February 10, 2008

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church

Pr. Per Inge Vik 

Matt 4,1-11

What did Jesus do in the wilderness?

Let us not come into temptation. This is how the 6th of the 7 prayers in Our Father is rendered in the new Norwegian Bible translation. The new Our Father is not in liturgical use yet. In church we will still pray in the old way for another couple of years.

Some of us can still remember the last time Our Father was changed. We stopped praying ”Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come” etc. There was an uproar. Many worshippers disliked the new version. The most famous heart-felt sigh came from an elderly person: “Why can’t they wait to change Our Father till we old ones have died?”

Let us not come into temptation, it is going to be in the future. Whether we like it or not, it is better expressed than how we pray today. Lead us not into temptation can sound as if God is the active one, who is tempting. He doesn’t do that. In the epistle of James this becomes clear, God doesn’t tempt anybody. But he can allow us to be tested, in order to refine our faith.

The tempter, as he is called in today’s text (v.3), that is the devil. The word “devil” comes from the Greek “diabolos”, which is a compound of the preposition “dia” and “bolos” from the verb “ballein”, to throw. Diabolos then means “the one who throws around.” Our evil enemy is very good at that, to make chaos and confusion. He can not create life and order, like God. Only hamper, hinder and destroy life and God’s creation.

After the third temptation, Jesus addresses his enemy directly. He then uses his mother tongue: Away with you, Satan! The Hebrew word Satan means “opponent”. The opposite of “Immanuel”, God with us, God for us. The devil is against us. Because of that he is to be renounced. 

Now in Lent, we take the renunciation into the liturgy together with the Creed. We say “no” to him, turn away from him. I think it is nice to do it literally, as they did in old, Norwegian churches.

As they said the renunciation, pastor and congregation turned towards the entrance. After that they turned 180°, towards the altar, confessing the Creed towards the east.

From the earliest Christian time in Norway, the churches were built with the altar towards the East, the sunrise and the new day. The entrance was to the West. The word “to orient” means this, to face towards the Orient, the East.

During the last World War, in 1943 a Norwegian pastor got a phone call from the leader of the military chaplaincy. He said something like this:

“The church needs one of our pastors to volunteer to go with Norwegian officers into German captivity. This pastor is going to maintain Norwegian pastoral service in war captivity. So he needs to stay in captivity together with the officers as long as the war lasts, be it two months or 20 years.”

The pastor answered: “So why do you tell me this?” The leader of the chaplaincy said: “I tell you this because I on behalf of the Norwegian Church call you to do this task.” That was a tough either-or-choice!

The pastor could have chosen a safe existence in Norway together with his wife and children, and a pastoral service there. He chose service in the concentration camp.

Jesus never had to be hungry or poor or experience suffering. He could have chosen to utilize his power to perform miracles, and provide anything he wanted at any time. Jesus chose differently. He chose to live according to God’s word, and take the physical sufferings which that indicated. One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

The big either-or that confronts Jesus today, is this: Who is going to win, God or the devil? Jesus abstained from being Jesus Christ Superstar. He chose to be the suffering Son of Man.

He chose out of his free will to share in the life of captivity we humans had come into. In that way the devil lost. In that way God won. We too, face temptations, like Jesus. And again the question is, who is going to win?

I heard about a lady picking up her car from a garage after a major repair. She had the choice between paying a cheap price without a written bill, or a much higher price, with a written bill.

Of course she could have chosen the cheapest, and claimed that it wasn’t her responsibility how the garage acted. But she didn’t. She chose to follow her conscience. And thereby the most expensive alternative. She didn’t want to get involved in a black payment. 

What did Jesus do for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness?  What was he doing? I think he ate, and satisfied himself on God’s word. In the synagogue he had been reciting God’s word during the 30 quiet years before he went into his public ministry. They sang the Bible texts in the synagogues, not just read. 

Pedagogically, that is an ingenious take! For how much more easily don’t we remember a verse that we sing, than ones we just read? So Jesus could memorize for the whole day, the texts that he kept in his heart.

That that was exactly what Jesus was doing, is obvious from the answers he gave to the different temptations. He meets the devil with answers from Scripture. Let us look a little closer at the 3 quotations from Scripture. One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. That is a quotation from Deuteronomy, ch. 8.

The next is Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

That is taken from two chapters earlier, Deuteronomy 6. The last answer is this: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone. That quotation is taken from the same chapter, a little later (v.13). So all the 3 Scriptural quotations Jesus utilizes are taken from the chapters 6-8 in Deuteronomy.

That is also where the Creed of Israel is written, “Shema Yisrael,” Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. From this we can understand that when the devil came to him, Jesus had just recently memorized these chapters. He had them fresh in his mind, when encountering the devil.

Jesus’ “nourishment” in the desert was God’s word. He kept it in mind, and was able to utilize it as the need for it came. We can learn from this. Jesus from Nazareth truly is God. But he didn’t show this by tossing around a lot of miracles as he wandered about.

He showed that he was God’ Son by obediently going God’s way. Also in Gethsemane, where God’s answer was just no. And on his way to Calvary, he mingled with people. Listened to them. Spoke to them. Your sins are forgiven, he said to those who cried over themselves. Until they, encountering his relieving words, cried for joy.

If our lives in our own eyes are full of defeats, encountering Jesus is crucial. For here we find the anchor hold. That the clean life I should have lived, the good life I should have given God, Jesus has given him, on my behalf.

Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who was, is and shall always be one, true God from eternity to eternity. (Congregation:) Amen    

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church ·  924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 ·  (612)874-0716