Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 15, 2026

by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 15, 2026 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 15

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 15, 2026

John 9:1-41

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

As every driver knows, there are areas behind your vehicle that you can’t see with your mirrors. Your rear-view mirror shows you a large swath of what is behind you. Your side mirrors show you another swath on either side. But there are areas that none of those mirrors cover. We call it those areas blind spots. Those blind spots are one of the most dangerous aspects of driving. People not checking their blind spots when they’re merging or changing lanes is one of the most common causes of serious accidents. Many newer cars now have sensors which light up when there’s someone in your blind spot, which is great – but they aren’t perfect. If someone is coming up fast behind you, it might not light up in time. And so, those blind spots can still be dangerous.

The phrase “blind spot” has also become an idiom referring to situations that have nothing to do with driving. We use it to describe someone’s inability or unwillingness to perceive something, perhaps because of a bias, or a deeply ingrained assumption, or a simply a lack of knowledge.

We have another long gospel reading this morning, and this one is particularly rich with themes. There are a number of different directions we could go with it. What I would like to focus on this time around is the problem of spiritual blind spots. There are people with some serious spiritual blind spots in this story, and these spiritual blind spots are dangerous – for them, and for us.

On the surface, this gospel reading is about a man who was born blind. He encounters Jesus, who has compassion on him, and restores his sight. But the great length of the rest of the reading tells us that there is much more to the story. This is much more than a healing story. This is about the spiritual blind spots which prevent the Pharisees from seeing who Jesus is.

When the Pharisees learned that this man’s sight had been restored, they launched an investigation. How can this be? Who could have done this? It certainly couldn’t be a godly man, for he mixed together spit and dirt and used it as a salve, and he did it on the sabbath. Technically, that’s work. That involved kneading. That involved practicing the healing arts. Both of these are no-no’s on the sabbath. So, there’s that. On the other hand, some argued, who could possibly restore eyesight to a blind man without the power of God? For many of these Pharisees, their self-righteousness as meticulous keepers of the sabbath gave them a huge blind spot, preventing them from seeing God at work in Jesus Christ.

Well, the Pharisees thought, maybe this guy wasn’t really blind in the first place. Maybe this was all a big hoax. So off they went like the keystone cops to interview the parents. The parents insisted that he was indeed blind from birth, and so the Pharisees were at another dead end. Now their cynicism, their skepticism, their doubts, gave them a huge blind spot, preventing them from seeing who Jesus truly was and what he was capable of.

These blind spots really come into focus when they went to the formerly blind man for a follow up interview. “What did he do?” they asked him. “How did he do it?” Where does this Jesus come from, anyway? And the formerly blind man replied, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.” What he’s saying is: Isn’t this ironic – you guys are supposed to be the religious experts, and you can’t see what is going on here. And yet, here I am, a guy who spent most of his life literally blind, and, to me, it is pretty plain to see!

This all came to a head when the investigation led them to Jesus himself. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” The Pharisees sensed that Jesus was talking about them, and so they shot back, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

This almost sounds like a riddle, doesn’t it? Jesus said he came so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Those who insist that they can see are really blind, while those who can see that they can’t see, can really see!

This riddle-like language is all about spiritual blind spots. The Pharisees have some big ones. Their self-righteousness created a blind spot. Their cynicism, skepticism, and doubt created a blind spot. Their stubbornness in insisting that they are the ones who have everything figured out created a blind spot. All these factors in their lives make it so that they cannot see Jesus for who he is. They cannot see what he is up to. They cannot see their need for him. They have these huge blind spots, and the most dangerous thing about them is that they don’t even know that they’re there.

