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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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The Perfect Saviour |
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Matthew 4:1-11 First Sunday in Lent March 1, 2009 Jesus of Nazareth in the thirtieth year of His life, has left His home in Nazareth to begin His work of teaching and personifying the Kingdom of God. Three grueling years are ahead of Him. His work will be difficult, requiring long days and sleepless nights. He will often be hungry and tired. He will be constantly misunderstood, and, though immensely popular, the crowds will constantly pressure Him to be the messiah they want instead of the Messiah they need. He will be opposed and rejected, and finally, He will be tortured to death by the Romans, at the insistence of His own people. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. How did He prepare for this mission? It seems odd to us that He began it by fasting in solitude for forty days and nights. It is important for us to see that His fast was for forty days and forty nights. This was a total fast. There were partial fasts in which a person fasted only during daylight hours, but ate well before and after sunrise. And that is a legitimate fast. There is nothing wrong with that. But Jesus fasted during the night too. The fast was a spiritual discipline designed to subjugate the desires of the flesh and to seek God. It is an important spiritual discipline, and we should practice it more ourselves. But the fast brings Jesus face to face with His adversary, the devil. The whole point of His going into the wilderness was to face the temptations He would meet there. He was “led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” We know Jesus came to earth to die for our sins. But why was He also tempted? Jesus had to be tempted in order to fully enter into our humanity and human experience. Remember that the Virgin Birth is about God becoming human. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He did not just wrap Himself in flesh the way we wrap ourselves in a blanket on a cold winter’s night. He became flesh. He became human. He did not stop being God, but while remaining fully God, He also became fully human. Being fully human He experienced life as we experience it. He played by His own rules. He did not spare Himself or give Himself any special privileges. He lived by faith, just as you and I live by faith, and He experienced life as we experience it, including temptation. He knew temptation. He knew it by experience. He has spent forty days and nights praying and fasting to prepare for His mission, and now the devil comes to Him and says in essence, are you sure you want to do this? Do you really want to spend three years teaching people who won’t receive your message? Do You really want to be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows? Do you really want to be homeless and hungry and tired? Do you really want to go to the cross? I can show you another way; a better way. I can show you how to reach these people by giving them what they really want. I can show you how to save the world without going to the cross. Just turn these stones into bread. Just miraculously throw yourself down into the midst of the Temple. Just bow down and worship me. I will save you from this foolish idea of the cross. My way is the easy way, Jesus. Follow me. The temptations require a decision from Christ. Will He be the Messiah God’s way? Or will He take another route? That’s the question all temptations ask. Every temptation we face asks us if we are going to do things God’s way, or our way. And Christ has fully experienced temptation. Jesus had to be tempted because there would be no value in His righteousness if He never faced a temptation to sin. Our redemption requires God to bear our sins in Himself, rather that requiring us to suffer the penalty for them ourselves. All the sacrificial lambs of the Old Testament were symbolic of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who by His sacrifice on the cross would be the redemption of our sins. Jesus came to earth to bear our sins. Just as the symbolic sacrifices of the Old Testament had to be physically perfect, the real sacrifice had to be spiritually perfect. There could be no unrighteousness in Him, no fault in Him, no sin in Him. Other wise He could not die for our sins, He could only die for His own. So the Saviour had to be perfectly righteous, and to be perfectly righteous requires the option to choose sin. The important point here is that Jesus faced temptation, but did not sin. He overcame temptation because His nature and essence are righteous. Thus He fulfilled the Law and was able to be our representative and substitute on the cross. Jesus had to be tempted because He had to be a willing sacrifice, and He could not be a willing sacrifice if He never had another option. One of the great points of Scripture is that Jesus willingly chose the cross. He could have refused it. He could have come down from the cross anytime He wanted. An old Gospel song says “He could have called ten thousand angels to bring Him down and set Him free. He could have called ten thousand angels, but He died alone for you and me.” I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it is worth hearing again and again; it was not nails that held Jesus on the cross. It was love. Without the cross we were completely out of options. Sinners by choice, we have rejected God and deified ourselves in His place. And just as light and darkness cannot abide together, God’s absolute perfection and our total depravity cannot abide together, and the only option open to us was hell. Unless … unless Jesus, by His own free choice, remained perfect and sinless, and went to the cross and suffered the wrath of God for sin, in our places. He did. Thanks be to God, He did. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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