Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent
Full of the Holy Spirit
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus
Christ! In today’s Gospel, St. Luke reports, “Jesus, full of the Spirit,
returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.” Included
in these words are two very important things for your everyday life: The first
is that Jesus was full of the Spirit as He returned from the Jordan river,
where He had been baptized; the second important thing is that the Spirit now
leads Jesus into the wilderness, in the same way that a parent would lead a
small child or a shepherd would lead his sheep.
The Spirit of Your Baptism
Only Luke feels the need to explain to you that Jesus was “full of the Holy
Spirit” when He returned from being baptized in the Jordan River. Sts. Matthew
and Mark make no mention of this detail, but Luke believes that this detail is
necessary for you and for your upcoming week, and so he places it emphatically
into today’s Gospel. Luke wants you to know and to benefit personally from the
news that after His Baptism Jesus is now “full of the Holy Spirit” as He
marches off into the wilderness.
Probably one of the reasons why Luke took pains to tell you that Jesus was full
of the Spirit is because Jesus did not look very spiritual after His Baptism.
Yes, when Jesus was baptized, “He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove
and coming to on Him,” but the dove did not build a nest or remain perched on
Jesus’ head from that day forward. The visible image of the Holy Spirit’s
presence at Jesus’ Baptism eventually disappeared. When Jesus left the Jordan,
He looked and acted and felt the same way He did before He arrived. You could
not tell, just by looking at the Man, that He was full of the Holy Spirit.
While He languished in the lonely desert, Jesus probably could not feel the
presence of the Holy Spirit within Himself, either. All He really felt was
hungry.
So Luke takes pains in today’s Gospel to offer you assurances, as if to say,
the lonely and hungry and exposed Man I am telling you about here? He is “full
of the Holy Spirit.” The Man who feels the weight of His own human desires in
this Gospel? He is “full of the Holy Spirit.” The Man who is here tempted in
exactly every way that you and I are likewise tempted; the Man whose
temptations only grow more difficult for Him as He moves forward through life
and as the tempter continues to make every use of every opportunity from here
on out? That Man is “full of the Holy Spirit.”
It is almost as if St. Luke is saying to you here in this Gospel, “You would
never guess this by looking at Jesus, but I assure you: Jesus did not merely
have an experience of the Holy Spirit on the day of His Baptism. The Holy
Spirit descended to Jesus and now remains upon Him and in Him as He heads off
into the wilderness.
Luke make wants to press this point upon you because Luke knows that the Holy
Spirit also came upon you and entered into you when you were baptized (Acts
2:38, Titus 3:5). Luke might also know, based on his own experiences and
temptations, that you do not always look or feel especially spiritual. Stated
another way, Luke knows it is probably much easier for you to identify the
sensations of temptation and sin and hardship in your life than it is for you
to identify the presence of the Holy Spirit. So Luke emphasizes the ongoing
presence of the Holy Spirit in your life by pointing you to the ongoing
presence of the Holy Spirit in your Lord’s life. “Jesus, full of the Spirit,
returned from the Jordan” where He had been baptized.
How can this good news benefit and serve you every day of the coming week and
beyond? Consider doing this: each morning when you wake up, make the sign of
the cross upon yourself and say aloud to yourself, “In the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This is the same sign that was made
upon you and these are the same words spoken over you when you were baptized,
whether your baptism happened last year or last century. After you make the
sign of the cross upon yourself, pray the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s
Prayer—just as these things likewise were prayed at your Baptism. Then go off
to school or to work or to do whatever it is you do during the day. Go in
complete confidence. Proceed with the certainty and assurance that you are
“full of the Spirit” in the same manner that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit
in today’s Gospel. Think of each and every day as your own personal return up
from the Jordan, just as Jesus
returned from the Jordan in this Gospel. Think of each and every day as the
day during which God’s Spirit faithfully rests upon you and fills you, in the
same way that Luke says of Jesus here: “Jesus, full of the Spirit, returned
from the Jordan.” Luke wants you to think this way about Jesus because he wants
you to think this way about yourself, not as having the gift and the presence
of the Holy Spirit once in a while—only at your Baptism or only during
worship—but Luke wants you to think of yourself as having the full presence of
the Holy Spirit within you also during the dark times and trying times and
tempting times and exhausting times of your life. Because of your Baptism, you
are now full of the Holy Spirit, even when you do not feel or look as though He
is in you.
The Spirit Leads You According to His Mercy
Now take a careful look what the Holy Spirit does for Jesus. I’ll bet
Luke wants you to know and to believe that the exact same indwelling Holy
Spirit does exactly the same thing for you: “Jesus, full of the Spirit,
returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.”
This experience in the wilderness was no picnic for Jesus. He is fully
God, vested with all divine power and authority, and yet He exerts none of that
power to serve Himself. Jesus makes His divinity useless to Himself while the
Holy Spirit leads Him along into the wilderness where He suffers hunger,
exposure, loneliness, temptation, and every other human thing that can be
experienced. Jesus divinity offers Him no protection against these things. He
only has His Baptism, His pocket full of Bible verses, and the presence of the
Holy Spirit, whom Jesus cannot feel or see, but whom He must only believe is
with Him. The joy and the presence Holy Spirit seemed to be so far away from
Jesus that Luke felt like he needed to emphasize that the Spirit was indeed
present, despite what Jesus was feeling.
Jesus had not arrived in this wilderness accidentally, either. Although
His presence could not be seen or felt, the Holy Spirit led Jesus into this
dark place, in the same way that a parent would lead a small child, or a
shepherd would lead his sheep. This wilderness was exactly what God the Spirit
intended for Jesus. This hardship, which focused Jesus’ eyes upon the Words and
promises of God, was precisely what the Holy Spirit wanted for Jesus. This
demonstration of God the Father’s faithfulness to Jesus—even in the midst of
temptation and trial—is what the Holy Spirit wanted Jesus to learn. This
wilderness was a good and blessed thing for Jesus. This is why Luke explains
that Jesus was “led by the Spirit” to this place.
See how Luke has layered blessing upon blessing for you in this Gospel.
He began by assuring you that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, so that you
yourself may be assured that you also are full of the Holy Spirit. Now Luke
wants you to know that the Holy Spirit deliberately and purposefully led Jesus
into the wilderness. You can probably guess why Luke wants you to know this:
Luke wants you to see and believe from this Gospel that the Holy Spirit has
likewise led you to where you are today, in the same way that He led Jesus and
in the same way that a parent would lead a child.
· No, you probably do not feel the Spirit taking you by the hand and
leading you (or dragging you) through your day. Jesus likely didn’t feel it,
either, soaked as He was in the fullness of your humanity.
· No, you probably do not feel especially spiritual as you struggle with
your family, your co-workers, or with the other constant obstacles that spring
up in your path. Jesus did not feel especially spiritual either. All He had was
Bible verses for His defense.
· No, you probably do not feel terribly strong every single day. You
might feel weakened by the constant effort. You might feel empty. You might
feel hungry for something that you cannot identify much less satisfy. That is
precisely why St. Luke has written you today’s Gospel in the manner that he has!
“Jesus, full of the Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit
in the wilderness.” Because of God’s miracle of Baptism, you are within your
rights to reword this sentence in today’s Gospel so that it speaks more
personally about you. You might even write it in lipstick on the bathroom
mirror, or put in a note to yourself when you pack your lunch: “YOU, full of
the Spirit, returned from worship and was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness.” You might not feel Him while you head out there this week, but He
is with you nonetheless. Because He is with you, you now possess all of His
benefits and gifts—not the least of which are forgiveness, life and salvation.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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