Bible Passage: Mark 1:12-13
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: February 21, 2021

Bulletin February 21, 2021

Our text for this morning is really a little bridge.  It connects two major events in Jesus’ ministry.  Just before our text we have the baptism of Jesus.  That was the day Jesus was introduced to the world as the Messiah, the Christ.  A new King was anointed!  Immediately after our text, this newly anointed King begins his public ministry.  He announces the nearness of the Kingdom of God:  The kingdom of God has come near! (Mark 1:14)

Between the anointing of the King and the preaching of the King, we find our text.  The temptation of Christ.  Why is it there?  Does it advance the narrative?  Does it give us information about the King and the kingdom that we need?  The answer is an emphatic “yes!”  You see the mission and ministry of this King was to overthrow another kingdom.  It was the kingdom that was founded back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve fell into sin.  Thus began the rule and sway of Satan.  Jesus came to crush the head of the head of this kingdom.  And the overthrow begins with our text:  The Un-Fall into Sin.

To appreciate our text, we must spend a few moments back in Eden.  Creation was complete.  God had spoken over creation his own “Very good!”  Everything is very good!  Man and woman are very good!  They live in a “very good” place called “paradise.”  They did, until the devil slithered up to them.  He questioned them about God’s command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  He convinced them that submission to God was holding them back.  You will not surely die! (Genesis 3:4) the serpent hissed.  They believed the lie.  They joined the rebellion.  The counter-kingdom to God’s perfect kingdom was established.  This horrible event is forever remembered as “the Fall into sin.”

We cannot listen to this story as casual observers.  Adam stood as the representative head of the human race.  What he did, we did!   This becomes tragically clear in Romans 5:  Sin entered the world through one man…the result of one trespass was condemnation for all…through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners. (v. 12, 18, 19)  There is a hymn that puts it this way:  “In Adam we have all been one, one huge rebellious man.”  (CW 396:1)

And so it was necessary for the crushing of the “evil empire” that the Fall into sin would have to be undone.  Enter the newly anointed King, the Lord Jesus Christ.  At the anointing of the King at his baptism, the Father spoke again his “very good” over Jesus when he said, You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well-pleased! (Mark 1:11)  There in Jesus is a new man!  There in Jesus is a new humanity!

The Spirit immediately sent Jesus out into the wilderness (v. 12).  What happened next was divine necessity; it was directed by the Spirit of God.  Jesus, the Second Adam, must face the tempter.  The Second Adam does not duel the devil in paradise; sin has made this impossible.  The Second Adam faces the tempter on the scorched earth sin has caused.  For forty days the tempter tempts Jesus.

Mark does not give us the specifics of the temptations.  The other biographers of Jesus tell us three of the temptations: changing stones to bread, jumping from the Temple pinnacle, and bowing down to Satan.  Behind each temptation was the same lie the devil had told Adam and Eve:  “Submission to God is holding you back!”  Behind the temptation to bow and worship him, the devil was not saying, “You will not surely die.”  He was telling the Messiah, “You don’t have to die!”

In Eden, the devil won.  In the wilderness, Christ won!  Sometimes when people mess up, they speak of “redemption.”  The baseball player who strikes out to lose the game hits a home run the next time to win the game.  And people say he got “redemption.”  He got that moment back and did it right.  In an infinitely more important way, Christ got “redemption.”  That moment that Adam messed up in the garden, Christ “redeemed” with his perfect obedience!  Adam had “the Fall”; Christ had “the Un-Fall.”

And just as Adam’s sin in the garden affected us all, so did Jesus’ obedience!  Back to Romans 5.  Let me read the entire point Paul makes:  Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.  For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.  This obedience of Jesus is the obedience now credited to your account!  To put a new spin on the hymn, “In Jesus we have all been one, one huge OBEDIENT man.”

Oh, this text is bad news for the devil!  The “un-fall” is the beginning of his down-fall!  It would finally crash to pieces.  Shortly before the defining, head-crushing, blow, Jesus said:  Now the prince of this world will be driven out. (John 12:31)   The “prince of this world” could only watch as the humble Messiah-King bore all sin on the cross.  Satan watched his empire crumble as Jesus cried out, It is finished! (John 19:30)  And it was game, set, and match when Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit (John 19:30) and the holy life of Jesus was given as the ransom payment for us all.  And a new kingdom rose when the King rose!  And in heaven the report rang out:  Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.  For the accuser of our brothers…has been hurled down.  They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb… (Revelation 12:10-11)

Are you curious about a couple details in our text?  Mark tells us:  He was with the wild animals.  It’s an interesting detail to be preserved.  Maybe it is recorded so that the 1st century Christians who were being thrown to the lions could know they have a Savior who relates to them, who knows what it’s like to be alone with the devil and wild beasts.  Maybe it’s no accident that the word used for wild animals is the same one used in Revelation for the beasts who now attack the Church.  As we face the devil and the wild beasts today, it is comforting to know we have a Savior who sympathizes with us.

The other detail is this:  And angels were serving him.  It is a strange yet comforting thing that in his battle against Satan, in his exhaustion from fighting temptation, the Son of Man benefitted from the ministry of the holy angels.  Only Jesus’ victory over the devil makes it possible for us to pray:  Let your holy angel be with me, that the wicked foe may have no power over me.  Only Jesus’ victory over the devil puts muscle behind the petition, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

But here is where Jesus’ victory finds its ultimate application.  A man hangs next to Jesus on a cross.  Soon he will be dead.  He looks at Jesus with the newly opened eyes of faith and sees a King.  Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, (Luke 23:42) he prays  And the King looks at him and says, Today, you will be with me in paradise. (Luke 23:43)  Paradise!  That thing lost in Adam’s fall is restored and given in Jesus’ obedience, death, and resurrection!  And one day, some day, it will be your “today” when you will be in paradise with your King in his Kingdom forever!

Amen.

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