Category: Sermon Page

Midweek Lenten Service
Wednesday, March 10, 2021

“‘Follow Me’: The Candidates for Discipleship” (Mark 2:13-17)

We just came out of an election year, in which we had to make choices among all sorts of various candidates. There were many candidates running for many different offices, at local, state, and federal levels. And in the campaign ads, each candidate would tout his or her qualifications for the position they were seeking. Because a candidate for office ought to have certain qualifications.

But how does that work when we’re dealing with qualifications for being disciples of Jesus? What qualifications do candidates for discipleship need–what do you need–in order to follow Jesus and learn from him? Well, there’s one essential qualification you must have, and today we’ll find out what it is.

Our text is the calling of Levi the tax collector–better known as St. Matthew–as found in Mark chapter 2. There Jesus calls Levi and says, “Follow me.” So, apparently, Levi had what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus. But what was that? And do you have what it takes? I think you do. In fact, I know you do. You are just as good a candidate for discipleship as St. Matthew was. You have the same exact qualification that he had, the one essential qualification for following Jesus. And it is this: You are a sinner. That’s it. That’s what it takes. You need to be a sinner in order to follow Jesus and learn from him. That’s what St. Matthew was. This saint was a sinner, and he knew it. And that’s what you need in order to hear Jesus calling you. Otherwise, you’ll just tune him out, because you think you don’t need him.

St. Matthew Levi, the sinner. (From here on, I’ll just call him by his more familiar name, Matthew.) Matthew was a sinner. How do we know that? Well, from his occupation, for one thing. He was a tax collector. But was that really so bad? I mean, nobody likes having to pay taxes. But being a tax collector–is that job really so sinful? Of course, tax collectors are never popular, simply because they’re taking money out of your pocket. But back in Matthew’s day the tax collectors were hated for a couple of more reasons: 1) They were widely known to be embezzlers, cheats, corrupt, taking more than they should to line their own pockets. And 2) they were working for the enemy, for Rome, the occupying force in the region. The tax collectors thus were viewed as traitors, quislings, by their fellow Jews. So that was Matthew, presumably: a crook and a collaborator. Matthew was a sinner.

Nevertheless, it is just this Matthew–sitting at his tax collector’s booth, no less–whom Jesus calls to be his disciple. “Follow me,” he says. And immediately, Matthew does just that. He follows. He gets up from his tax collector’s booth, leaves it behind, and follows Jesus. Then, to top it all off, Jesus goes to Matthew’s house for dinner. And there are other notorious sinners there, to boot. Jesus associates with them. He eats with them. He graces their table with his presence.

Jesus explains why he’s doing that. He says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” You see, this physician, this doctor, makes house calls. Jesus, the Doctor of Mercy. He comes to sin-sick sinners, and he makes us well. Oh, the great mercy shown to us by this Great Physician! So merciful is he that he even bore our sin and sickness in his body and died from it! On the cross Jesus bled and died to bring healing to both body and soul. The result is forgiveness now and life forever. This is a treasure far greater than anything we could gain at a thousand tax collectors’ booths!

Friends, Jesus says to us today, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” But if you’re content with your own righteousness, well, then you’re not going to have much use for Jesus. You won’t be very interested in following him and listening to his voice. If you don’t think you’re that much of a sinner, then when Jesus says, “Follow me,” you’ll be thinking: “Oh, that’s nice. Ho hum. Now leave me alone.” People who are content with their own goodness, with their own lives–they’re going to tune out Jesus’ message.

On the other hand, for those who know they are sinners, the call of Jesus comes as the most welcome invitation. To those who realize that there is no way out, no way up, no way forward in life on their own, Jesus comes to you and he says: “Follow me. I will lead the way for you. I accept you. I forgive you. Here is God’s mercy. Here is life and forgiveness and cleansing for sinners.” Wow! What could be better than that? Of course, when we hear such an invitation, we gladly leave our tax collector’s booth behind! We’d be a fool not to. It’s no great sacrifice on our part to leave that and to follow Jesus. No, this life of discipleship is his gift to us. He calls us sinners to follow him and receive from him.

Friends, never stop being sinners. What? How can you say that, Pastor? “Never stop being sinners”? No, I don’t mean keep on indulging in crookedness and corruption. When Jesus called those tax collectors and sinners and ate with them, he was not approving of their immoral ways. He was not saying, “Oh, go ahead with your sinning. That’s OK.” By no means! No, when I say, “Don’t stop being sinners,” what I mean is this: Never lose sight of the fact that you are a sinner, saved by grace, and that you are following Jesus because of his gracious call to you. Always remember that you receive your life from him. Never forget that. Then you will always have a hunger and thirst for Christ’s righteousness. You will always have ears ready and open to hear his voice.

