“Fasting Jesus”

The Week of Lent I (Series C – 3 Yr. Lect.) – CHAPEL SERMON

St. Luke 4.1-13

Given on 12 March 2025

Given at Trinity Lutheran High School, Seymour, Indiana

+ In the Name of Jesus +

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. (Luke 4.1-2)

Practically still dripping wet from His Baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, Jesus is described returning from the Jordan “full of the Holy Spirit” and “led by the Spirit”… The Holy Spirit had descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove. The Father had spoken His approval from heaven. One would think Jesus would now begin His earthly ministry with “all glory, laud, and honor…” We might expect great feasts to be held in His honor. We might expect all the people on earth to start lining up to see Jesus and listen to Him, from the Caesar in Rome on down to every lowly beggar.

But we would be wrong. Where do we find Jesus after His Baptism? Alone, in the wilderness – the desert and deserted area on the other side of the Jordan from the land of Israel. He spends forty days without food. He fasts = to abstain from food or drink for a “period of time.” Then after fasting forty days, Jesus is severely tempted by the devil.

May I ask for a show of hands - how many of you have fasted, ever? Sometimes if you have to have bloodwork drawn at a doctor’s office early in the morning, or if you are having a surgery done, you are asked to not eat or drink overnight before the procedure. Some of us might not make it without food or drink for forty minutes, much less forty hours, and none of us would survive forty days.

I would argue one can fast or abstain from other pleasures or comforts of life, with a spiritual goal of mortifying one’s flesh and concentrating one’s heart and mind to God and His Word. Christians are often encouraged to fast from something meaningful for Lent to honor our Lord and to help us focus on His Word. Sometimes in a disaster we might be asked to fast from certain things as a service to our neighbor. Your great – great – grandparents fasted from a lot of things during the Second World War, for example, in order that the troops fighting overseas would have plenty.

According to experts, a healthy adult with access to water can survive for 10-15 days without food. However, some individuals have reported surviving for longer periods, up to 60 days or more, with water. Prolonged starvation can lead to serious health complications, including organ failure, electrolyte imbalances, and death.

Jesus is in the desert wilderness – He ate nothing says the text, there was nothing there. Jesus miraculously survived forty days living purely on every Word that proceeded from the mouth of His Father in heaven, as He would remind the devil who tempted Him to turn the stones into bread.

I propose to you today that there are great reasons why Jesus’ first order of business after beginning His earthly ministry with His public baptism was to go alone to the wilderness desert area and suffer a prolonged fast. Everything the Lord Jesus did was done for our eternal good. In all His Words and works there is a medicine for our sin being given.

With this fast, Jesus atoned for our first parents’ forbidden, sinful, and deadly eating of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This first act of rebellion against God’s Word put us in our fallen state. As with all our sins, all our gluttony and lusting and “overeating”, Eve and Adam ate something that was not given to them. Jesus had to atone for this and set His holy, unspotted, pure body and soul before His heavenly Father as a sacrifice of atonement for us – to be finished on the cross on Calvary. Through this miraculous fasting, Jesus redeems us from hunger and thirst in hell.

Secondly, Jesus in fasting is experiencing what we experience in this temporal life. Sometimes, we hunger and sweat and toil and life is not so glorious and wonderful. Life is painful and full of loneliness and doubt and trial and temptation – as Jesus faced in the wilderness. And especially for you Christians, baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ – you have a target on your back. Satan will attack you even as He came after Jesus Himself in the wilderness with the temptation to sin. Jesus can sympathize with us in our weaknesses and trials and doubts and temptations. For your sake, Jesus overcame them all and defeated them. The victory of the cross and the empty Easter tomb tells you it’s true. You can approach His throne of grace in your every trial and with your every need, and expect to receive mercy.

There are two other men in the Bible who miraculously fasted from food and drink for forty days: Moses on Mount Sinai, as he received the Law written on tablets of stone and became God’s mediator to His people of the Old Testament. Then the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19) as he prepared to defeat the prophets of Baal and restore the right worship of God in Israel. These two great prophets were being given such a special work in leading God’s people – but of course, the Lord works through the cross, instead of fattening up these two prophets to prepare them for their toils, they are asked to fast in humility.

Jesus, who had received from His Father the command to go and preach the Gospel as mediator of the New Testament and restorer of the proper worship of God alone by defeating Satan, was also forty days and nights in the wilderness and prayed for you and me and all people. Jesus’ fast for you and me and for all people was a special sign that He is the long-expected Messiah, the heavenly Moses and Elijah sent by the Father in heaven to turn the hearts of men to the true and living God, to turn your heart to God and save you from sin, death, and hell itself.

God grant to you all a sober, watchful Lenten season, fasting from all that would harm and hinder your faith in Christ, mortifying your sinful flesh now, and so receiving all things that nourish you in body and soul with joyful anticipation of the great Easter life to come. For one day, Christians, you and I will be taken from this wilderness journey to God’s heavenly feast, where His table is eternally set for you, for by Christ’s suffering and merit you have a place of honor and glory waiting with your name on it. God grant that great day to come soon, in Jesus’ name we pray: Amen.