Genesis 3:1-21; 2 Corinthians 6:1-10; St Matthew 6:1-10
Holy Baptism of Teri, Maralise, Kristiane Smith
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
There was a bunch of seed on the ground. A bird wanted to eat it, but he didn’t realize it was a trap. A fowler had set up a net underneath the seed and so that poor bird was enclosed in that net and was soon roasted and eaten. There was a worm in the water and so a fish swam to eat it. He didn’t realize that the worm was a trap. He was being deceived by the fisherman. And soon that fish was fried and ready for dinner.
Temptation is to man what a trap is to an animal. It offers something good, but its true intent is to trap you and kill you, to roast and devour you down. What is harmful is presented as helpful. What is evil is presented as good.
Psalm 91 one, which you sang this morning and the Deceiver misquoted to Jesus, speaks of your Adversary as a fowler laying snares (Ps 91:3). It goes like this: Did God actually say? A friendly, innocent, reasonable sounding sort of question posed to Eve. This invitation to doubt God was certainly asked in a gentlemanly sort of way, for the devil masquerades as a gentleman. But she didn’t realize that the words he laid out for her were a trap. And that she and her husband and all of mankind were the prey and soon to be tangled up in the snare of eternal doom.
And what the Infernal Fowler did to Adam and Eve, he would later do to the children of Israel, whom God called “His Firstborn Son” (Ex 4:22; Hos 11:1). And it doesn’t take much of an imagination to consider the questions that brought them to ruin during their 40 years in the wilderness. “If God meant good for you, why aren’t you eating like you did in Egypt?” And they fell for it. They grumbled and complained against the God that saved them. There’s no food and we loathe this worthless food (Nu 21:5).
“If God is so good, why is your life so hard and bad?” And they fell for it, ensnared in the fowler’s net, turning on the God who rescued them from slavery. “If you’re God’s firstborn Son why do all the other nations seem to be having a better time with more impressive gods?” And they bit on that worm too. Going after false prophets and idols. All traps. And they fell for them. Only a few of them made it to the Promised Land. It is written somewhere, Those who formerly received the good news failed to enter His rest because of disobedience (Heb 4:6).
The old evil foe has done the same to you. You who are baptized and named sons of God. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized in Christ have been clothed with Christ (Gal 3:26-27). And like Adam from the dirt, Israel from the Red Sea, Jesus from the Jordan, you come from your baptism and the Deceiver is hot on your heals in this wilderness, trying to lead you into false belief, despair, great shame and vice. He’s the practitioner of a thousand arts, master of one. His chief aim is always the same. He attacks the certainty of our Lord’s Word and your true identity.
“If you really are God’s Child, why are you so alone and feel so unloved?” “If you really are God’s son, why are your thoughts filled with such lurid things and your actions with such wickedness?” “If you really are God’s daughter, why is your life filled with so much heartache and sadness, like all the things St Paul mentions in the Epistle?”
It’s all a trap. Beware, dear Christians. Keep watch on yourselves, St Paul tells the Galatians, let you too be tempted (Gal 6:1). Keep watch over one another, too. Today Teri, Maralise, and Kristiane join you. Beware the temptations that entice you. They are like seed on the ground, a worm on a hook, cheese on the mousetrap. All laid by the Evil One who is ready to pounce.
And your worry, your anxiety, your faithless fearing and faithless fretting, your guilty conscience and restless heart all show that you’ve taken the bait. The Infernal Fowler always gets his prey.
Until this day. When not a gullible one, but the Valiant One was driven out into the wilderness and fasted for forty days and forty nights. He was hungry and ripe for a trap or for some ensnaring language. But He was no easy mark like Adam and Eve, like Israel, or like us.
Satan gets his net ready. If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. He goes right after the Word of the Lord. The Word the Father spoke only 41 days early to His beloved Son at His baptism in the Jordan River. Jesus had those words in His mind and in His heart all those long, hungry, forlorn days.”Do you really think God wouldn’t want His own Son to eat? Go ahead, You can do it. You’re starving. Feed Yourself.”
But Christ’s response is lighting quick: It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” He will not fall into the net.
Then to the Temple where the worm is on the hook. If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. And the Devil misquotes Scripture. This is a warning for us. Satan knows the Bible. He’s a master at wrongly dividing and applying Law and Gospel. He tries to use your own defensive weapon against you. Walking the baptismal way marked with the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, you are sure prey for the Fowler. Armed with the mighty Sword of God’s Word you must know it better than your Adversary. Not only in head knowledge, but heart. Through prayer and meditation, fasting and temptation.