Listen, today Jesus is calling you, just like he called Matthew the tax collector and sinner. Jesus is calling you to himself, calling you to follow him in faith for life. Our Master will teach you what he would have you to know, just as he taught his disciples of old. Our Lord will use you in his service, just as he used them.

Candidates for discipleship need to have certain qualifications. Where can we find such candidates? Well, just look around you. Disciples are people just like you, just like your pastor, just like Matthew Levi the tax collector. We all possess the one essential qualification, which is this: We know we are sinners called by Jesus to follow him.

Third Sunday in Lent
March 7, 2021

“March Madness: The Prophet-Driven Church” (John 2:13-22)

“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild”: That’s how we usually picture our Savior. And in many respects, that’s true. Our Good Shepherd is kind and gentle with his sheep. But that image of Christ is not enough. It doesn’t give the full picture of Jesus and his character and his range of emotions. Especially is that the case with our text today. Because today we see our Lord getting downright angry–or upright angry, I should say, since it is righteous anger that he displays. Today Jesus gets a case of “March Madness”: He marches right into the temple like he owns the joint, and he is mad. How come? What’s the problem? What is it that makes Jesus so mad? And what does it have to do with the church in our day? Let’s find out, under the theme, “March Madness: The Prophet-Driven Church.”

The problem was with what was going on at the temple. At the temple in Jerusalem, a lot of buying and selling going on, a lot of money was changing hands: “When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.”

Now to be fair, we should ask: What was so bad about that? I mean, if you look into this a little bit, it may not seem so bad. Think about it. The temple in Jerusalem was the one place where the Lord God had commanded his people to come to offer sacrifices for sin, as well as other sacrifices, for guilt, peace offerings, thank-offerings, and so on. This was God’s idea, and it’s all recorded in the Book of Leviticus. The Lord had provided the way for his people to get their sins forgiven. Instead of requiring their life for their misdeeds, the people could offer up burnt offerings and the blood of bulls and goats and lambs. This was God in his mercy and grace providing forgiveness, atonement for his people. And for hundreds of years, ever since there was a temple in Jerusalem, that’s where all of those sacrifices were supposed to take place: at the temple, in Jerusalem. Nowhere else.

But the thing is, the people at Jesus’ time had to come from long distances. The Jewish people had been scattered far and wide across the ancient world. They had been dispersed to faraway lands. So it would be extremely impractical for them to bring the sacrificial animals with them on such a long trip. What they would do, then, is when they got to Jerusalem, they would buy sheep or goats or bulls or doves–they would buy them locally, right there in Jerusalem. That made sense. So businesses were set up to handle that trade. And because in many cases the people coming to Jerusalem were coming from lands with different currency, there would also be money exchanges set up to deal with that.

So far, so good. Those things in themselves, you would think, should not make Jesus mad. They would be providing a service for people coming from long distances. But the problem was, the animal trade and money exchange morphed way beyond that and became a profit-making business that overshadowed the real purpose of the temple. The forgiveness of sins got lost in the shuffle. It got pushed to the side. Other interests, self-interests, took over. And they even set up shop in the temple courts.

All of that, then, is what gets Jesus so mad: “So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!’” So here where the profit motive was driving the profiteers, a true prophet, a prophet of God, steps in and drives them out.

Now it’s great that nothing like what was going on in the temple can happen in the church today, right? I mean, we’re not buying and selling animals or exchanging currency back in the narthex. And I’m not referring to bake sales or yard sales or things like that. Those can be innocent and helpful and acts of Christian service. But there is a problem, a big problem, when anything overshadows or pushes to the side the real purpose of the church, which is still the forgiveness of sins. When that happens, and it does, Jesus still gets mad.

There is a problem when other things become the big thing in the church. Some religious merchants sell entertaining worship and peppy pop music. Some capitalize on their big smiles, funny stories, and pleasing personalities. Some market their advice for being successful or “purpose-driven.” Church-growth gurus peddle their techniques for driving up numbers. When these things happen at the expense of truth and substance, when the gospel gets shoved to the side, when the forgiveness of sins is downplayed–or even is seen as an impediment to growth–well, that’s when Jesus gets mad. And all faithful prophets of God will get mad, too. We’d like to drive those religious hucksters out of God’s house.

