If you are the Son of God…
How does Jesus deal with this challenge to his identity, security, faith? his place in the Father’s heart? By recalling the words of God by which he lives.
“You are my beloved Son.” You are God’s beloved child.
Nothing can break that bond.
And from that bond comes the good news for all of us. For we are God’s beloved children too.
There are lots of good commentaries that talk about the temptations: to satisfy immediate self-interest, to display power, to sell out for the illusion of power over others.
There are fewer that focus on what Jesus said. But after all, all those Bibles with the Words of Christ in Red feature what Jesus said. And what Jesus said is what turns this around, night into day, and transforms, potentially, us.
One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
Jesus reminds us that we are dependent on God, not our own merits or powers. We are not dependent on material things. Difficult as it may be to live without our daily ration of what we daily need, someday we will not have that ration, maybe for a day, a fast day or a day without, but the day will also come when we will not have it forever. Ash Wednesday, and Lent, are about more than temporary deprivation, hard as that may be, or voluntary abstinence. The fast of Lent is about more than that. It is about the inevitability of death.
And it is about Life. The fast of Lent does not end on Good Friday, with Jesus’ death. It does not end on Holy Saturday, with his body entombed below a stone. It ends with Easter. It ends in life. It ends in the resurrection, the hope of resurrection for all people, that began on the third day after Jesus’ execution.
Death is not the winner. But we need to take account of what happens before eternal life begins.
In this world, in this life, there is plenty of death and pain to go around. We do not need much reminding of that. But we do need to remember that we are not dependent on this world’s bounty, this life’s abundance; we are dependent on God alone, and his Word, his Word who is Jesus.
***
When he spoke at a preaching conference in San Francisco, Desmond Tutu said that a preacher has one sermon. His was: God loves you. But the implications were tremendous.
One sermon. And I recall the words of Jesus, in response to the first temptation:
One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
And then I recall the context. Jesus had been fasting, in the desert, for forty days.
What do we live by? Bread certainly. But much more so the words that come from God.
And I recall what Jesus heard, ringing in his ears, just before the Spirit led him on that forty-day fast.
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
These were the words that came from the mouth of God, the words that Jesus had forefront in his mind.
God loves you. Loves you like his own beloved child.
Sometimes in the past I’ve given my own one sermon: You are the beloved child of God.
And the implications are tremendous.
If you are God’s beloved child, and I am, and all of us are, even people we haven’t met, then how we treat each other - even people far away whom we’ve never met and never will - is of paramount importance.
Everything we do comes after God’s loving action in making us, redeeming us, making us his own delight, his own joy.
The Rev. Dr. John Leech is a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson.
“Treat each other as children of God.” https://tucson.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/treat-each-other-as-children-of-god/article_1a53b1ba-bc3e-11ed-b858-f71d6358bd36.html
