A sermon for the First Sunday in Lent
February 22, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs
Readings: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11; Psalm 32
Every year on the first Sunday in Lent, our gospel passage is the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Immediately following his baptism, Matthew tells us that the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. But the ole tempter takes his time. Jesus has fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and he is famished. There is some truth to those old Snickers commercials: you’re not you when you’re hungry. Jesus is at his weakest, most vulnerable, and that is when the devil shows up.
Jesus is tempted in three ways. At every turn, the devil is trying to get Jesus to turn his back on his humanity, and he’s using Holy Scripture to do it. Jesus’s ministry is one where he is with us, in our humanity, to live and die just as we do. To be clear, he doesn’t have to do that. Jesus, the Son of God, chooses to do that. He chooses to give up some of his power, some of his heavenly authority, to share completely with us in our humanity. This is what St. Paul means when he writes in Philippians that “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” (Phil 2.6-7). Each temptation is a temptation to exalt himself, to abandon this plan to empty himself and to take on the form of a slave, to abandon his humanity and the plan to live and die like us.
The devil hits him hard from the start. Jesus, you’re hungry. Turn these stones into bread—I know you can do it. After all, did not Moses and Aaron, in Numbers 20:8, command the stones to bring forth water. You can command the stones to become bread. Jesus counters with Deuteronomy 8:3, “God humbled you by letting you hunger…in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Jesus is saying that this hunger is not a problem to be solved with bread. He is living in obedience to God the Father, in order that he will be able to do what he was sent to do: to be the bread of life for us.
The devil takes him to Jerusalem to the top of the Temple. He says throw yourself off and let the angels catch you. After all, Psalm 91:11-12 says the angels will catch you and won’t let you stub a single toe. But Jesus responds with Deuteronomy 6:16—“Do not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him as Massah.” The verse refers to a time when the Israelites, although they had seen God’s works and wonders, tested God anyway. It’s an act of faithlessness, treating God as a magician instead of God, seeing how much God can do. Jesus knows the power of God, but there’s no need to test God. Jesus knows God the Father is faithful, and he doesn’t need to test that.
The devil tempts Jesus for a third time. He takes him to a high mountain where they can see all the kingdoms of the world, all the powers and principalities and authorities. Satan says worship me and I’ll give you control over all this. It’s a temptation to give up on the Father’s plan, to give up on being like us in the form of a slave, and instead to go an easier route, to become the warrior messiah so many were expecting, to take political power as a military leader. That’s who many were looking for, someone who could fulfill their reading of psalm 110:5-6: “The Lord who is at your right hand will smite kings in the day of his wrath; he will rule over the nations. He will heap high the corpses; he will smash heads over the wide earth.” But Jesus responds with Deuteronomy 6:13: “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” That means submitting himself to God the Father’s plan for our salvation through the cross and the tomb.
As with Jesus, temptation comes to us in our weak hour, when we are hurting or lonely or anxious or despondent. Temptation does not tend to look like eating that extra chocolate or sleeping in instead of going on a jog. As with Jesus, our temptations try to lead us away from who we are and what we are meant to do, and they are insidious. They even make us think we’re doing God’s will.
Temptation can look like exalting ourselves, lifting ourselves up, thinking we can go it alone without any help. After all, doesn’t God give us power? Surely, then, we can do this on our own. It’s a lie.
Temptation can look like forgetting who and whose we are, forgetting we are children of God, and thinking that we’ve been abandoned and that we’re unloved. After all, we fall short; we sin and mess up. God is so holy, and maybe I’ve gone a little too far this time to be saved by grace. It’s a lie.
Temptation can look like a retreat to safety, a refusal to accept our vulnerability and frailty as humans, a refusal to accept that life will throw aches and pains and sickness our way. After all, does God not promise health and salvation to his people? It’s a lie.
And, especially for religious people, temptation can look like turning God into a magician—expecting God to do exactly what we want whenever we ask. It looks like not trusting God to be faithful, but expecting God to prove he’s faithful. It looks like treating God like a vending machine, a way to get goodies and treats, instead of our loving Father. After all, does Jesus not say, ask and ye shall receive?
Temptation is insidious. It’s gradual; it builds up; it traps us before we know what’s going on; it forms our habits, our patterns of thinking; it takes advantage of our pain, of our past, of those tapes that play over and over in our head reminding us of where we’ve been or what we’ve done. Temptation does not give an inch and does not relent until we’ve given up on the grace and love of God. The Evil One knows that we must be the ones to give up on God, on his grace and love, for God will never give up on us.
The answer to temptation is to trust God—just as Jesus did at every turn. To trust in God’s faithfulness and love, even in our darkest hour. To hold on to the promise that God does not leave us or forsake us, even when we feel alone. To know and believe that even when things get tough, God has got our back and is holding us in his hands. And to expect that things will not always be easy, because we’re human and we live in a fallen world. But even so, to remember that God came as one of us to redeem us and to draw us to his heart.
And finally, our answer to temptation is to pray to the One who is Faithful. To pray to God, who always hears us. To pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. To pray for the wisdom to see what’s really going on, and to have people around us who can help us see it. To pray that God would rescue us, and that the angels would minister to our souls.
Storied Grace 