God forbid that we fall for their tricks! Because you know what? Their appeal can be very subtle. It can sound on the surface like a good thing, and it’s easy for a church and church members to fall for it. Been there, done that. I used to be a proponent of some of this stuff. Thank God for his forgiveness and for helping me to see things better. And it can happen to any of us. What we’re looking for in the church may not be what God wants us to look for. The answer, of course, is to repent and receive God’s forgiveness, which he gives to us freely, for Christ’s sake. God help us to rethink things from the perspective of his Word, so that the doctrine and practice of the church remain faithful to his purposes.

The church back then, the temple in Jerusalem, had gotten off track. They had gotten away from God’s purpose of the forgiveness of sins. So Jesus goes and shakes things up, like a prophet of God. Yes, and more than a prophet. As I say, Jesus marches in there and acts like he owns the place. He even calls the temple “my Father’s house.” Jesus is claiming a unique relationship to God, one that gives him authority to act in the way he does.

This catches the attention of the Jewish leaders. They challenge Jesus’ authority. They demand a sign, an outward display of divine power. Jesus refuses. Their demand for a sign came from their unbelief. Jesus tells them the only sign they’re going to get from him is a sign of judgment: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

Whoa! Jesus is laying down the gauntlet! He’s challenging them right back. And woe, w-o-e! Jesus pronounces woe on these unbelieving, hard-hearted religious leaders. For they will reject him, the only Son of God. They will kill him, in fact. And so judgment will fall on Jerusalem and on the temple that was their bread-and-butter, their base of power. And fall it did. Within a generation, the Roman army would lay siege to Jerusalem and destroy the temple in the year 70, never to be rebuilt. The destruction of the temple–the physical temple in Jerusalem, the building–serves as a sign, a permanent warning against the stiff-necked unbelief that rejects God’s Son sent from heaven.

But is the physical temple, the one made of stones, the temple Jesus is talking about? The Jewish leaders thought he was talking about the physical temple, the grand stone structure that Herod the Great had started an ambitious renovation and expansion project on some 46 years earlier. How in the world was Jesus going to tear that down and raise it back up in three days? But really, the temple Jesus was talking about was his own body. “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” “Yes, Jewish leaders, you Pharisees and Sadducees and chief priests, you will hate me and reject me and even kill me, but you will not thwart God’s plan.”

In fact, that is exactly how God’s plan will be carried out. Again, it comes back to the forgiveness of sins. For what all those bulls and goats and sheep were pointing ahead to is now going to be fulfilled in Christ. He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The Lamb of God–the final one, the once-and-for-all sacrifice for all sin for all people for all time. He’s the one who will put the temple out of business, for he is the one the temple was pointing ahead to. Christ comes, and the old temple is no longer needed.

“Destroy this temple,” Jesus says, namely, my body, “and I will raise it again in three days.” Good Friday and Easter–those great and momentous days we are aiming for here during Lent–Good Friday and Easter are when these words of Jesus will come to pass. “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” Christ’s death and resurrection: a dreadful sign of judgment and woe for the unbelieving religious leaders who had perverted God’s purpose. But that same death and resurrection for us who believe in Christ: a wonderful sign of forgiveness and everlasting life! If you need a sign, my friends, a sign to show you Jesus’ authority, it is the sign of the cross. That’s the sign that Jesus has the authority to forgive your sins! And the resurrection of Christ is the sign that you who are baptized into Christ–that your body likewise will be raised at the last day!

March Madness: My friends, Jesus is not mad at you–not in March or in any other month! Like a prophet of God–indeed, as the very Son of God, zealous for his Father’s house–Christ will continue to drive out unscrupulous merchants from the temple, so that the church will remain true to God’s purpose. And that purpose, dear friends, is to give to you and to all people the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name.

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Midweek Lenten Service
February 24, 2021

“‘Follow Me’: The Call to Discipleship” (Mark 1:14-20)

Today we begin a series of four messages based on the four “Follow me” sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. “Follow me”: In saying those words, Jesus was calling people back then to be his disciples. “Follow me”: Jesus is still saying those words to us today. He is calling us to be his disciples. So hear him now, as Jesus says to each one of us: “Follow Me.”

Our first entry in this midweek series has to do precisely with “The Call to Discipleship.” We hear it in our text today from Mark chapter 1. And I want us to consider three points about this call to discipleship: 1) The call comes from Jesus; 2) The call is surprisingly simple; and 3) The call is profoundly transformative.