There’s a scene from a movie which keeps coming to mind for me. I know we’re much closer to Easter than Christmas, but it is from a Christmas movie. There’s a scene in the movie “Elf” where Buddy the Elf hears his coworker singing in the locker room shower. Her voice is lovely and he is entranced, so he goes into the locker room, sitting on the counter just outside her shower. It sounds a little creepy, but his intentions are completely innocent. The charm of his character is his utter naiveté. He listens to her sing for a bit before he starts singing along with her. At this point she realizes there is a man in the locker room. She screams at him to get out, and Buddy covers his eyes and starts running blindly, away from the shower, and WHAM, at full speed he slams into a locker and falls to the floor.

I watch this movie pretty much every year, and this scene cracks me up every time. Yes, it might be true that I have the sense of humor of an eight-year-old boy, but here’s the thing: It is said that even the most absurd humor is funny to people because it has an element of truth to it. In fact, comedians and comedy writers will tell you it must have an element of truth in order to be funny. Oscar Wilde famously said that if you want to tell people the truth, you have to make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you. And I think this scene, as silly and juvenile as it is, points to a deeper, if uncomfortable truth about us, which is that we all have a tendency to run blindly, with the full force of someone who insists that they know what they’re doing, until we hit a hard, blunt surface. We have a tendency to run with blind confidence in ourselves until we inevitably hit a wall.

You see, we have some of the same blind spots as the Pharisees. There are times when we have the same sense of self-righteousness. There are times when we have the same cynicism, skepticism, and doubt. There are times when we have the same stubbornness, insisting that we have everything figured out. And these create for us these spiritual blind spots which prevent us from seeing the truth. They prevent us from seeing who Jesus truly is for us. They prevent us from seeing what he came to do for us. They prevent us from seeing our need for him. And these blind spots are dangerous! We run confidently, but blindly, through life until we hit a wall, until we crash out.

This story is told in order to open our eyes. This story is given to us so that we can get past these blind spots and see the truth more clearly.

To see clearly is to begin by acknowledging our own blindness. This isn’t a riddle, this is repentance. It is to admit the ways in which our self-righteousness and our skepticism and our stubbornness have gotten in the way of seeing and trusting and worshipping Jesus. To see clearly is, first of all, to confess our sin.

To see clearly is also to see Jesus as the formerly blind man saw him. It is to see not only our sin, but also our savior. It is to trust that Jesus has come from God to bring us forgiveness, life, and salvation. It is to have our eyes opened by Jesus to the truth – the truth about us, and the truth about him. It is to receive the gift of restoration from him, the gift of new eyes and a new life. It is to look upon Jesus with faith, and worship him as our Lord and God.

C. S. Lewis once wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

This is a beautiful description of the Christian life. It is a beautiful description of what it means to live with the restored sight that faith in Jesus brings. Jesus opens our eyes in such a way that our blind spots are overcome and we can perceive him rightly, and with him, everything else.

Jesus opens our eyes to see that we really do need him. We really do need his forgiveness, and so we move from self-righteousness to humility.

Jesus opens our eyes to see that he really can help us. He overcomes our cynicism, moving us to hope. He overcomes our skepticism, moving us to trust. He overcomes our doubts, moving us to faithfully worship him.

Jesus opens our eyes to see that we don’t have it all figured out after all, but that it is okay. He has come to help us see him as the way, the truth, and the life. He has come to lead us into a new life of joyful discipleship, moving us from stubbornly following our own way to following him into what, as the Apostle Paul says, is good and right and true.

By his loving grace, Jesus touches your eyes today, so that every blind spot might be removed, and you would see clearly that he is the Lord of your life and the savior of your soul.

He comes to you once again to restore and sharpen your vision, so that with eyes of faith, you would see him rightly, and with him everything else.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent – March 8, 2026

by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 8, 2026 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 8

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent – March 8, 2026

John 4:5-42

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Nutritionists will tell you that most Americans don’t drink enough water. This is significant because dehydration can impact many different areas of your life. Water helps you digest your food. Water helps your joints stay properly lubricated. Water regulates your body chemistry and your body temperature. Not getting enough water doesn’t just impact a person physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. Even very mild dehydration can lead to crankiness, anxiety, poor memory, or feeling tired. Water trickles through every part of our lives, and when we don’t have enough, it can impact every part of our lives. Our bodies try to fend off dehydration by sending us a signal: We get thirsty.

