St. John’s Lutheran Church
9 March 2025 + Lent 1c
Luke 4:1-13
The Rev. Josh Evans
“The passion of Christ begins not in the week of suffering but already with the first day of his preaching,” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer observes, in a brief homily on this very gospel, preached to the students of the Berlin Technical College in 1932.
Before he came back to his hometown,
before he entered the synagogue in Nazareth,
before he stood up to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah,
before he proclaimed his Spirit-anointed calling –
to bring good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the captives,
and to liberate all those who are oppressed –
before his own words almost got him hurled off a cliff…
Before all of that,
we meet Jesus in the wilderness,
led by the very same Spirit,
to be tested by the devil.
It’s a familiar story –
one recorded in each of the synoptic gospels –
Matthew, Mark, and Luke –
and always read on the First Sunday in Lent.
It’s tempting to read this story and imagine that Jesus so easily and nobly cast aside every temptation that the devil hurled at him. To hold up this story as some kind of didactic proof-text that only makes us feel bad about ourselves for falling short of some impossible ideal.
But that’s not where the story starts.
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tested by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over he was famished.
Jesus was hungry. As anyone who has gone without food for any length of time knows, it’s hard to focus on much else when you’re hungry. Hunger diminishes our ability to concentrate and to think, and it makes us irritable. Hunger affects us physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Jesus was hungry – famished –
and the devil knew what hunger can do to a person.
How excruciatingly tempting it must’ve been:
“But no one would ever know… it’s just one loaf of bread…”
It’s also nice to be in charge.
To have power.
To be the one making decisions.
To know what will happen next and how.
In the wilderness, Jesus wasn’t in control.
He was hungry.
And lost.
Long before he called any disciples and had his “people”…
Long before his reputation preceded him,
and the crowds pushed in on him with excitement and anticipation…
Long before all of that,
Jesus almost assuredly succumbed to self-doubt,
questioning his calling and his mission.
There has to be another, easier way –
and the devil capitalized on that too:
“Here’s another way…”
As Bonhoeffer describes it, “Jesus could have been the ruler of the world. As the Messiah the Jews had dreamed of, he could have liberated Israel and led it to glory and honor. He could have entered as the visible king of this world. A remarkable man, to whom, even before he begins his active work, dominion over the world is offered […] People would have honored him, people would have believed him if he had then dared to say that he was the Son of God. They did even believe that of the Roman emperors. […] Jesus could have had all of that. It flashes through him that now from a high mountain for an instant he has a view of all the kingdoms of the world and knows that he could be their ruler.”
How tempting it must have been.
How excruciating it must have felt.
Physically hungry,
emotionally worn out,
questioning his call.
In the wilderness –
hungry, exhausted, alone –
the temptation to cave must have been an alluring one…
***
Before we meet Jesus in the wilderness,
before the forty days of being tested by the devil,
before the famishing hunger…
Before all of that,
we meet Jesus on the bank of the Jordan River:
Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven…
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Here is where the story starts: Beloved.
Here is the well of the strength from which Jesus draws: Beloved.
How tempting it must have been –
the allure of power, control, safety.
How excruciating it must have felt –
the hunger, the helplessness, the hopelessness.
“But [Jesus] also knows that for this,” Bonhoeffer continues, “he would have to pay a price that is too high for him. It would come at the cost of his obedience to the will of God. He would have to bow down before the devil, sink to his knees before him, worship him.”
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
It’s more than just a “memory verse” he pulls from the holy scriptures of his Jewish tradition.
It’s a self-determined ultimatum.
As Bonhoeffer puts it:
“Jesus knows what that means. It means lowliness, scorn, persecution, means not being understood, means hatred, death, cross. And he chooses this path from the beginning. It is the path of obedience and the way of freedom. For it is the path of God. And that is why it is also the path to love for human beings. Any other path, even if people liked it better, would be a path of hatred and of disrespect toward human beings. For it would not be God’s path. And recognizing this, Jesus refuses the devil’s offer here.”
***
Before the wilderness,
before the forty days,
before the hunger…
Beloved.
In the wilderness,
amid unrelenting temptations…
Beloved.
Jesus clung to his belovedness –
the promise and the blessing spoken over him at his baptism,
the well of strength that propels him forward –
into the wilderness and beyond,
into the places of pain and suffering and brokenness
which he would encounter in the course of his ministry,
to proclaim his risky but Spirit-anointed calling –
to bring good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the captives,
and to liberate all those who are oppressed.
Together, these stories –
the baptism,
the wilderness,
the proclamation –
show us a Christ who takes seriously the call to resist empire –
“to renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God,
the powers of this world that rebel against God,
and the ways of sin that draw [us] from God” –
to insist on God’s path above all else,
the path of love for all people,
no matter the consequences.
Together, these stories show us a Christ
who takes seriously the belovedness that propels him forward –
the belovedness that propels us forward.
Beloved
we enter the wilderness of Lent.
Beloved
we resist together.
Beloved
we proclaim God’s kingdom,
which no earthly ruler can ever take away,
try as they might.
In the words of that great Lutheran anthem:
Though hordes of devils fill the land
all threatening to devour us,
we tremble not, unmoved we stand;
they cannot overpower us.
Let this world’s tyrant rage;
in battle we’ll engage!
His might is doomed to fail;
God’s judgment must prevail!
One little word subdues him.
One little word…
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.
