Lent Midweek

Matthew 4:1-11 - Lent I/Midweek - February 29, 2012 

 Hallowed Be Thy Name

It has been said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.  Well, that’s a pretty good trick.  When people don’t believe that the devil is real, then they’re not prepared to defend themselves against his wiles.  In fact, they soon become his accomplices in the evil that he wants to accomplish.  The devil is a tempter.  He leads people into sin.  That’s how he accomplishes his work.  We don’t see the devil.  But we most certainly do experience sin. 

But people don’t generally like to hear about the devil as though he actually existed — for the same reason that they don’t like to hear about their sin as though they were actually accountable to God. 

Because of this, it’s not a very popular thing to talk about such things as sin, or Satan, or anything really religious-sounding like that.  If you make mention of any of this kind of stuff, you just might be met with scoffing criticism or dismissal even by your friends.  “Keep it in the pulpit!” they say.  “These are the things of myths, and religion; but they are not real life.”  This could not be more false.  In this midweek Lenten series, we pastors will be addressing the theme of modern unbelief, as the front of your bulletin puts it.  And so I’ll try to give a contemporary example of how the devil’s wiles are made light of by the unbelieving world: 

About a week ago, one of the candidates running for the Republican nomination for President was given some grief by the media for a statement that he had made some years back.  He called the battle that our country was fighting a “spiritual war.”  He said that the father of lies has his sights set on the United States of America because we are “a good, decent, powerful, influential country.”  “If you were Satan,” he asked, “who would you attack in this day and age?” 

Boy did he get it.  But even more than because they disagreed with his political views, many of his fiercest critics took issue with what he said because they don’t believe that the devil is real; they don’t believe that sin is real; they don’t believe that God will judge sinners or that our nation depends on God’s blessing in order to be prosperous.  But they are wrong.  They believe lies. 

The devil is most certainly real. The dilapidation of our culture and the rampant spread and defense of immoral behavior around us can all be traced to the devil’s works and ways.  And God judges sin.  His judgment is real.  The problems we see in our society —ranging from abortion and homosexuality to materialism and the doctrine of evolution— most certainly do provide some evidence that the devil is real and at work. 

But this doesn’t mean that the statement I quoted earlier is without its flaws.  It is not.  If it is an effective trick to convince people that he doesn’t exist, it is an even more effective trick to confuse people about what it is that he does – more specifically, about who it is that he attacks. 

The devil doesn’t attack us because we are Americans.  He attacks us because we are children of God.  And he attacks America or any other land in order to do harm to the Church that is found within it.  It is not our patriotism or our industriousness, or our zeal for liberty and justice that makes the devil hate us.  It is the righteousness of Christ that covers our consciences and makes us stand innocent before God our Maker.  That is why he is active in the world.  It is not our own virtue or any name that we can make for ourselves that makes the devil our fiercest enemy.  No, it is the name of God, which has been placed upon us in Holy Baptism, it is His work that the devil despises. 

“If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age?”  What a silly question.  The devil does not look for something new to attack in different eras of world history.  He has always attacked the same thing.  He attacks the word of God.  He attacks the life of those who are called by God to live righteously.  St. Peter warns us that he roams around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).  His goal is always to tempt and harm Christ’s Church, and to bring shame to the name of God. 

The devil hates God.  God has called us to be His children in Holy baptism by joining His name to ours.  When God joined us to Himself, He also made His enemies our enemies.  But He does not leave us without defense.  He gives us His word to fend off every assault.  Look at what Jesus did in our Gospel lesson.  Being God almighty, He could have told the devil to be gone from the very beginning.  He could have said, “Not now, Satan.  Go away from me.  I will not be tempted today.”  But no.  Instead He endured his every attack and fought him off every single time by using the very weapon that He gives also to us – the word of God. 

But Jesus did not just give us an example to follow in His run-in with the devil.  Although it is a great example – and one which we must certainly follow.  But no, He faced the devil in the wilderness in order to fulfill the righteousness that He gives to us in our Baptism.  He fulfilled the very righteousness that we failed to fulfill.  Since this was His mission, He needed to face the very temptations that we have faced and which we have succumbed to.  Remember how the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at His Baptism, when the voice of the Father announced His good pleasure with His Son.  This same Holy Spirit is the one who led Jesus to be tempted in our place by the devil. 

The righteousness that God promises and gives to us in the word and Sacraments is not just some abstract goodness that God graciously credits to our account.  It is the actual success of Jesus’ life in our place.  Jesus’ obedience perfectly meets and replaces our disobedience.  In the temptation of Jesus, not only do we see Jesus’ victory over the devil, we also see how this is a victory over our sin and failures as well. 

1^st the devil tempted Him to believe that God was holding out.  That He should trust in what His own work would provide.  But Jesus responded, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  Jesus silenced the devil with the word. 

2^nd the devil brought Jesus to the top of the Temple, the House of the Lord – the TOP OF IT!  Here is the height of religious experience.  We too are tempted to rely in our religious experiences and our own spiritual devotion – But what word of God does Jesus refute such a temptation with?  “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”  We do not try to get God to affirm our religious experiences with any act of valor and spiritual bravery on our part – No, we go to the means of grace to receive what He wants to give us.  Jesus needed nothing more.  Neither do we.  The Lord our God already gives us everything.  

3^rd the devil brings Jesus to the top of a mountain to see all the glory of all the kingdoms.  The devil makes a pretty nice promise.  And Jesus could avoid all suffering too.  All glory!!  But the promise that His Father made was better.  From His Father, He would also inherit all nations.  As we hear in Psalm 2: “You are my Son, today I have begotten You, Ask of Me and I will give you the nations for Your inheritance and the end of the earth as Your possession.”  This promise was better because Jesus would inherit not the glory of the nations, but He would be the glory of all nations as he won their redemption. 

He would inherit all of our sin and all of our failures to withstand these very temptations.  But this reward would come through much suffering.  He must pay for the sins of the world.  And that he did.  He who withstood the devil could not withstand the wrath of God that was against us.  He suffered more in 3 hours than He could in 40 days.  And so He earned what we could not. 

The temptation of Jesus serves not only as a warning to us, but also as a comfort that whatever sin this reveals in us has been blotted out and replaced by the success of Jesus Christ.  And He shares this success with us – not by giving us worldly power.  But by giving us heavenly power – not the sword of the government, but the sword of the Spirit of God that gives and supports our faith in Him.  God defends His name not with political or worldly might, but with His word.  We pray, Hallowed be Thy name – not ours, but Thine.  Listen to the explanation…

Hallowed be Thy name.

What does this mean?

God's name is certainly holy in itself; but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy among us also.

How is God’s name kept holy?

God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we as the children of God also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But anyone who teaches and lives contrary to God's Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father.

When we pray that God’s name be kept holy, we pray for faith.  We pray for what we first received when God joined his name to us.  We pray that God defend us against the devil who would lead us into misbelief, despair and other great shame and vice. 

When we were baptized, as we still hear in the Baptismal Liturgy today, we renounced the devil and all his works and all his ways.  We continue to do so today by receiving the faith that clings to this word and that shows itself in fruits of righteousness and good works.  God’s name is not kept holy by our sinful lives.  Rather, it is kept holy by the righteous life of Christ which can be seen nowhere more clearly than where He wins victory over our every temptation.  The value of our name as Christians is not determined by what we have done.  Thank God that it is determined by what Christ has done for us. 

In Jesus’ name.  Amen