First point: The call comes from Jesus. By that I mean, the initiative lies with him, not with us. Notice how the direction of the call goes: Jesus was walking alongside the Sea of Galilee, and he sees Simon and Andrew, and he says to them, “Follow me.” Then, going on a little father, Jesus sees James and John, and he calls them.

Notice, the direction is all from Jesus to the ones he calls. Jesus was walking along and he found them. He saw them when they were just going about their business, not looking for him. They didn’t do one darn thing to merit or earn his attention. There was nothing about them that was so special. They didn’t seek Jesus; he sought them. And he said to them, he called them, “Follow me.” It was all at his initiative.

The late theologian Martin Franzmann writes: “Jesus takes the initiative and calls the disciples. In many respects the circle of disciples gathered about Jesus was no startling novelty in first-century Palestine: in the terminology of ‘rabbi’ and ‘disciple,’ in the fact that they ‘followed’ their Master. . . . But in this point, in the genesis of the circle of disciples, there is a striking difference. In rabbinical circles the initiative in discipleship lay with the disciple. ‘Take to yourself a teacher,’ is the advice given to the aspiring disciple by a Jewish teacher. . . . We have no record of a call issued by a Jewish rabbi to a disciple in all rabbinic literature. . . . What in Judaism was the pious duty of the disciple is here the sovereign act of the Master. . . . Jesus reserves the initiative for Himself.”

As with those first disciples, so it is with us. We didn’t seek him. He sought us, he found us, and called us to be his own. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. That was us. We were lost, lost in sin and darkness, and we didn’t even know it. Like those first disciples, like all the lost people in the world today, we were just going about our everyday business, casting our nets, mending our nets. We could mend our nets, but we could not mend our relationship with God. That net was torn beyond repair, and we couldn’t fix it. That’s what it means to be lost, lost in sin and heading toward death, eternal death apart from God.

But then Jesus comes walking. He seeks us, he sees us, he finds us where we are. He says to each one of us, “Follow me.” And those are words of life and forgiveness, because that’s what we find when we follow him. Jesus calls us by the gospel. He called you in your baptism, when you didn’t do a darn thing to choose him. You were dead in sin, and he brought you to life. You didn’t decide to follow Jesus. He decided to call you.

The call comes from Jesus. The initiative lies all with him, not with us. Jesus chooses us, we don’t choose him. The disciples Jesus called in our text today–Jesus will tell these same disciples later on, in John 15: “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” It’s like we sang in our opening hymn: “Lord, ’tis not that I did choose Thee; that, I know, could never be; for this heart would still refuse Thee had Thy grace not chosen me.

So the first point: The call comes from Jesus. The second point: The call is surprisingly simple. By that I mean, it is surprisingly simple in its content. It’s just Jesus saying, “Follow me.”

Suppose I wanted you to get from here to, say, the seminary in St. Louis. There are a couple of ways I could give you directions. Here is one way: “OK, leave the church and take the streets and the turns you need to get onto Highway 67. Take Highway 67 north till you get to I-55. Go north on I-55 x number of miles till you get to I-44 in St. Louis. Take I-44 west till you get to Hampton. Take Hampton north till you get to I-64 west (also known as Highway 40). Stay in the right line, because the next exit is for Clayton Rd. Go west on Clayton Road just a couple of stoplights till you get to Seminary Place. Take a right and straight ahead of you is Concordia Seminary. You got all that?”

OK, that’s one way to do it. But here’s another way: Get in your car and follow me. That’s it. Just, follow me and you’ll get there. No complicated formulas. Pretty simple. Follow me. Well, that’s kind of what Jesus does when he calls us to be his disciples. The call is surprisingly simple in its content: “Follow me.” That’s it. Follow Jesus, come after him. Not a lot of complicated directions to remember. Just one person to follow. Follow Jesus, keep on following him, and you will get to where you need to go.

To be sure, the disciples will find out more, a whole lot more, along the way. They will grow in their understanding of what all is involved in being Christ’s disciples. But at its heart, at its core, the call is essentially and surprisingly simple: Follow Jesus. Stick close to him. He is the way. And he’ll show you the way, as you follow him.

The call is to follow Jesus. To follow him in faith, to stick close to him. It means being where he continues to speak to us. That’s in the church. Through Word and Sacrament, Jesus is here, speaking to us, leading us onward. We follow Jesus through the church year: from his birth; through his public ministry; to his suffering, death, and resurrection; and to his return at the last day.