The first temptation was for Jesus to prove Himself to Satan. The second is for God to prove Himself to you. But our Lord won’t budge. Again it is written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Now smooth, enticing words are said as the Devil takes Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. All these I will give to You, if You will fall down and worship me. He promises Jesus a shortcut to glory. He offers Him glory in this life. The easy way out. Do not make light of the effrontery of the Devil’s third temptation, mocking as though no one would consider bowing down to actually worship Satan. Do we not do this very thing overtime we willfully sin? Just a little indulgence with a plan to repent later? Our Lutheran Confessions warn us not to willfully turn away from the Word, grieve and embitter the Holy Spirit, involve ourselves in the world’s filth and so redecorate our hearts as homes for the devil (FC SD XI 42).
But not Jesus. Those smooth, oil words just run off His ears. He only has ears for the Father’s Word and will. His plan to rescue man. And that plan is for God’s Son, His only Son, whom He loves, to suffer pain and die on the Cross, to be buried and raised and then ascend to glory. This was not the endgame. The wilderness was not the final battle. It was a trap. Be gone Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.”
The Son will come out of this desert to the barrenness of Golgotha. Where Adam and Israel and you have succumb to temptation and have failed, He will succeed. As the Second Adam, the true Israel, all humanity in One.
And the Father needs no trickery to get His beloved Son to the Cross. That’s exactly where He wants to go. He is like a bird who willingly goes to His death. Who has His arms stretched out like pinions - you sang it in the Tract, wings - pierced so that they can take in and remove your sins and then rise again to cover you with His mercy.
He is like a fish who is not the least bit tricked by worms, but let’s Himself be hooked to the Cross and devoured by the grave, so that He might rise again and that the grave have no power over you.
He is the One Man who can listen to all of Satan’s sweet nothings and never take the bait. Instead, He died and is raised on the Third Day leaving the skull of the Deceiver crushes so that your head might be baptized and wrapped up, covered and sheltered in His Divine Love. He treads down that Prowling Lion for you. Tramples the Serpent underfoot. And delivers you from the snare of the Fowler. He has done so today for Teri, Maralise, and Kristiane. He has done so for all of you baptized into His Name.
So come and eat. This is no trick. This is no trap. For Jesus speaks no lies. He offers you something good that is good. Something helpful that is helpful. It is not only written, but He says to you today, This bread is My Body, eat it for the forgiveness of your sins. This wine is My Blood, drink it for your salvation. My Words are Spirit and Life. Hear them and let them make you wise. I am your Dwelling Place and Mighty Fortress. I am beside you on the plain. Take they your life, goods, fame, child and wife, you still have Me. I have beat down Satan under your feet.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Holy Baptism of Teri, Maralise, Kristiane Smith
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
There was a bunch of seed on the ground. A bird wanted to eat it, but he didn’t realize it was a trap. A fowler had set up a net underneath the seed and so that poor bird was enclosed in that net and was soon roasted and eaten. There was a worm in the water and so a fish swam to eat it. He didn’t realize that the worm was a trap. He was being deceived by the fisherman. And soon that fish was fried and ready for dinner.
Temptation is to man what a trap is to an animal. It offers something good, but its true intent is to trap you and kill you, to roast and devour you down. What is harmful is presented as helpful. What is evil is presented as good.
Psalm 91 one, which you sang this morning and the Deceiver misquoted to Jesus, speaks of your Adversary as a fowler laying snares (Ps 91:3). It goes like this: Did God actually say? A friendly, innocent, reasonable sounding sort of question posed to Eve. This invitation to doubt God was certainly asked in a gentlemanly sort of way, for the devil masquerades as a gentleman. But she didn’t realize that the words he laid out for her were a trap. And that she and her husband and all of mankind were the prey and soon to be tangled up in the snare of eternal doom.
And what the Infernal Fowler did to Adam and Eve, he would later do to the children of Israel, whom God called “His Firstborn Son” (Ex 4:22; Hos 11:1). And it doesn’t take much of an imagination to consider the questions that brought them to ruin during their 40 years in the wilderness. “If God meant good for you, why aren’t you eating like you did in Egypt?” And they fell for it. They grumbled and complained against the God that saved them. There’s no food and we loathe this worthless food (Nu 21:5).
“If God is so good, why is your life so hard and bad?” And they fell for it, ensnared in the fowler’s net, turning on the God who rescued them from slavery. “If you’re God’s firstborn Son why do all the other nations seem to be having a better time with more impressive gods?” And they bit on that worm too. Going after false prophets and idols. All traps. And they fell for them. Only a few of them made it to the Promised Land. It is written somewhere, Those who formerly received the good news failed to enter His rest because of disobedience (Heb 4:6).
The old evil foe has done the same to you. You who are baptized and named sons of God. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized in Christ have been clothed with Christ (Gal 3:26-27). And like Adam from the dirt, Israel from the Red Sea, Jesus from the Jordan, you come from your baptism and the Deceiver is hot on your heals in this wilderness, trying to lead you into false belief, despair, great shame and vice. He’s the practitioner of a thousand arts, master of one. His chief aim is always the same. He attacks the certainty of our Lord’s Word and your true identity.
