If You Are the Son of God March 10, 2019, First Sunday in Lent, Luke 4:1-13 The devil said to Jesus, “If You are the Son of God...” In 1962, she played the role of Helen Keller in the film The Miracle Worker. She was so young at the time that she probably had no idea of the parallels between her life and that of Helen Keller. The disabilities of Helen Keller are fairly well known. She’d been rendered blind and deaf at 19 months old due to an illness, probably scarlet fever. So, at age seven, Helen Keller not only could not read or write. She could not speak in any way. That was when Annie Sullivan came to be her teacher. But she would also become Helen’s foster mother. When Helen was eight, her family decided it was best for her to leave her family in Alabama in order to go and live with Annie Sullivan in Massachusetts and later New York near the kind of special schools that could provide her with an education. Well, the young woman who would portray Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker would also leave her family at age eight to live with foster parents. In 1954, the agent and manager of child actress Anna Marie Duke convinced Anna Marie’s mother that it was best for the young actress to live with them. John and Ethel Ross became her foster parents. They gave Anna Marie acting lessons and helped her lose her heavy New York accent. But they were no Annie Sullivan. John and Ethel Ross were controlling and abusive. They wanted to make Anna Marie into a child star, like Patty McCormack. So, one day, Ethel Ross said to her, “Anna Marie is dead. You’re Patty now.” Now, that could have confused any eight-year-old. But on top of that, though it was undiagnosed at the time, Anna Marie Duke had her own disability: bipolar disorder. Which can bring on severe mood swings and depression. And make it hard at times to feel like yourself. As Patty Duke herself said in an interview in 1985, “If Anna Marie was dead, then I no longer knew who I was.” Is that not what being tempted is like? Isn’t it like not knowing who you are, like something is trying to get you to forget who you are, to ignore who are, to deny who you are? “If You are the Son of God....” Twice Satan spoke these words to Jesus: “If You are the Son of God...” Twice Satan tried to confuse Jesus, to plant doubt inside Him as to who He was, so that Jesus would take a course of action that was selfish and self-serving, uncharacteristic of any son of God. Satan was not tempting Jesus to do something He was not supposed to do. He was not tempting Jesus to misbehave. He was not tempting Jesus to shoplift a handsome wallet or stretch the truth on a job application. He was tempting Jesus to not be what He’d been baptized to be. “He was tempting Jesus to ignore His baptism, to deny who He is, to forget that He is the Son of His Father in heaven” (Long). We think we know what temptation is. Means being tempted to take that extra dessert when you know you shouldn’t, to take that one more cigarette, one more vaping session, one more drink. We think temptation is when you’re tempted to manipulate your tax return, or get ahold of that old chemistry test that’s floating around, or sneak a peek at something you shouldn’t, or lie to keep from looking bad. We think temptation is about misbehaving, doing something you’re not supposed to do, in which case we tell ourselves that we’re doing pretty well. But this account of Jesus being tempted in the desert wilderness reveals that temptation goes deeper than that. When you are a son or daughter of your Father in heaven, when you are a baptized child of God, then temptation is not merely an “enticement to do bad things. It is an invitation to be somebody else, to live some life other than that of a beloved child of God” (Long). This account of Jesus tempted by Satan reveals that temptation is like Satan is trying to get you to forget, to deny, to ignore who you are, a beloved child of God. Who is to repay no one evil for evil, to bear one another’s burdens, to be kind to one another, to forgive one another, to love your enemies, to be merciful to others as your Father in heaven is merciful to you. How tempted have you and I been to forget that that’s what it means to be a child of God? How tempted have we been to ignore that Christ-like lifestyle as unrealistic? When alternative ways of defining ourselves as Christians continue to be dangled in front of us, how powerful will we find the enticement to not be what we were baptized to be? Please do not misunderstand. This in no way means that your Father in heaven is sitting back waiting to see what will happen with you. God is through resting. Yes, God rested on the seventh day. He rested from all that He had created. And He established the Sabbath as a day of rest for His people. But as for God Himself, He’s through resting. Why did Jesus perform so many miracles on the Sabbath? With the coming of His Son to this earth God declared all-out war on Satan. And war does not take rest breaks. It involves continual ops. Around the clock. Twenty-four hours a day, daylight savings time or no daylight savings time. Thus also when Luke says that Jesus fasted in the desert wilderness those 40 days, it says nothing about Jesus taking a day off now and then. Which would have been expected. The rule has been that there is to be no fasting on the Sabbath except when Yom Kippur falls on a Sabbath. Yet Jesus took no Sabbath break from His forty day fast. He fasted every day, all forty days. Because God is through resting. Your Father in heaven is on duty around the clock. So, no rest is given Satan. No quarter given him. Yes, Satan still tempts you to not be what you were baptized to be, but your Father is far stronger than him. And He’s been taking the fight right to Satan’s front door. Do you not think it curious that as soon as Jesus was baptized that the Holy Spirit immediately led Jesus out into the desert wilderness to do battle with Satan. To take the fight to Satan on your behalf. And do you not think it was significant that Jesus went out to battle Satan right after He was baptized? Right after the Father in heaven first made sure that Jesus received the strongest affirmation of His identity and His calling. Twice Satan would try to confuse Jesus saying, “If You are the Son of God...” But at Jesus’ Baptism the skies had opened and a voice from heaven had stated: “You are My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. You are My beloved Son. You are My prophet, My priest, My Anointed One, My suffering servant. You are the One I call to cast out demons, to heal the sick, to give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. You are My Son whom I sent to live with a foster parent named Joseph, not because it was best for You but best for the world I love. You are My dearly beloved Son whom I am sending to be delivered into the hands of those who will hurt You. You are the One whom I send to bear the cross, to be bruised by Satan, and to crush his head, in order to redeem my vulnerable human creatures. You are my beloved Son, and I am well- pleased with You.” Was that not powerful and instrumental in Jesus defeating Satan? Would not also your own Baptism be powerful for you in fighting Satan’s temptations, reminding you first of all that you are God’s beloved child, your sins forgiven, and then powerfully reminding you of the very nature of the temptations you face? That what they’re about is not merely misbehaving but about enticing you to not be what your were baptized to be. The daily remembrance of your Baptism, of who you are and the loving Father you belong to will help you see your life from less and less of a selfish and self-serving way, will help you look at each decision and think, “Does this serve God or does it merely serve me?” It will help you see your life as growing out of who you understand yourself to be, as it helps you know and remember and embrace who you are above anything else. Above all, you’re not a biological child, nor a foster child, but you are a baptized son/daughter of your Father in heaven with whom He is well pleased. .