Discipleship is very personal. It means being attached to Jesus. He leads, and we follow. Jesus takes us where he is going. He will lead us through our daily lives. He will lead us to our neighbor in need. He will lead us all the way to our home in heaven.

Which leads us to our third point: The call to discipleship is profoundly transformative. By that I mean, it is transformative in its effects. The call changes things, profoundly. It changes us, profoundly. It changes the direction of our life.

Look at what happened with the disciples. Simon and Andrew, James and John, were fishermen. Then Jesus comes and calls them: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and their boats behind, and they follow Jesus. Now not all of us are called to be “fishers of men” like those guys were. We’re not all called into the pastoral ministry. But we all are called to be disciples, to follow Jesus. And that will indeed change things for us.

It changes things for us, in that it gives us life! We were dead, but now we are alive, in Christ! For to follow Jesus is to go with him to the cross, where he suffers and dies for us poor sinners. By his holy precious blood, all our sins are forgiven, and we are washed clean. The net is mended, that torn net of our relationship with God. Jesus mended it for us, he made it right. Now we have life, we have everlasting life. This is the most profound change that comes with following Jesus. It changes the course of our eternity.

And it changes things now in our daily life. Now we are disciples of Jesus. Our life takes a new direction. Now we have something more to do in our lives than just fishing. The call to discipleship transforms our daily life, even if we stay in our current occupation. Our vocation, our calling, is transformed. It “changes,” even if it doesn’t “change.” What I mean is, oh, you may still be a commercial fisherman, or an auto mechanic, or a retiree, or a mom, but now your life is different, even if outwardly it looks the same.

Now you know you can serve God and serve your neighbor as a mechanic or a mom, and your work is accepted as good work before God. That’s because it is cleansed by Christ and serves as a channel of God’s love and blessing toward others. That’s the new and different direction our lives take as Jesus’ disciples. We don’t need our works to climb our way up to God. No, Christ’s completed work gets us there. Now we are free to give away our good works to our neighbor who needs them. God’s love flows through us to others.

My friends, today we have heard “The Call to Discipleship.” Three points: 1) The call comes from Jesus. The initiative lies with him. 2) The call is surprisingly simple in its content. It’s simply Jesus calling us to follow him. 3) And that call is profoundly transformative in its effects. It changes our lives now and gives us a life that will last forever. So, my fellow disciples, keep on listening during this Lenten season, as Jesus continues to call us, day after day, saying, “Follow me.”

First Sunday in Lent
February 21, 2021

“In the Wilderness” (Mark 1:9-15)

Today is the First Sunday in Lent, and every year on this Sunday the Holy Gospel is an account of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. This year the reading comes from Mark’s gospel. It’s the shortest, and the most compact and condensed, of the three accounts, but still it has much to speak to us today. So now let’s join our Lord “In the Wilderness.”

As I say, this account is very brief, just two verses, as follows: “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.”

Now this text comes in a context. In the verses right before the temptation of Christ, we have the baptism of our Lord. There Jesus is baptized in the Jordan, the Spirit descends on him to anoint him as the Christ, and the Father’s voice says to Jesus, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

OK, there you go. Everything sounds great. Empowered by the Spirit, approved by the Father, Jesus is ready to go! There’s a lot of preaching, teaching, and healing to do, so let’s get on with it. But wait! Something happens first. Something you wouldn’t expect. Mark tells us: “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”

Now that’s odd. You wouldn’t have predicted that. The same Holy Spirit who had just descended on Jesus in the form of a dove–the Spirit now drives him out into the wilderness. In fact, to say the Spirit “drove” him out is a little mild. The Greek text actually says, the Spirit “throws” him out into the wilderness, “casts” him out. Jesus is literally an outcast, thrown out into the wild. There’s kind of a violent feel to it. Jesus will “cast out” unclean spirits from people. Now the same word is used for when the Holy Spirit “casts out” Jesus. From the water, out into the wilderness.

And this is going to be no brief walk in the park. No, our text continues: “And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.” Father in heaven, is this any way for you to treat your Son? O God, you just said to Jesus, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Really? Is this how you show your love? Is this how you show your pleasure? Letting Jesus languish out there in the wilderness for forty whole days? Isn’t that a bit extreme? And to be tempted by Satan, as well! Why, Father, why?

We can indeed ask that “why” question about Jesus. After all, the Father was well pleased with Jesus. He never did anything wrong. But sometimes, don’t you think, we ask that “why” question about ourselves. Why is God letting me suffer out here in this wilderness? Why do I have to endure the temptations of Satan? Couldn’t God just take it all away? Snap his fingers, and I could just coast through life, with no problems. Walking down Easy Street. Instead, I’m out here in the wilderness for what seems like forty years now.

