue—of sin. I can prove you touched a hot stove by showing you your burning fingers. I can show you your sin by showing you your pain, your weakness, your anger, and your bitterness in this world.
6. If your marriage is perfect, your children are perfect, health is perfect, house is perfect, school is perfect, if nothing breaks down, nothing disappoints, if nothing hurts, if everything is “milk and honey,” then relax. You’re safe . . . sin has not polluted you. You will live forever, even without Christ, apparently. (“Who needs him?!”) But if your life is not perfect, your health not perfect, your family not perfect, then something deadly is causing it, all this grief.
7. It is not God. God doesn’t break things or pollute or trouble things. God is peace and not chaos around you. Love, not hate. Life, not death in you If chaos and hatred and sickness and suspicion and death have invaded your life and family, then you ought best recognize it. It is this: Sin has corrupted you. You are “ruined” by it and condemned by it. It’s a “wilderness” (a wasteland) out there, and you are lost in it, forever.
8. But Luke tells us in our Gospel reading today, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.” Look beside you in this wilderness, this desert. There is Jesus. Also alone. Also starving. Also miserable. Also stalked and hunted by Satan seeking whom he may devour. This is Jesus on his way to dying too! Why is Jesus here? He has never sinned. His body—flesh and bone and heart and soul—are pure and holy (in the biggest way!). Why is he in this barren place—hungry, tempted, suffering like this? Don’t you know? Because you are here.
9. Jesus can’t stay in heaven’s peace and glory while you are here suffering. If you lose all things, he loses all things. If you starve and sweat and squirm, he, too, must starve and sweat and squirm. If you suffer condemnation, he suffers condemnation. If you are to die, he must die too. He loves you too much to leave you here in sin’s desert, this world—even with its bright excitements and excellent advertising—all at Satan’s tempting disposal. While “this world’s prince may still Scowl fierce as he will,” Jesus is “by [y]our side upon the plain” where you are and where the fight is. And Jesus will do the fight himself—hang on a tree, rise from the dead, ascend!—he “holds the field forever” (LSB 656:3, 4, 2).
10. So something more is happening here: wherever Jesus walks in this desert, new life springs up. Your life. Life from heaven—from God to you. Like a leafy green tree heavy with fruit in the middle of a desert where you didn’t expect it. A tree of life to eat from, and so to eat and get life—after the Garden of Eden tree is long gone. And he is a spring of life-giving water, bubbling up (Jn 7:37–38) in the middle of your desert—shouting out defiantly against Satan and his carefully cultivated drought all around you. Jesus shouts his Word: “Forgiven!”
11. Jesus suffers. Jesus starves. Jesus wanders in this bitter forty-day wilderness for one reason: you are here. But he’s not here to empathize with you—just to say, “This is pretty bad, isn’t it?” He’s here to finally get you out of here, to re-create you, and take you back to heaven to his Father. That’s why the Holy Spirit led him to your spot, to the desert. And so he brings life down from heaven to this spot in the desert. He brings food down from heaven, healing for you—for your hurt mind, your heart, your bruised body and soul—the whole of you. God “authored” you. Sin wrecks you. So death claims you. But Christ heals you of death, forgives, perfects you.
12. His water is the only water in the wilderness that will save you. So he says, “I baptize you with it . . . in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And his food is the only food that will nourish you “to life everlasting,” so “Take and eat, this is my body . . . given . . . for you. And my blood shed . . . for you . . . forgiveness.” Here is life from heaven in this wilderness. Here is deliverance from Satan “and all his works and all his ways.” Here is cleansing from your sin! This is why your God is in the desert, why Christ Is with Us in Our Wilderness.
13. Why his Body, the Church, is here, and even right here. Why you are here at this moment. This life, this deliverance, this cleansing is yours. And now your sin is deadly on you, but your God is with you . . . and has delivered you. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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