Broken Truth

The First Sunday in Lent
March 8-9, 2014
Matthew 4:1-11

“Broken Truth”

If you watched the Oscars last Sunday night (March 2), or tuned into any of the post-Oscar news reports, then you know that the movie, “12 Years a Slave,” was named the best picture at the 86th annual Academy Awards. I just saw this film a week ago, and can attest that it is a riveting movie. It is the true story of a free African American man, Solomon Northup, from upstate New York, who is abducted and sold into slavery in Louisiana for twelve years from 1841 to 1853. It is an amazing story of survival, based on the book Mr. Northup himself wrote about his unbelievable ordeal. As you might imagine, there are many deeply disturbing scenes in the movie. One particular scene takes place on a Sunday, when the entire household of slave owners and all of the enslaved persons are gathered outside in front of the mansion. The slave owner, Edwin Epps, the master of the Louisiana plantation where Solomon Northup is enslaved, is reading and expounding on Jesus’ parable in Scripture about being watchful and prepared for his coming again (Luke 12:42-48), quoting: “That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating.” Epps twists Scripture to his own ends so that his brutal and dehumanizing treatment of his slaves appears to be justified by the Word of God. The terror and tension that result are appalling. The saving truth of God’s Word is twisted and distorted, so much so that it is no longer saving truth, but broken truth.

We look back upon this period of American history, and shake our heads in unbelief. We wonder how it was ever conceivable for people to think they could own another person and regard him or her as property. It’s easy to see the broken truth then, but do we have the eyes to see the broken truth in our own generation? On this First Sunday in Lent, today’s Scripture lessons reveal how our world and our lives are marked by broken truth, how God’s Word can still be twisted and distorted into temptation and sin. It is precisely for this reason that Jesus entered into our broken world to bring healing, forgiveness and salvation through his suffering and death upon the cross. Through this, we are restored to a right relationship with our heavenly Father. Week by week on the Sundays in Lent, we will focus on how we are restored through the redeeming work of Christ. Today, as we follow Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, we focus on the theme “Broken Truth.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

The Gospel lesson appointed to be read on the First Sunday in Lent each year is this account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13). There is a real connection between today’s Old Testament lesson (Genesis 3:1-21) and the Gospel lesson. The tempter, the devil, is present in both, twisting and distorting the saving truth of what God has said. “Did God actually say…?” (Genesis 3:1) is what the father of lies (John 8:44) said to Adam and Eve, and what he still says to us today, leading us, as it did Adam and Eve, away from God and to death and destruction. So what is the broken truth in your life? The season of Lent in particular calls us to grapple with the reality and enormity of broken truth, of sin and temptation, in our lives. The truth is that we are all too willing to compromise the truth of God’s Word and in its place substitute whatever truth du jour suits us at any given time. As I wrote in our March newsletter:

The Bible takes sin in dead seriousness. Unlike many modern religionists, who seek to find excuses for sin and to explain away its seriousness, most of the writers of the Bible had a keen awareness of its heinousness, culpability, and tragedy. They looked upon it as no less than a condition of dreadful estrangement from God, [who is] the sole source of well-being. They knew that apart from God, man is a lost sinner, unable to save himself or find true happiness (The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4, p. 361).

As the devil said to Adam and Eve, so he says to us: “Did God actually say…?”, planting doubt and uncertainty in our minds about the truth and veracity of what God has indeed said. As the devil said to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God,” so he challenges us to question our identity as God’s chosen and beloved children: “If you are a son or daughter of God…” What is at issue here is not a test from the Lord, but temptation from the adversary who is bent on our destruction, and who seeks to drive us away from God and drive us to despair. Every temptation that we face has this same intent and purpose, including those temptations that were before the Lord Jesus recorded in today’s Gospel. Satan urged Jesus to believe that He would receive a good thing by doing something bad, and it’s the same with us. The old evil foe first tempts us to sin. Then, when we are tempted and follow his advice, the tempter becomes the accuser! And he will continue to accuse those who have fallen even after that sin has been forgiven (cf. Zechariah 3:1-5; Revelation 12:10; note 1 John 3:19-21). The battleground is not out there somewhere, but in our mind and heart. Where do we turn for help?

That help – our help – comes from the One whose coming was foretold in today’s Old Testament lesson: “I will put enmity between you and the women, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Our help comes from the One who fasted and hungered for us. Our help comes from the One who endured every temptation that we have. Our help comes from the One who stood fast upon the truth of God’s Word and remained true to the mission the Father had given him. This is Jesus, the new Adam, who rendered the obedience to the will of God that the first Adam failed to do, and so Jesus has become our Representative and our Righteousness. “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). This is Jesus, our great High Priest, who is not “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). This is Jesus, who bore all of our sins in his own body on the tree of the cross, where He forever defeated the power of the tempter, and overcame all sin and temptation. This is the saving truth of God in Jesus Christ that repairs the brokenness of our sin-shattered world. And in the midst of our own battle against sin and temptation, when we fall – and we will fall – this is the One to whom we turn again and again, confessing, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Trusting that the blood of Jesus does indeed cleanse us from all sin (1 John 1:7), we also hear this word of forgiveness for Jesus’ sake: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 7:50).

The Lord God who called out to our first parents, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), still calls out to his lost children today. God does more than just call out to us. In Jesus, God’s beloved Son, God has sought us out to rescue and redeem us. In the saving Name of Jesus, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Amen.