Month after month, they’ve engaged in all manner of deflection: arguing the efficacy of masks, manufacturing wild myths about vaccine side-effects, opposing sensible safeguards in the name of religious freedom, and demanding that we reopen America—while fighting every effort to do so quickly and safely.
And they have done all of these things to avoid actually shedding a single tear or allowing their hearts to feel a thing while nearly one million Americans’ families have had premature funerals.2
So we were stuck in the wilderness and separated from each other for longer than we needed to be all not only by the death of almost a million American’s, our brothers and sisters in the battle, but by what Pavlovitz called “The Death of Empathy.”
As the President said the other night: “Thanks to the progress we have made this past year, COVID-19 need no longer control our lives.”
So, last Monday we were told that we didn’t have to wear our masks “at all times and in all places.” It was refreshing to see smiles on the faces we saw in the grocery stores and on the avenue.
Some of us didn’t know what to do with this new found freedom. In my city neighborhood some people had their masks on while others left them off. Many of the politely confused (and I admit I was one of them) just kept it looped around our ears and safely placed under out chins. Even though it looked like we were sporting multicolored beards we were still ready for any situation.
Things were looking up until a crazy man, with no moral compass, for no apparent reason other than because he could, decided to invade a neighbouring country.
Then we watched in horror, scenes we have seen too many times before. Brave men staying behind to fight while their elderly parents, wives, and children crowded on trains, hitched rides, drove, or even walked for days, in search of safety. One million people displaced by indiscriminate bombings of residential neigbourhoods, schools, hospitals, and even a shrine to those who perished in the Holocaust.
It seemed like it was going to be all wilderness all the time. So, it is especially fitting on this day that we discover again that this is where Jesus’ ministry began - in the wilderness.
Dr. James Howell reminds us:
This wilderness is not a vast expanse of sand with the occasional cactus or tumbleweed. Instead we see a rocky, daunting zone of cliffs and caves, the haunts of wild beasts. People avoided the place, believing demons and evil spirits ranged there, knowing that predators and brigands lurked there.
How silly are we to think that if the Spirit leads, it will be to a smooth, comfortable, pleasant place.4
Nor will it be a place of easy choices – evil or good, war or peace, kindness or aggression. The choices Jesus made were tough choices that, as the late Dr. Fred Craddock reminded us, contained “real temptation [that] beckons us to do that about which much good can be said. [N]o self-respecting devil would approach a person with offers of personal, domestic, or social ruin. That is in the small print at the bottom of the page”
Stones to bread – the hungry hope so; take political control – the oppressed hope so; leap from the temple – those longing for proof of God’s power among us hope so. All this is to say that a real temptation is an offer not to fall but to rise.5
I think the most unserious of all temptations came when the diabolical one invited Jesus to look around at all the kingdoms of the world and claimed that he had the power to give them to him.
“They’re yours in all their splendour to serve your pleasure. I’m in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they’re yours, the whole works.”6
What the tempter didn’t seem to get is what every earthly ruler who is not grounded in the faith forgets: That all those kingdoms belonged to Jesus in the first place.
They were not the “old satanic foes” to give away because they belonged to God.
That is what those who lust for power or who are looking for more power forget. They want to rule or keep ruling by stealth or force. They can’t settle for what they have they want “the whole works.” And if they discover they can’t have it they’ll wage a war or send their followers into the streets in order for them to remain on top, in office, ruling over the people not for the common good but for their pure pleasure and gain.
Jesus knows none of the diabolical plans he has been presented with will last. Dazzle them with one thing and they will ask for another. Feed five thousand people with bread and even throw in a little fish and they’ll be back the next day looking for more. Give them a little power show over even the smallest things and they’ll be looking for something even bigger, more spectacular. It’s a vicious cycle that we are all caught up in and so we wander from one wilderness to another, and another, and another.
As one theologian put it: “The words and actions of Jesus do not so much seek to tear down the walls of earthly kingdoms as to undermine their foundations so they will collapse under their own weight.”7
That is what we hope for. That is what we pray for. That is the promise on which our faith rests. Human kingdoms that are supposed to last for a thousand years, don’t. Kingdoms established by pure power and might over unwilling subjects usually find their time is short lived. Putting our faith in human kingdoms leaves us disappointed and wandering.
Jesus doesn’t leave it there. He does what few earthly rulers ever do – he joins us in our wilderness and shows us there is a better way.
Sometimes even in the fog of war we can see it.
I saw it, perhaps you did too, when at the beginning of this war of incursion the Ukrainian people did something rare. In the midst of watching the skies, packing, and getting ready to off to head for the nearest border they held a blood drive. Before the fighting began, “almost 500 people donated blood in the capital city of Kyiv alone, three times the average.”
We saw it in the people from AirB&B who gave away free longing in nearby lands and individuals who drove from as far away as Denmark to greet the refugees with: “I have room for six people in my house. Would you like to come with me?”
We even saw it in the humour of President Zelensky who, after missing a morning call from the Italian Prime Minister said, "Next time I'll try to move the war schedule to talk at a specific time"8
Jesus is with these people just as he is with us whenever we are wandering in a personal, institutional, or international wilderness.
We know from personal experience that the way through the wilderness is not always easy and sometimes when we make our way out of one there is another one not far down the road.
It is never as simple as the old Sunday School song: “My Lord knows the way through the wilderness; all we have to do is follow.” It requires a more radical faith, a more radical trust, a more radical belief that God will have the last word.
So we hang our faith, we place our trust, in the words that a reformer of the church wrote long ago:
That word above all earthly powers,
No thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through Him who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill:
God’s truth abideth still,
His Kingdom is forever.9
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1. Justin Welby and Steven Cottrell, “A Prayer for Ukraine,” The Archbishop of York, 2022, https://www.archbishopofyork.org/prayer-ukraine.
2. John Pavlovitz, “One Million Funerals and the Death of Empathy in America,” Stuff That Needs to Be Said (blog) (JohnPavlovitz.com, February 11, 2022), https://johnpavlovitz.com/2022/02/11/one-million-funerals-and-the-death-of-empathy-in-america/.
3. “Remarks of President Joe Biden – State of the Union Address as Prepared for Delivery,” The White House (The United States Government, March 2, 2022), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/01/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-delivered/.
4. James D Howell, “Luke 4:1-13. Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World,” in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, vol. 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2018), pp. 37-39.
5. Fred B Craddock, Luke: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1990), 56.
6. St. Luke 4:5-7. Eugene Peterson, The Message, (Carol Stream, Illinois: NavPress, 2016).
7. Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt and Sarah Coakley, The Love That Is God: An Invitation to Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020).
8. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/live-blog/russia-ukraine-conflict-live-updates-over-100-people-killed-hundreds-n1289845/ncrd1289884#blogHeader
9. Martin Luther, “Hymn: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” hymnalnet RSS, accessed March 5, 2022, https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/886.
Sermon preached at
Sts. Peter and Paul Lutheran Church
Riverside, Illinois
6 March 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAR9T9NXBZc&t=1666s
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