Pastor Greyson Grenz
Luke 9:28-36
“A Stand-In on the World Stage”
February 17, 2013 (First Sunday in Lent, Year C)
“Return to the L
ORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;” Joel 2:13
When we were first married, Mendy and I lived on Long Island in New York, and given my wife's love for musical theater and shows of all kinds, we saw many Broadway shows. It was only natural given Mendy’s love of country music that we would go and see Reba McEntire in Annie, Get Your Gun. We got fourth row seats in the center section, and there was Reba
McEntire up on the stage singing her heart out. It is a wonderful memory, one that I imagine would be a terrible memory if upon arriving at the theater for the show the public address announcer had come on and said, playing the part of Annie this evening will be …anyone other than Reba McEntire. We did not pay to go see the understudy. Anything less than Reba
McEntire would have been a disappointment. A stand-in probably would have induced boos from the crowd, not applause. Would we've enjoyed the show, yes, but would it have been the same, no.
Nobody wants a stand-in, when they can have the real thing. But stand-in's are part of life. In our nation’s history, vice presidents have become president upon the president's untimely death. Movie stars use body doubles. Bench players have to fill in for injured superstars.
Stepdads try and fill in for absentee fathers. Grandparents take on raising their grandchildren.
And sometimes a stand-in does an even better job than the person they replaced.
This is the case in our Gospel lesson for today. “The [temptations of Jesus] show that
[he] is both God and man, tempted as we are in every way except without sin. He is the second
Adam, obedient rather than a.” And all this allows him to be a stand-in for us, the substitute sacrifice in our place upon the cross that brings about the forgiveness of sins and salvation for us.

Take out your pew Bible and turn with me now to Luke chapter 4, starting at verse 1, page 1017, and let us examine the temptation of our Lord.
The setting of the temptation of Jesus certainly brings to mind another biblical account.
40 days of tempting and testing of Jesus in the desert certainly brings to mind for all of us 40 years of much the same for the Israelites after coming out of Egypt. To be sure the events of
Jesus' life seem to mirror the pattern of Moses and the Israelites in the desert wilderness. This gives us the sense that this is much the same story being played out again.
But Luke would also have us see another story in the background of Jesus’ temptation.
Take a look in your pew Bible and notice what comes before our Gospel lesson, the genealogy of
Jesus. Normally we would skip over genealogies because of all those hard names to pronounce, but notice how Luke uses the genealogy. To go back from Jesus through David and Abraham, and finally, chapter 3 verse 38, “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of
God.” That Adam comes immediately before our lesson should bring to our minds Adam and
Eve's temptation by the same adversary, the devil, in serpent form.
The devil’s temptations of Jesus that we read of in our Gospel lesson today are not so radical when we look at them. Hunger is often a temptation for people. Stealing in order to be a will to eat and chocolate around Valentine's Day can both serve as temptations. Authority, power and glory are temptations for people as well. Many people will do almost anything to get and keep authority, power and glory. The temptation to question God the Father's plans for us and promises to us, to doubt his protection and provision, are common problems for us all and at the root of the question, “Why me?” Jesus withstood these temptations. Temptations that Adam and Israel did not.

The first temptation of Jesus should harken us back to the account of Adam and Eve’s temptation by the devil at the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree and stepped outside of the boundaries God had established. Humans have to eat. You cannot live without food. But it wasn't as if there wasn't anything else to eat. Obeying
God's command provided them with more than they needed and would have kept him them within his boundaries.
The nation of Israel also hungered while in the desert, and constantly grumbled and rebelled against God and Moses. Their lack of faith and fear of going without even led them to detest what God did give them, the bread from heaven, manna. They had seen God's incredible power and might in the plagues upon Egypt and in their rescue at the Red Sea, and yet still doubted that he could provide the basics of life for them.
The second temptation also harkens back to Adam and Eve. If you will remember from
Genesis 3 the reason why Adam and Eve ate the fruit, “
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her and he ate it.” What had the devil tempted Adam and Eve with?
“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The devil had offered Adam and
Eve authority, power and glory, much the same as he offers Jesus in the second temptation. The devil's only authority is over a sinful world that is estranged from God, which will one day be destroyed and completely renewed by God. What Adam and Eve discover is that by trying to usurp God's authority and power they actually lose the glory of being God's children, and instead find themselves his enemies and objects of his wrath.

