The season of Lent is designated in the church as a season of preparation. How better to begin the journey on which we now embark than by pondering the beginning of the ministry of our Lord on earth. Mark leads us by the hand from scene to scene as Jesus heals people, casts out demons, forgives sins, and raises the dead. For Mark, things are done “immediately.” That word “immediately” is at the forefront of our text today, as He begins with the Baptism of Jesus. We hear the Father’s Words, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” As soon as His Baptism is concluded, we hear from Mark, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” Why did the Spirit do this? What is the point? Jesus was driven into the wilderness to be tempted, and for good reason – because we are tempted. Jesus, who Himself was tempted, helps us when we are tempted.
Immediately, Jesus goes from water to wilderness. The Holy Spirit, who descended upon Jesus in His Baptism, now drives Him into the desert with the same urgency with which God took the children of Israel from the Egypt side of the Red Sea to the wilderness side of the Sinai Peninsula.
As we look at Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, Mark gives very few details, other than Jesus was tempted all forty days of His time there. The writer of Hebrews gives us this insight: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
Just what kinds of temptations did Jesus face during those forty days? Mark doesn’t give us any details of the temptations, while Matthew and Luke give us three temptations that Jesus faced: turn stones into bread, bow down and worship Satan, and throw Himself off the pinnacle of the temple. Aside from those three, we don’t have a list of temptations that Jesus faced on each day in the wilderness. Suffice to say, the fact still stands that Jesus was tempted in every respect during the forty days and throughout His ministry.
The temptations that Jesus faced did not end in the wilderness. As I said, our Lord faced temptations throughout His life, all the way up to and including His crucifixion. For all the traps and snares the Pharisees put into place for Jesus, one couldn’t blame Jesus if He had a cursing thought towards them. Some would say that they deserved it. And while they might have deserved it, Jesus does nothing that would constitute revenge towards them. He has no cursing thought or word directed towards them, He doesn’t do anything that would be considered vengeful on His part. No, Jesus took every trap and snare placed before Him and sidestepped them with great ease. He prayed to His Father; He prayed for His enemies; He gave comfort to the repentant thief while the other tempted Jesus to remove Himself from the cross. By His complete and full temptation, without sin, without giving in a single time, Jesus has credited you righteous.
What good news it is for us that Christ has triumphed over temptation! We know that because Christ has triumphed over temptation, we too will triumph, for we have Christ with us, alongside us as we face each and every temptation to sin. Jesus has been and will continue to be by your tempted side until you are finally at peace and rest eternally with Him. Because of Christ’s victory over the devil, you have won. Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the devil is your victory over sin, death, and the devil. God sent His Son into the world to deal with all three of these. In the luscious, fruitful Garden of Eden, the serpent tempted the first man; in the bleak, barren wilderness he tried the same with the stronger Man. Jesus, the second Adam, would dispatch the devil, defeating Satan who had caused the fall of the first Adam. As a result of the first man’s sin, Adam could only lead his wife out from Paradise and into this land of disease, decay and death. As a result of Jesus’ victory over Satan in the desert, the Lord journeyed out from the desert in order to lead His bride, the Church, from this world and into Paradise. Jesus overcame all of Satan’s temptations so that He could pronounce you righteous and holy before His Father.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who carries away the sin of the world. Even though He carried the sin of the entire world into the desert, He Himself never sinned. He endured and triumphed over every temptation of the devil. Hebrews says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus endured the temptations of the devil and triumphed. He not only endured the temptation in the wilderness, but He also endured all the other temptations that the devil threw at Him as He journeyed to the cross.
You see, if the devil could have gotten Jesus to sin just once, He would no longer be able to carry our sins. He would have sins of His own to carry. Never the less, Jesus did not sin. He continued to carry our sin. He carried it all the way to the cross.
It is important for us to know that Jesus endured all the hardships that we endure. He is our substitute. He doesn’t just know our lives academically, but He has experienced life as we know it. He was tempted just as we are tempted. He also experienced our pain, our sorrow, and our frustrations. He experienced it all except that He never sinned.
In spite of the fact that He never sinned, He was full of sin. St. Paul writes, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Just as the High Priest placed the sin of Israel on the scapegoat, God has placed the sin of the world on Jesus. He became full of our sin – your sin, my sin, the sin of the entire world. Jesus has carried that sin to the cross. As we remember the cross, we will remember that our sin filled Him as He suffered and died to pay the penalty that God’s justice demanded – a payment that freed us from our slavery to sin.
For us during this Lententide, our focus is this: Christ has defeated Satan, once and for all, and because of that, salvation has been won for you and for me, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.