“He Did Not Waver”

Mark 1:9-15

As Joe Friday, that great television detective in that classic show Dragnet used to put it, “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” I can’t preach today’s sermon without sharing some basic facts:

· The sermon will focus on verses 12 and 13, Mark’s rendering of Jesus’ forty day wilderness sojourn and his temptation by the Devil.

· Mark’s rendering of that event lacks the details found in Matthew and Luke’s versions. To say that Mark was terse is an understatement.

· Jesus’ entire ministry was guided by the Holy Spirit. He was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. It’s not something he just decided to do.

· The wilderness was a place of loneliness, inhabited by wild animals and serving as a stronghold of the Devil. Evil spirits dwelt there. Although there is no place on earth that we can truly describe as God forsaken, that wilderness comes close.

· The Devil’s temptations during that wilderness sojourn were only the opening salvo of his ongoing war of attrition against Jesus.

· Jesus refused to listen to the Devil’s lies. He never gave into temptation of any sort, especially the temptation to find an easy way out of his God-given mission. As Luke puts it Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem and the cross that awaited him. He did not waver in his faithfulness. Nor did he ever abandon his absolute trust in the Father’s will.

· Jesus wasn’t the first biblical figure to fast for forty days. Moses and Elijah had also participated in such fasts.

· The forty day wilderness trial undergone by Jesus was symbolic of Israel’s forty year trek through the wilderness before they reached the Promised Land.

· Forty days was a Hebrew phrase meaning a long expanse of time. For all we know Jesus was out there for more than forty days.

· When those days were over he was ministered to by the heavenly angels.

· Thus victorious and refreshed he began his ministry of proclaiming, describing, and modeling the Good News of God’s Kingdom.

As I was pondering today’s text I couldn’t get two phrases out of my head. The first comes from Winston Churchill: “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.” The second comes from a Bruce Springsteen song: “No retreat, baby, no surrender.” No matter how hungry, thirsty, or lonely he was Jesus never gave up and he never gave in to the Devil’s lies. In spite of every hideous and demonic weapon employed by sin, death, and evil, Jesus never retreated from his mission; he never surrendered his will to the Devil.

Not in the wilderness. Not when a crowd of followers wanted to crown him as their earthly king. Not when his disciples protested after he had frankly discussed the reality of his coming crucifixion. Not in the garden the night of his arrest. Not before Herod. Not before Pilate. Not even on the cross. He never gave up, never retreated, never surrendered. He never wavered in his steadfast adherence to his Father’s will. The temptation was always there but he never gave in to it.

This is the first Sunday in Lent, a season during which we develop a heightened sense of following Jesus in the way of the cross. This is a time of prayerful and honest reflection on both our own sinfulness and our Lord’s sacrifice. This is a season for an in-your-face confrontation of our deepest, darkest sins as well as our ingrained, inescapable sinfulness, especially that most original bit of sinfulness we call pride. During these days leading up to Easter we are to be growing in our sense of discernment so that we can better know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, the angelic and the demonic; so that we can become more adept at testing the spirits. It is a time to re-garb ourselves in the Whole Armor of God and repair any chinks in it. It is a time to hone our skills in smelling out even the most subtle of temptations and then avoiding them.

We will not spend the forty days of Lent in some harsh, hostile, and lonely desert wilderness. Ours is not a forty day fast. We will not be threatened by wild animals. Demonic apparitions won’t be coming out of the woodwork. The Devil won’t be making any personal appearances.

However, we will be living out our lives of faith in a world and culture that are more and more hostile to the Gospel. A world where evil abounds. A world in which that which can only be described as demonic is doing a thriving business. In places like Sudan the Devil seems to be running the show as more and more people experience hell on earth. Disease and famine stalk almost every corner of the earth. The Devil is indeed abroad. He is, to quote Hal Lindsay, alive and well on planet earth.

Temptation is everywhere. It stands on every corner enticing us to do that which we should not do and not do that which we should. We are faced every day with a host of ethical decisions, and must be careful that we do not take those tempting ethical shortcuts the world considers to be the way to go. Greed infects the very air we breathe. Power is lusted after. Money and possessions have become the gods of this age. We are constantly urged to grasp easy answers to complex and serious moral questions, to look for convenient loopholes and easily accessible escape hatches that we think will let us off the hook. The virtues of thrift, sacrifice, and patience are viewed by many as anachronisms. We cannot allow ourselves to believe in and practice the conventional ethical wisdom of this age.

Why? Because we follow in the footsteps of Jesus. We have answered a call to walk in the way of the cross. We have pledged our faith, loyalty, trust, and obedience to the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To borrow from the language of the wedding service we have promised to hang in there with the Lord through good times and bad, joy and sorrow, sickness and health. We have vowed not to seek loopholes or escape hatches when things get tough, not to seek easy outs from our responsibilities as Disciples of Christ and members of his Body. We have stood before God and the church and in essence proclaimed that we will never, never, never give up on Jesus, ever retreat from the demands of righteousness, and never, no matter what the temptation, surrender to the Devil.

Lent is an appropriate time to remember those promises and ponder on what they mean for our lives and our lifestyles. Lent is a season in which we have an opportunity to recommit ourselves to those promises. The seven weeks of Lent provide us with an opportunity to draw nigh unto the Lord.

Jesus, just like each of us, was tempted but did not sin. He never gave up. He never gave in. He did not retreat and he did not surrender. The same can’t be said for us. Therefore Lent is a time when we must confess that, in multiple ways, we have broken all those promises we have made to God. It is also a season in which we must sadly admit the tragic reality that we will continue to break those promises until the Lord calls us home.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that God still loves us and still invites us to follow Jesus in the way of the cross. While we can never be perfect, empowered and led by the Holy Spirit, we can move daily toward perfection. And when we fail – and we will fail – to faithfully follow Jesus, we can rely on God’s mercy, grace, and forgiveness. If we are honest with God and ourselves about such failures, and if we are willing to repent of them, God will continue to use us. Warts and all we can still be Disciples of Jesus, Disciples who day after day, never giving up and never giving in, continue to grow in faithfulness.

Jesus never wavered in his determination to carry out his Father’s will. In the face of trials and temptations he never gave up and he never gave in. He never backed down in the face of evil. He never surrendered to the Devil. May it be this Lent that we will be moved to seek more and more to follow his example. Amen.