God Knows Our Pain! – September 15, 2024
Psalm 27, Matthew 4:1-16
September 15, 2024
Of Jesus, Isaiah prophesied, saying, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” We usually hear those words during Lent. But I’d like to start with them today, as we consider this first part of Jesus’ ministry, this story where he was taken to the wilderness of temptation.
I’ve always wonder why that happened. It was important enough for Matthew to include it in his Gospel. And actually it’s in three of the four Gospels. Mark’s account is brief, as are many of Mark’s accounts. Luke’s account is almost the same as Matthew’s, just in a slightly different order. And only John is silent on this – as John often is.
So this is an important event. It’s a “three Gospel event.” And as I think about it, I always start with the thought that this happened so that God could have first-hand experience of the things we go through. That seems to have been one of the important reasons Jesus came to this earth. As Tony Campolo used to say, “He came to show us how to live.” But he also came so that God can experience what we experience. And that happens here in the temptations of Jesus, and eventually in his passion and death. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows!”
So we start with that. Through the life of Jesus, God Knows what we’re going through! As I’ve said in the title of this sermon, “God knows our Pain.” That’s such an important message to the world. And they’ve been seeing that message on our sign all week. As I’ve said before, I’ve started to choose my sermon titles for their “curb appeal. I hope we’ve been planting some seeds of thought out there!
“God knows our pain!” And in this case, he knows our anguish, he knows the temptations we go through in this life. And I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s a huge part of why the Gospel is appealing. It’s a huge part of the “Good news of great joy” that the Christmas angels announced to the shepherds!
By now, you’ve probably seen the ads on TV called, “He gets us.” They were originally introduced by an organization called “The Servant Foundation,” and their purpose was to “reintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible.” And I think it’s a good message! Over the years there have been some other attempts to use TV in this way, but they’ve kind of left me wanting. I think this one is good! It emphasizes God’s love and compassion through Jesus, rather than the judgment that most people unfortunately associate with the God of the Bible.
God gets us! God knows our pain! And we know that’s an important part of human compassion. We are comforted when someone says to us, “I know what you’re going through.” “And I’m going to go through it with you.” Well, God has that same compassion. He knows what we’re going through! And he’s with us!
So, in our story for today Jesus was forty days in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. And I would also tell you that this is a “setup” sermon. Kari and I collaborated on these two weeks, since she’ll be preaching next week while we’re at our 50th High School reunion. (Yeah, that number makes no sense to me, either!)
Actually, it usually happens the other way around. As I’ve said before, I’ve learned to wait until after Kari preaches before I decide what I’m going to say the following week. Because she always makes me think! But this time we decided to try it backwards! (Although I’ll probably wait until after she preaches to decide on the week after that!)
Next week, her sermon is going to be on repentance. And the reading will be from the next part in Matthew, the part where Jesus begins his ministry by saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17) Today’s reading is right before that. And it’s the part where Jesus was dealing first-hand with the business of sin and temptation.
As we think about that, the one thing I want to point out is that Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. Do you get that? This was deliberate! It wasn’t, “Oh, Jesus just happened to be tempted, therefore he knows what we go through.” No! All three Gospel writers are careful to point out that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. In fact, Mark even says, “The Spirit drove him out into the wilderness…” There’s no doubt to me that it was God’s intention that this time of temptation happen.
I also sometimes wonder if the tempter was made aware of this – you know, so he had time to prepare! Because there seems to be some intentionality on Satan’s part, too! These are three of humanity’s worst temptations. In fact, it’s been said that, in these three, Jesus experienced the essence of all the temptations we humans ever have to face.
Let me just remind you of them for a moment. The first one is a big one, of course. It’s the whole idea of “satisfying hunger.” Jesus was fasting for forty days. And I would think that statement, “he was hungry,” was a huge understatement! He had to be starving! And it’s been suggested that this temptation encompasses all manner of hunger, or desire, or “perceived need.” (I’ll talk about that in a second!) We might even consider here the Tenth Commandment, “Thou shalt not Covet.” And I wonder if God make that the last Commandment so it would be the one that would stick in people’s minds the longest?