It was thirst that brought together Jesus and the Samaritan woman who met him at the well. It was about noon, John tells us – the hottest part of the day. Jesus had been traveling on his way back to Galilee from Judea. He was thirsty, and so he made a pit stop in Sychar and stopped at Jacob’s well. The disciples went into town for food while Jesus lingered at the well. When a woman of Samaria came to the well with a bucket in hand, Jesus asked her for a drink.

We need to pause for a moment here to note just how unusual and awkward this scene was. First of all, it was taboo in both Jewish and Samaritan culture for two strangers of the opposite sex to be alone together. We hear the disciples freaking out about this a little later in the story. What is sometimes mocked today as “the Billy Graham rule” was the accepted cultural norm for both Jews and Samaritans.

That’s about the only thing these two cultures agreed on, however. John notes here how Jews didn’t share things in common with Samaritans. Samaritans were regarded as unclean. They were despised by most Jews. There’s a whole lot of history behind this. In a nutshell, Samaritans were seen as traitors to the Jewish people because they had intermarried with the Assyrians. Even worse, they were seen as idolaters because they had adopted many of the Assyrian religious practices, twisting Bible passages to fit their new situation and justify it all. The Samaritans had their temple on Mount Gerizim while the Jews had theirs on the temple mount in Jerusalem, and never the twain shall meet.

So, it was highly unusual and awkward for a Jewish rabbi and a Samaritan woman to be alone and chatting it up at the water cooler! But thirst had brought them together.

Jesus asked the woman for a drink. She was taken aback, for obvious reasons. When Jesus told her that he has living water to give, this sassy Samaritan pointed out that he didn’t even have a bucket. “Where do you get that living water?” she asked. Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Jesus offered her something more than H20. Jesus wasn’t talking about physical thirst at this point. He was talking about something deeper. He was talking about spiritual thirst. “Sir,” she replied, “Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” She was still thinking about literal water. She was still thinking about her parched throat. She was thinking about how nice it would be to not have to keep making this water run every day. But Jesus put his finger on her deeper thirst, her spiritual dehydration.

“Go, call your husband and come back,” Jesus said to her. “I have no husband,” she replied. “You are right in saying you have no husband,” Jesus continued, “for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” Jesus sure can be blunt, can’t he?

It is hard to know the circumstances around why this woman would have had five husbands in her past. We certainly want to be fair to this woman, but we also need to be truthful about what the scriptures say about her. Whatever might have happened with her first five marriages, Jesus notes that the man she is with now is not her husband. There is a strong implication here that she is participating in the intimacies of marriage without the promises of marriage. No matter how common this might be – then or today – it is a violation of the sixth commandment, and she seems to have been a willing participant in it. Later she tells the crowd that Jesus “told me everything I have ever done.” We shouldn’t take away the agency she claims for herself by hastily painting her as a victim. She herself seems to acknowledge that she has done things for which she is not proud. She has also come to the well at a very odd time of day. She came at noon, alone, which strongly suggests she was avoiding the crowds of women who typically went on their water run first thing in the morning, when the sun wasn’t so hot. Maybe she had been ostracized by the community. Maybe she was avoiding the sideways glances and glares from the other women.

That’s a lot of “seems” and “sounds like” and “maybes,” but they add up to the consensus view that this woman has some level of scandal hanging over her, a scandal that Jesus pokes at with his blunt statement about her many husbands and her current living arrangement.