The Israelites incredibly also failed to worship God, even when he had brought them out of Egypt. Instead they make for themselves a golden calf and worship it. On the verge of coming into the Promised Land, that God had all along said he was taking them to, they fall into idolatry and worship the false gods of the people they will soon displace. And God's punishment of them in each case is severe, death by the sword or plague, as his judgment of their sin comes upon them.
It is here that you and I are very much like Adam and Eve, as well we should be, having inherited original sin from them, passed down through the generations. But we are not victims, as if we had inherited a disease from our parents. We, too, actively sin against God by stepping outside the boundaries he has set up. Pick any one of the Ten Commandments, just try and convince me that each of us does not step outside the boundaries they set up for us again and again. We wish people harm for the slightest of things, like being cut off in traffic. We covet to what we do not have, even when what we have is more than enough to meet our needs.
But we justify it all, every time we step outside the boundaries of the God’s law, because we believe we are “above the law,” so to speak. I can talk about others behind their backs but they had better not say anything close to gossip about me. This double standard that we live by shows that we often believe we are the measure of all things and the center of the universe. We seek a glory and authority and power that is all our own, not of anyone's giving, but inherent to our own self-importance.
We, like the Israelites, can, in one moment, thank God for the salvation given to us in
Jesus Christ, and, in the next, lament what we see as a shortfall in his provision for us. Instead of thanking God that we have new life, eternal life, through faith in Christ, we murmur and

complain when hardship comes into our lives. We struggle with unbelief and lack of faith when there are so many more important things to spend our time and money on than the things of God.
Unlike Adam and Eve and Israel, and us, Jesus did not succumb to the devil's temptations. Jesus is “the second Adam, obedient rather than transgressing, and the true Israel, faithful in his calling.” Jesus does not step outside the boundaries of God's commands. Instead, he relies on God to provide what he needs, for
“‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”
Jesus does not succumb to the allure of worldly power and authority, the devil's hollow promises of glory.
Rather, Jesus recognizes his place as a human being, a creature under God's authority and glory.
“ To worship the Lord your God and serve him only,”
is to recognize God's proper authority and glory over us, his creatures, made in his image.
But it is in the final temptation that we see Christ at his very best. The devil takes them to Jerusalem, where the final ultimate event in God's plan of salvation will happen. The devil tempts Jesus to show the world that he is the son of God by jumping from the pinnacle of the
Temple and allowing the angels to rescue him. Later, when Jesus is upon the cross, the devil tempts him with this same temptation in the mocking words spoken to him, “If you are the Christ save yourself.” The devil desires that Jesus deviate from the script. The devil is tempting Jesus to bypass the cross, and all the suffering and agony that would come with it, and in so doing, be disobedient to God. The plan all along has been that Jesus would die to take away our sins. It is the only way to restore a relationship to God and bring us back into his presence. Jesus knew all along that he must go the way of the cross and endure God the Father's wrath for us. And so even from his temptation in the wilderness on his journey is to Jerusalem and cross, because by his obedience, even to the point of death upon the cross, our salvation would be accomplished and the empty tomb would follow. This is why Jesus said,
“‘Do not put the Lord your God to

the test,’”
because he would have us trust the Father's plans and his promises, his protection and provision for us, and to trust and believe that we can rely on Jesus’ death for new life and the forgiveness of sins. When we step outside God's boundaries, when we think we are above God's
Law, when we murmur against God, when we fall into unbelief, when we are disobedient and fail to live out our calling, Christ did not, and by his grace, he freely gives to us the forgiveness he earned and the salvation he won.
“When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left them until an opportune time.”
Jesus' entire life from this point forward was a journey to the cross and although these are the only temptations recorded for us, we can be certain the devil continued to attack Jesus. But thanks be to God our Savior was obedient and faithful, and went the way of the cross for each of us. Amen.