(A sermon for Luke 4:1-13 Presented at Christ Christ, Bordentown, NJ, March 8-9, 2025)

So Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness where He fasts for forty days and endures Satan’s temptations.  Upon his return, Luke tells us that Satan tempts Jesus three more times. One, for Jesus to turn a stone into bread. Two, for Jesus to believe that Satan has the ability to grant him authority over everything. And three, for Jesus to jump off a cliff for nothing bad will happen as a result.

Essentially these three temptations were all encouraging Jesus to act sinfully and turn away from God.

This is Satan’s chance to hit Jesus one more time while he was perhaps at his weakest human point _40 days of fasting.

(Gospel & Sermon begin at 23:25)

But what happened during those 40 days? Scripture didn’t give us the details of what Satan did, but it seemed tortuous. Perhaps what happened is kept from us for a reason. Perhaps what Satan did was too gruesome to be printed. Or, perhaps so petty that it wasn’t worth giving it attention. Knowing what we believe about Satan and their hate for us _ probably a bit of both.

Whatever it was, Jesus endured forty days of torture while fasting.

I’d like to think I would have the fortitude to survive such a test. But it’s doubtful. I don’t like fasting; I like eating. If I don’t eat, I’m cranky and I’m not clear-headed. And that’s after just one day.

I would find it difficult if I was trying to steady my thoughts in a retreat alone in the wilderness _ in concert with the Holy Spirit _ and during that entire time having to endure the nagging poking and prodding of some demon.

I imagine that Satan would present to me an oasis where the air smelled of my favorite foods with the promise that I could lead a perfect, painless life. All of that and more! if I turn away from God and look to Satan as the ultimate authority.

But Satan’s authority is a lie and there is no perfect life. I preached this a few weeks ago. Christianity _ believing in God and Jesus Christ _does not make our lives perfect. But neither will Satan_ or anyone _ or anything else you choose to idolize.

It’s easy to believe then that the details of those 40 days are kept from us because the specific incidents don’t really matter. We don’t need to focus on the sordid details of Satan’s antics because in the end, they amount to nothing but a pack of lies.

What we need to focus on, when we think about those 40 days, is that Jesus showed us that triumphing over evil _ for us _ is possible. This demonstration is another example of how Jesus is the new covenant between God and man.

God through Jesus shows us as that:

We can endure.

We can forgo sin.

We don’t need to show-off, and greedily consume more power and attention.

We can rely on the assistance of angels.

We can be confident in overcoming temptation.

But there’s also something else God shows us in this example. And that is we don’t need to fixate on the darkness in our lives _and get caught up in every inconvenience or complaint we have about the world. We can turn away from hate and turn towards love.

Thus when we turn to love _ we can act in love, whether we’re feeling love or not.

When we act in love, we are able to turn our attention to our fellow men and women who are in tragic situations…. Whether it’s those whose homes are decimated due to a natural disaster or warfare, or whether it’s because addiction or crime has consumed their lives, or whether someone is just sick, scared, cold or alone.

We can turn our attention toward them, and at the least, pray for them that they have patience under their sufferings.

Pray that they may have a happy issue out of their affliction. And pray for ourselves that we can be a cup of strength for them.

By enduring those 40 days, Jesus showed us that we can act in love in spite of enduring hunger or torture. He wasn’t just showing us that our fasting was to go without food. He was showing us that our fasting is to go without hate and instead live with kindness and compassion.

If you really think about it, it’s a lot easier to go without hate for 40 days than it is to go without food for 40 days. You need food to keep you alive. You don’t need hate to keep you alive.

Hate is not why we were given life. We’re given life to turn to love and act in love.

Amen.