Her response is telling too. She doesn’t want to talk about it! She quickly changes the subject to theology. Jesus doesn’t press the issue. Instead, it is at this point that something truly remarkable happens. As their conversation unfolds, Jesus discloses to her the truth about himself. When she mentions the Messiah, telling Jesus she believes the Messiah will come sort things out in due time, Jesus says to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” While Jesus has hid this truth about himself from so many others up to this point, he tells this scandal-plagued Samaritan woman who he really is! He tells her that he is the Messiah, the one who has come to save. This is an important part of the conversation, because it shows us that Jesus hasn’t come to condemn her, but to save her. He has come to save her from her spiritually dehydrated life. He has come to bring her water that quenches a deeper thirst, the thirst to worship God in spirit and truth, the thirst to be in right relationship with God through the forgiveness of sins. Jesus has come to give her this water as a gift! He has come to give her living water welling up to eternal life.

When she hears this, she leaves her bucket lying on the ground and goes back to the city. She goes to the very people she had been avoiding. She says to them, “Come and see a man who has told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” It is posed as a question, but there is a thirst that has clearly been quenched here. As the story ends, we are told that many came to believe because of her testimony. She is part of them once again, as together they came to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is truly the Savior of the world.

We used to have a sweet black lab, and one of the funny memories we have of her is from a time we took her to the beach. She was having a blast splashing around in the water, and then, apparently, she was thirsty, because she stopped and started to drink the salt water. She lapped up about three gulps from Puget Sound before shaking her head and gnashing her teeth at the salty taste. She went back to running around in the water for a few more minutes and then decided to take another drink! It was still salt water, of course, and so she reacted the same way.

We all have a deep spiritual thirst, whether we recognize it or not. And when this thirst becomes chronic, when we become spiritually dehydrated, it impacts every aspect of our lives. It impacts how we think and feel. It impacts our relationships with others. It impacts our relationship with God. It impacts whether we have hope in our lives, whether we have peace.

Oftentimes we try to alleviate this thirst by lapping up salt water – things that seem like they will help but only make the problem worse. We drink from wells that only make us more dehydrated: wells of sin, wells of self-righteousness, worldly wells that promise much but never quench that deeper thirst.

Today our Lord Jesus comes to us through his living word to offer us living water. He comes to invite us to drink deeply of the water he brings in order to quench this deeper thirst. He is not deterred by sin or scandal. He is not put off by your salty mouth. There is nothing about you he doesn’t already know. In fact, that is why he has come – to quench your thirst for forgiveness, your thirst for healing and restoration, your thirst for community, your thirst for a God you can know and love and worship in Spirit and truth. He has come to give you a new life, a life welling up with a hope and a peace and a love that begins to flow into every part of our lives.  The water he gives becomes in us a spring of water gushing up to eternal life, and it is given, Jesus says, as a gift.

This water not only hydrates our souls; it also wets our lips, making them ready and eager to tell others what we have experienced here. We too can set down our buckets, refreshed and restored by Christ’s gifts, and go out to tell others about the One who knows everything we have ever done and doesn’t turn away from us, but instead reveals himself to us as Messiah and Savior, giving us living water and a new life.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent – March 1, 2026

by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 3, 2026 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 1

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent – March 1, 2026

John 3:1-17

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Nicodemus was in the dark. He was literally in the dark as he came to Jesus by night, but he was in the dark spiritually as well. He had a sense that there was something special about Jesus. He had seen, or at least heard about the signs Jesus was doing, and he knew that such signs couldn’t be done apart from the presence of God. But beyond that, he was in the dark. Even with all his advanced learning, even with his theological degree from Pharisee school, even with his status as a teacher of Israel, he was in the dark about the kingdom of God.

As Nicodemus struck up a conversation with Jesus, Jesus zeroed in on this right away. Jesus didn’t beat around the bush. Jesus knew Nicodemus was in the dark, and so he got right to the heart of the matter. “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus said to him, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus didn’t get it. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” he said. It is hard to know if Nicodemus was being sarcastic or if he’s just stubborn, but his reply suggests that what Jesus had said about being born from above was absurd to him. “Can one enter the womb a second time and be born?” Am I supposed to somehow get back inside my mom’s tummy? Behind this ridiculous framing of things was the assumption from Nicodemus that there was something he needed to do. He was trying to turn this into something he could control. And so, Nicodemus was still in the dark.