Oh, forty years! Now that reminds me of something, something I read in the Bible. Forty years, in the wilderness. That’s what Israel went through. Israel had sinned against God, grumbling against him. Not trusting his promise to bring them into the promised land. Not trusting God to sustain them along the way. Israel was tempted by Satan, in the wilderness, for forty years, and they failed the test. But now here comes Jesus, out there also in the wilderness, for forty days. Will he succeed where Israel failed? Yes, big time!

But how about you and me, when we are tempted, when we are tested? Do we always come through with flying colors? No way. So often we fall flat on our face. If we’re going to make it to the promised land, it won’t be by our own efforts. It won’t be because of our own strength or piety. We need something more than what we’ve got on our own.

In short, we need Jesus. He is the one who has passed the test. We need him pinch-hitting for us. Jesus is our champion. He took on Satan on the devil’s home turf, and he won the day. It was exhausting, it was grueling, but Jesus won the day. He won the forty days.

Now notice something about those forty days, and it’s a detail we find only in Mark. It says, “And he was with the wild animals.” Well, I guess if you’re going to spend forty days in the wilderness, you might encounter some wild animals. And wild animals, out in a wilderness, would pose some danger. These are untamed creatures, wild beasts, the sort that do harm to human beings.

But Jesus is out there with them, for almost a month and a half. Like Daniel in the lions’ den, Jesus’ life is preserved. Unlike Adam and Eve in the garden, where a serpent tempted them and they failed, Jesus overcomes the temptations of Satan. As the psalmist foretold of Christ: “You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.”

“He was with the wild animals.” What else is this telling us? For one thing, it reminds us of when man was first with the animals, back in the garden of Eden. At that time, before the fall into sin, animals posed no danger. However, after the fall into sin, humans are not safe in the midst of wild beasts.

But Jesus is. Indeed, Jesus is the one who will usher in the peaceable kingdom, prophesied in Isaiah 11, where man and beast will live together in harmony without harm. In Isaiah 35, the prophet says that when God’s people return from exile, there will be a highway in the wilderness, where no lion or any ravenous beast will pose a threat. And in Isaiah 43, the Lord says of the new thing he will do: “I will make a way in the wilderness,” and “the wild beasts will honor me.”

So Jesus was with the wild animals, yet he was preserved from danger. Like it was in the garden of Eden. In Christ, paradise will be restored, better than ever. God will turn the wilderness into a garden. And that’s where you and I will be living for a good eternity.

“And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.” And, dear friends, God sends his ministering angels to watch over you and care for you. We live among wild beasts, so to speak, whether literal or figurative. The early Christians literally were thrown to the wild beasts. So for them to know that Jesus was right there with them must have been a great comfort. God knows what his people are going through. And he sends his angels to help us, even when we’re not aware that they are watching over us.

So Jesus made it through the forty days. But there are more days to come, days that will take Jesus on a long march to the cross. There Jesus will defeat the devil once again. Decisively. Once and for all. Once and for you! For all of your failures in the wilderness, for all your grumbling against God, for all the temptations that Satan has beaten you on–for all that, Jesus paid the price that secures your release. You are forgiven. You are free.

God sent his Son, his only Son, Jesus, whom he loved, and he did not withhold him from offering up the perfect sacrifice. The wood was laid on Jesus’ back and he carried it–your sins were laid on his back and he carried them–and he himself was laid on the altar of the cross. Jesus was the ram caught in the thicket. He was the substitute that the Lord provided, so that now you are spared. The Lord will provide. God will provide for himself the lamb for the offering. As it is said to this day: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

The tempting in the wilderness was a training, in a way, for Jesus to endure all the way to the cross. Jesus suffered as you suffer. He was tempted as you are tempted. He knows what you’re going through. Hebrews says: “He had to be made like his brothers”–that’s us–“in every respect.” “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” “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.”

So, brothers and sisters in Christ, turn to Jesus when you are weak, when you are suffering, when you are being tempted by Satan. Jesus knows what it’s like to be out there in the wilderness. You may be out in a wilderness of your own. But Jesus is out there with you. God’s holy angels are watching over you. And Jesus will lead you out of the wilderness of this world and into the promised land of heaven.

Let us pray: O Lord God, You led Your ancient people through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land. Guide the people of Your Church that following our Savior we may walk through the wilderness of this world toward the glory of the world to come; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.