So here Jesus experienced great hunger! And the tempter said, “Command these stones to become bread.” And the temptation, of course, is to satisfy any hunger we might have, any desire, any “perceived need.” And I say “perceived need” because I think you’ll agree that if we really examine what we think is a need, we often find that we probably don’t need it.
Think about that. Think about when you’re cleaning out your attic or your basement! Anybody done that lately? What happens? You find things there that are gathering dust (or mold!) and you think back to when you got them. And a lot of times they were something you really felt you needed at the time! And now, out they go! That’s a humbling experience, isn’t it? That’s what I call “perceived need.”
The next temptation has Satan taking Jesus to Jerusalem, to the pinnacle of the Temple. And he says to him, “Throw yourself down, Jesus! Jump right off! God will catch you! He won’t let you hit the ground!” This has been called “The sin of presumption.” That is, it is presuming that we can control God. It’s putting ourselves in charge. It’s placing our own will above his. And isn’t that a big temptation? Luke actually has this as the last temptation.
I’ve often thought that there are more agnostics in this world than atheists. Agnostics are people who don’t necessarily disbelieve there’s a God – like an atheist. They just don’t want anything to do with a God if there is one. And the main reason many agnostics are like that is that they don’t want a God telling them what to do, or more importantly, what not to do! “Thou shalt not!” But agnosticism comes in many subtle forms. We all have within us this temptation of Jesus. We all have that desire to be the masters of our own destiny. We all resist the idea of God “directing us.” And we are all tempted to believe only what we want to believe about him.
Mark Twain once said that “God created man in his own image, and ever since, man has been trying to return the favor.” We’re all tempted to do that. We’re all tempted to make God in our image – the image we want for him to have. Over the years, I’ve heard people say, “I can’t believe in a God who would…” And they finish that sentence in any number of ways. And I want to say to them, “But what if that’s exactly the way God is?” Do you see that dilemma?
The last temptation here, is about the desire to have something, in this case worldly power, at price of one’s soul. And by the way, that seems to be the story line of most of the classical Operas I studied in college. Somebody was always selling their soul to the devil for something – power, ability, worldly goods, whatever. And of course the tragedy was always when the devil cames to “collect!” Thank heavens for Charlie Daniels, who told us, that when the devil went down to Georgia, ‘cause he was looking for a soul to steal, that Johnny whooped him in that fiddle playing contest! Don’t you love that song?
Several years ago, I went down to Northeast Airport, because there was an organization there that brought in vintage World War II airplanes, and they were giving rides! Maybe you remember that. They had some bombers there, a B17 and a B24. But they also had the greatest propeller driven airplane every built, the P51 Mustang. The bombers you could ride in for something like four or five hundred dollars. But the price of the Mustang ride was twenty-two hundred dollars. And it’s probably a good thing I didn’t have twenty-two hundred in my account that day! But I did go to the signup table and I asked the woman there, “Where I go to sell my soul!” That was a “perceived need” on steroids!
Temptations come in many forms in our lives, don’t they? And it’s probably true that most of them, if not all, come in these three forms that Jesus faced. And it was God’s intention that he face them. God wanted to know what we go through in this life. And so, “surely, Jesus “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” And not just in the sense of carrying them in his body on the cross, but also in living his life on earth as one of his. Because of Jesus, God knows what we go through. God knows our pain. He gets us! And all of that because he loves us, his precious creations!
Prayer
Eternal God, your steadfast love and faithfulness are beyond our comprehension. We thank you for coming to live among us so that you can truly know us, and so that, ultimately, we can truly know you. Strengthen us in our times of temptation with the thought that you’ve been there, too. And help us always to look to you, and to feel your loving hand leading us away from temptation. For we pray in our Savior’s name, Amen