But instead of backing down, Jesus doubled down. He said, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

“How can these things be?” Nicodemus replied.

“Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Jesus said in return. Nicodemus was still in the dark.

In describing how one comes to see the kingdom of God, Jesus used the language of birth.

I don’t know what it was like when you were born, but when I came into the world, my mother did all the work! I’ve also watched babies being born. I’ve seen it three times, and each time none of those babies did a darn thing! It was their strong, brave mother who did everything!

That’s how it is with birth. That’s how it is when we are born. It is the mothers who do all the work. They do all the breathing, all the sweating, all the painful pushing. The babies are simply carried along by their efforts, until they find themselves blinking their newly opened eyes at the bright new world.

Jesus is telling Nicodemus that this is how we come to see the kingdom of God. It is God’s work. God does all the carrying. The Spirit does all the breathing, all the blowing. The Son of Man does all the painful parts until we are delivered, until we are born into faith, until our eyes are opened to the bright new world God is ushering in through his Son, Jesus Christ.

When this still doesn’t seem to convince Nicodemus, Jesus says to him: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”

In one of the confirmation workbooks I’ve used with our confirmation students in the past there is a page with three pictures. One picture shows someone climbing up a ladder. The next shows someone standing next to an elevator, pushing the up button. The next shows a person at the bottom of a ravine, with a helicopter hovering over it and a rescuer descending on a rope. The students are asked to select the picture which best describes the biblical view of salvation.

The answer of course, is the third picture. Salvation is not something we climb our way into by our own efforts. It is not something we select or choose or summon by pushing the right buttons so that God will come save us. Salvation is more like being at the bottom of a ravine, completely helpless, and having God descend to us in the form of a rescuer, a redeemer, a savior.

Once again, the point is that God does all the work. Salvation is something we receive. We do not ascend. No one has ever ascended, Jesus tells Nicodemus. Instead, Jesus descends. He descends to us to bring us out of the darkness of that ravine and into the light of the kingdom of God.

In yet another attempt to help Nicodemus understand, Jesus points to a story this biblically literate Pharisee would have known very well: You know, Nicodemus, how the people of Israel were all dying in the wilderness from snake bites? Remember how helpless they were in the wilderness because of their sin? Do you remember how they were rescued? Do you remember what God did? God told Moses to put a serpent on a pole, and that anyone who looked upon the snake would live. God sent his Word from above in order to rescue them. That’s what I’ve come to do in a much bigger way. I’ve come from above to bring life. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Once again, it is God who does all the work. God does the saving. God delivers his people into life. God brings people into the kingdom. All there is for us to do is to open our eyes to God’s saving work. All there is for us to do is to is look upon him whom God sent and believe in him, trust him, have faith in him, and we will see the kingdom of God. We’ll be in it! We won’t be in the dark any longer!

In the Large Catechism, Luther writes that the church is the mother who conceives and bears every Christian through God’s Word. It is in and through the church that God does his work of delivering people into the kingdom.

The church is indeed every Christian’s mother, and the baptismal font is the birth canal. Jesus commanded his church to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and it is through this sacrament that we are born from above. It is in Holy Baptism that we are joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection, marked with his cross forever. It is in Holy Baptism that Christ descends to us individually to rescue us and deliver us into the kingdom. This is all God’s work. The only thing we do is the same thing we did when we were born the first time: we simply open our eyes to what he has done for us. We simply open our eyes to the new reality he has brought us into.

Even after we are born from above, we still sometimes find ourselves in the dark with Nicodemus. We understand there is something special about Jesus, but we lose sight of the kingdom of God. We want to turn it into something we can control, which is about as effective as trying to control the wind.

Even after we are born from above, there are times when we find ourselves at the bottom of a ravine, completely helpless. We fall into pits of anger, or anxiety, or despair, or regret, or shame. We fall into difficult, painful circumstances which are so far out of our control that all we can hope for is for some help from above.

