Maundy Thursday

April 17, 2014  

“Lead us Not Into Temptation”

Luke 22:39-46

In Nomine Jesu

It’s late in the evening. It’s actually Friday; that part of Friday that is after sundown on what today is called Thursday. The Passover has been eaten, even as Jesus has instituted His last will and testament, His last meal, salvation flesh for the tempted and sleeping flesh. The disciples have crossed the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives, specifically to the Garden of Gethsemane. The cross, the great hour of Jesus’ passion sufferings, even His death, falls on this day. Jesus will kneel in internal agony, in bloody sweat, and pray to His Father. He will return to His disciples only to find them sleeping. He will admonish them to pray so that they may not enter into temptation. The opportune time has presented itself for Satan to sift the disciples as wheat [Lk 22:31]. As Jesus enters into His great trial and temptation, the disciples, we the followers of Christ, will enter ours as well.

There is a big picture to this petition. In view are not merely the bumps and bruises, the dents and dings, of daily life. Rather, we pray, heavenly Father, lead us not into the great tribulation, protect and shield us in the ultimate and final battle between God and Satan, between Christ and the antichrist. As we suffer the manifold temptations of the world, the devil, and our sinful flesh, so to the Son of God goes forth to war, to battle and defeat an ancient evil foe that seeks our overthrow. We, that little flock of Christ, hide in the divine promise, “I will keep you from the hour of temptation that will come over the whole world to test all those that dwell on the earth” [Rev 3:10]. So in this petition, one doesn’t merely pray for personal power to resist the devil and his temptations, but here also is the cry of the whole Christian church that she would be kept pure and safe in the ark of salvation and from the forces of the evil one that wish to plunge her into the abyss of apostasy and eternal destruction.

Beloved, the ark of salvation is built by very the flesh of Jesus, dead upon the cross. To not have the crucified flesh and blood of Christ is to not have His ark of salvation. And to have His ark of salvation is to eat His flesh and drink His blood. It’s the greatest of all temptations: to pry Jesus from the cross and to pry sinners from the gifts of Jesus’ cross. Holy Week brings into grand focus the temptation to be scandalized by the foolishness of God, of seeing Him bent low in a garden of temptation, the bitter yet salvific will of the Father upon the Son’s lips; of watching Him turn to the other cheek when slapped in the judgment hall, giving His back to blows of hatred and scorn; of seeing this Lord of Life arraigned in a hall of murderous cries, dragged to the place of the skull, to the domain of death and hell; of hearing the crowds spit salt-stinging words into His open wounds, His mouth begging for moisture yet speaking mercy to thieves and sinners thirsting for death. You ask: Can I go to dark Gethsemane? Can I watch with Him one bitter hour? Can I go to Pilate’s mockery of a trial? Can I climb Calvary’s mournful mountain? Can I hasten to a tomb of expectant death? No. I can’t. Temptations overcome me. I fall asleep in apathy. I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to feel anymore. I don’t want to see this spectacle of death, this hopelessness. I have tasted it enough. I have been led by temptations into the jaws of my sin, my death, my hell. I have not the keys to open these fiery gates. I have not the flesh and blood to quell the cries of my guilty conscience. I have not the power to raise my corruptible body into that which is incorruptible and eternal. And “why does God let man be thus assailed by sin? Answer: So that man may learn to know himself and God; to know himself is to learn that all he is capable of is sinning and doing evil; to know God is to learn that God’s grace is stronger than all creatures” [Luther, AE 42:74].

So, I, nor you, are to become ultimately despondent in that we have been overcome by temptations, and have often fallen into “false belief, despair and other great shame and vice.” Jesus didn’t merely come to tell us to pray so that we may not enter into temptation. He didn’t merely come to tell us to pray so that the Father would remove our suffering and keep us from the evil one. He didn’t merely ask us, “Why are you sleeping the sleep of sin and death?” He didn’t merely come to point out our poor prayer life and warn us of the consequences of our misdeeds. No. He came, being led into temptation, to do what we could never do, resist temptation. He came praying to the Father, to do what the sons of Adam would never do: have their will, their entire life, be bent in obedience and faithfulness unto death so as to turn His children in the forgiveness of sins unto eternal life. He came, sleeping the sleep of your sin and death, so that you would awake anew, resurrected and raised in abiding and perfect life. He came interceding for us, praying to the Father as the only true and obedient Son, the One in whom we receive adoption as sons of the Father, having not the spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of confidence and strength.

He came to give His body and blood, to quench the Father’s wrath and atone for our sin. We would have no need to feast upon His life unless we had become spoiled by death. As often as we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we remember that we are sinners in need of His absolution, that sweet word of promise. Don’t ever think that you are too sick to be healed by His body and His blood. Don’t ever think that your end, be that physical and emotional, is your end. Rather your end, your deep and weary confession of sin, is your beginning, the very moment that you see clearly, you see His speared side which flows with eternal medicine so potent that all your sins are dissolved in His healing flesh and blood. The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come, you who are buried in sin and guilt, be buried in my flesh and blood for your forgiveness and your eternal cleansing, be washed by my flesh and my blood, having come out of the great tribulation, robed a new creation. You shall never learn to live without this flesh and blood, to live your life apart from Christ, for He is your life. As long as you live you are to breath in forgiveness by the sweet smelling sacrifice of Jesus, conceding that your life is hidden with Christ beneath these ordinary, foolish elements. Your cup of “false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice” has been drunk by Jesus, all of it is consumed. Now He gives you a new cup, the cup of forgiveness, the cup that drowns all your sin, guilt, and death. The cup of wrath and woe is drunk from the cross by Jesus, even as He says, “Take and drink, here is the cup of the new Word, the final Word, the cup of pardon and blessing, drink it all of you at My table, and so live in Me.

Having been stoned at Lystra, Paul along with Barnabas preached the gospel to many disciples, strengthening their souls, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and making clear that through many tribulations one must enter the kingdom of God [Acts 14:22]. Temptations, afflictions, these will come. “We must suffer temptations, even be struck therein. However, here we pray that we not fall in and drown in them” [Luther, LC III, 106]. In this petition, we pray with the psalmist, “I will keep your statues; do not utterly forsake me” [Ps 119:8]. We abide in this confession of faith knowing that “although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.” But where is the victory? It’s hidden. This victory is found in the foolish cross of Jesus. This victory is found in the foolish bread and wine that we confess to be at the same time the flesh and blood of Christ. Whatever temptations you have been led into, whatever sins you have committed, whether they be bitter and have goaded you into anger, hate, apathy, or they be sweet, and have seduced you into unchastity, lust, greed, and vane glory, the Lord still descends from heaven above to earth He comes into your sloppy sinful life. He stands in the ocean of your sins, pulling you back onto safe and dry ground through His righteous life, death, and resurrection, through His Holy Word and Sacrament. So we run from the God we cannot see or explain this Holy Week, to the God who we can see, Jesus, Son of God, and Son of Man. He alone reconciles all things to the Father, who has given us His flesh and blood so that our eyes would see His salvation, the light unto our temptation laden path and the glory of His people, justified in His blood and kept eternally safe in His body. We eat the bread/flesh crumbs that fall from our Master’s cross. We drink the wine/blood that drips from our Master’s table. This Maundy Thursday, like the Canaanite woman, we seek to, “grasp the deep subtle Yes under and above the No with firm faith in God’s Word” and to firmly hold to it. And so we pray, “Lead us not into temptation, and save us O Lord, bring us at last to You, in this time of great trial and tribulation.”      

In the Name of the Father and of the Son [+] and of the Holy Spirit.