“If you really are God’s Child, why are you so alone and feel so unloved?” “If you really are God’s son, why are your thoughts filled with such lurid things and your actions with such wickedness?” “If you really are God’s daughter, why is your life filled with so much heartache and sadness, like all the things St Paul mentions in the Epistle?”
It’s all a trap. Beware, dear Christians. Keep watch on yourselves, St Paul tells the Galatians, let you too be tempted (Gal 6:1). Keep watch over one another, too. Today Teri, Maralise, and Kristiane join you. Beware the temptations that entice you. They are like seed on the ground, a worm on a hook, cheese on the mousetrap. All laid by the Evil One who is ready to pounce.
And your worry, your anxiety, your faithless fearing and faithless fretting, your guilty conscience and restless heart all show that you’ve taken the bait. The Infernal Fowler always gets his prey.
Until this day. When not a gullible one, but the Valiant One was driven out into the wilderness and fasted for forty days and forty nights. He was hungry and ripe for a trap or for some ensnaring language. But He was no easy mark like Adam and Eve, like Israel, or like us.
Satan gets his net ready. If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. He goes right after the Word of the Lord. The Word the Father spoke only 41 days early to His beloved Son at His baptism in the Jordan River. Jesus had those words in His mind and in His heart all those long, hungry, forlorn days.”Do you really think God wouldn’t want His own Son to eat? Go ahead, You can do it. You’re starving. Feed Yourself.”
But Christ’s response is lighting quick: It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” He will not fall into the net.
Then to the Temple where the worm is on the hook. If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. And the Devil misquotes Scripture. This is a warning for us. Satan knows the Bible. He’s a master at wrongly dividing and applying Law and Gospel. He tries to use your own defensive weapon against you. Walking the baptismal way marked with the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, you are sure prey for the Fowler. Armed with the mighty Sword of God’s Word you must know it better than your Adversary. Not only in head knowledge, but heart. Through prayer and meditation, fasting and temptation.
The first temptation was for Jesus to prove Himself to Satan. The second is for God to prove Himself to you. But our Lord won’t budge. Again it is written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Now smooth, enticing words are said as the Devil takes Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. All these I will give to You, if You will fall down and worship me. He promises Jesus a shortcut to glory. He offers Him glory in this life. The easy way out. Do not make light of the effrontery of the Devil’s third temptation, mocking as though no one would consider bowing down to actually worship Satan. Do we not do this very thing overtime we willfully sin? Just a little indulgence with a plan to repent later? Our Lutheran Confessions warn us not to willfully turn away from the Word, grieve and embitter the Holy Spirit, involve ourselves in the world’s filth and so redecorate our hearts as homes for the devil (FC SD XI 42).
But not Jesus. Those smooth, oil words just run off His ears. He only has ears for the Father’s Word and will. His plan to rescue man. And that plan is for God’s Son, His only Son, whom He loves, to suffer pain and die on the Cross, to be buried and raised and then ascend to glory. This was not the endgame. The wilderness was not the final battle. It was a trap. Be gone Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.”
The Son will come out of this desert to the barrenness of Golgotha. Where Adam and Israel and you have succumb to temptation and have failed, He will succeed. As the Second Adam, the true Israel, all humanity in One.
And the Father needs no trickery to get His beloved Son to the Cross. That’s exactly where He wants to go. He is like a bird who willingly goes to His death. Who has His arms stretched out like pinions - you sang it in the Tract, wings - pierced so that they can take in and remove your sins and then rise again to cover you with His mercy.
He is like a fish who is not the least bit tricked by worms, but let’s Himself be hooked to the Cross and devoured by the grave, so that He might rise again and that the grave have no power over you.
He is the One Man who can listen to all of Satan’s sweet nothings and never take the bait. Instead, He died and is raised on the Third Day leaving the skull of the Deceiver crushes so that your head might be baptized and wrapped up, covered and sheltered in His Divine Love. He treads down that Prowling Lion for you. Tramples the Serpent underfoot. And delivers you from the snare of the Fowler. He has done so today for Teri, Maralise, and Kristiane. He has done so for all of you baptized into His Name.
So come and eat. This is no trick. This is no trap. For Jesus speaks no lies. He offers you something good that is good. Something helpful that is helpful. It is not only written, but He says to you today, This bread is My Body, eat it for the forgiveness of your sins. This wine is My Blood, drink it for your salvation. My Words are Spirit and Life. Hear them and let them make you wise. I am your Dwelling Place and Mighty Fortress. I am beside you on the plain. Take they your life, goods, fame, child and wife, you still have Me. I have beat down Satan under your feet.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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