Even after we are born from above, we sometimes find ourselves dying in the wilderness, snakebit by our sins. We come face to face with our own brokenness, and we know that salvation is going to have to come from outside ourselves.

This is why we keep coming back to our mother. We gather together in the bosom of mother church so she can tell us the story of our birth from above. We gather together in her lap so she can remind us that by God’s carrying and the Spirit’s breathing and the Savior’s painful pushing, we have been delivered into the kingdom of God, now and forever.

If the world feels dark to you today, just open your eyes to the kingdom which God has delivered you into.

If your life feels dark, just open your eyes and look upon the One who was lifted up for you. Look upon him with eyes of faith. Look upon him, trusting that he has come to rescue you.

You have been born from above, so open your eyes to the bright new day that Jesus has made possible, and live in the light of God’s great love for you.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent – February 22, 2026

by Jeffrey Spencer | Feb 24, 2026 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for February 22

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent – February 22, 2026

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Humanity has a long track record of giving in to temptation. In fact, this failure goes all the way back to the first two human beings, Adam and Eve. We heard about their failure in our first reading for today. After God created them from the dust of the earth, God placed Adam and Eve in a garden, the Garden of Eden. It was literally Paradise, which is what “Eden” means. They had everything they needed. They didn’t have to work. They didn’t have to worry. They didn’t even have to wear clothes! God provided everything they needed in that garden, giving them only one simple command: “You can eat freely from any of the trees in the garden except for one – except for that one in the middle. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you do, you will die.”

Enter the serpent. The serpent came to Adam and Eve to tempt them. The temptation came in the form of a question: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden?’” It was a temptation to doubt God’s Word.

Yes, that’s what he said,” Eve replied. Eve even quoted God word for word. So far, so good. But the serpent wasn’t done! The tempter then said, “You will not die! God was just saying that because he knows that if you eat of that fruit your eyes will be opened and you will be like him!” Eve thought about this. She looked at the fruit, which looked really tasty. She especially liked the idea of this fruit making her wise, god-like. So, she took it and ate. Adam was there too, and also ate.

The temptation wasn’t merely for some tasty fruit. Adam and Eve weren’t merely tempted to indulge in a forbidden pleasure. That was part of it, to be sure, but the temptation went deeper. They were tempted to dismiss the Word of God. They were tempted to follow their own course. They were tempted to be their own gods. They fell to this temptation, and with that bite, everything changed. Humanity has never been the same. As St. Paul writes in our epistle reading for today, Adam and Eve’s sin has infected everything ever since.

Our gospel reading from Matthew takes us into the wilderness with Jesus, where he spent forty days and forty nights facing temptations of his own. For anyone with even a basic familiarity with the Old Testament, if you hear the words “wilderness” and “forty” as the setting for a story, you can’t help but think of Israel and the forty years they spent in the wilderness. And you should! This story of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness provides crucial context for understanding Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness.

After God rescued his people, delivering them out of slavery in Egypt, bringing them safely through the waters of the Red Sea, they entered the wilderness. And it was in the wilderness that they faced a series of temptations. The first temptation came when they got hungry. I think we can all sympathize here. Most of us aren’t at our best when we’re hungry. God’s people certainly weren’t. As their stomachs growled, they began to growl too! They grumbled against Moses, their leader. They grumbled against God. They foolishly started to pine for the days they spent as slaves, where, in their highly selective memories, supposedly the food was better.

Their grumbling was bad enough, but in their hunger they were tempted to turn away from God. Things weren’t going exactly as they wished, and they grew impatient with God. Moses told them that one does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Well, they weren’t having anything to do with that. They were tempted to doubt God’s promises, God’s goodness, God’s Word, and they did. They failed.

The temptation to doubt God’s Word grew even stronger when the water ran out. When that happened, Israel dared to challenge God: Are you going to take care of us, or not? Are you going to give us water? Did you deliver us out of slavery only to let us die out here in the desert? They wanted God to prove himself right then and there, on their own terms. They dared to test the God who had parted the waters of the Red Sea in order to save them. Moses warned them, saying, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” But they did just that. They fell to this temptation too. They failed.

When Israel entered the Promised Land, they faced yet another temptation. At that point they had the Ten Commandments, the first of which was: “You shall have no other gods before me.” But there were other options now for them to consider, other gods to flirt with. There were the gods of their neighbors, gods who demanded less and seemed to promise more. And if you read the Old Testament, you know well that just about every time a new god was dangled in front of Israel, they worshipped it! Any shiny new idol that caught their eye became their god! Another temptation, another epic failure.

These stories provide the essential backdrop for Jesus’ time in the wilderness. Like Israel, Jesus was hungry. Seeing an opportunity, the devil came at him with a temptation: “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” But Jesus answered using the same words Moses spoke to Israel: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” As with Israel, Jesus was tempted to have God prove his promises. “Throw yourself down from this mountain peak,” the devil demanded. “Let God prove that he will save you!” And again, Jesus answered using Moses’ own words: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Finally, the devil invited Jesus to fall down and worship him. Jesus replied by saying, “Away with you, Satan!” And then Jesus cited the First Commandment: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

Do you see what is happening here? Where God’s people failed, Jesus succeeded. Where God’s people stretching all the way back to Adam and Eve gave in to the temptations of the serpent, the deceiver, the tempter, the evil one, Jesus successfully resisted. Jesus beat the devil at his own game, leaving him nothing to do but slither away in defeat.

We are now in the season of Lent. Lent is our own forty-day journey in the wilderness. As we heard on Ash Wednesday, this is a season in which we contend against evil. It is a season in which we wrestle against the temptations in our lives. It is a season of spiritual warfare as we take more seriously our own battle against the devil and his lies.

Jesus’ own forty days in the wilderness is instructive for us. He teaches us some moves we can use in this ju-jitsu match against the tempter. Jesus models for us how important it is for us to know God’s word and to hold fast to God’s promises. He teaches us that God’s word strengthens us more than bread ever will. Jesus teaches us that living by faith and living by proof are two different things. Jesus teaches us the urgency of obeying the First Commandment to have no other gods, especially not the god of self. This is so important! As Adam and Eve found out, being your own god doesn’t lead to Paradise – it leads to death.

Jesus gives us an example to follow. We can find strength and courage knowing that he is by our side in this battle. But there’s something even better going on here. As important as it is to learn from Jesus and resist temptation and contend against evil, something deeper is going on here in Jesus’ encounter with the devil. There in his own wilderness, Jesus has done what humanity could never do. Jesus has done what Adam and Eve and Israel and you and I could never do. Jesus walked in perfect faithfulness. Jesus walked in perfect righteousness. Jesus resisted every temptation. Jesus succeeded at everything a fallen humanity has failed at, and he goes on to share his victory with us.

This is precisely what Paul is saying in our second reading for today. Paul talks about how death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses throughout all of humanity – but that now Christ has come to be a new Adam, bringing us a new beginning, bringing us new possibilities, bringing us new life. Paul explains that just as Adam’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so Jesus’ act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. Just as by Adam’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by Jesus’ obedience the many will be made righteous.

Humanity’s long track record of giving in to various temptations includes you. It includes me too. It includes every human being who has ever lived except for one. And the good news of the gospel is that this one man, Jesus Christ, has sent the devil running. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus scored a win for humanity – for you and me – by resisting every temptation. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus defeated the evil one – first in the wilderness, and then, more decisively through his death and resurrection. Because of Jesus’ act of perfect obedience, we have been saved. Because of Jesus’ righteousness, all has been made right between us and God. Through him, we receive forgiveness and a new life.

With this new life comes new strength, so that when the tempter comes whispering in our ear, all we have to do is mention the powerful name of our Lord Jesus, and we can watch that snake slither away like the defeated enemy he is.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church