Sermon for Sunday, February 22, 2026

February 22, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 4:1-11


The story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness always comes to us for the first Sunday in Lent, the Sunday right after Transfiguration Sunday and then Ash Wednesday. It’s important to remember where we are in the story of the life of Jesus. Last week, Transfiguration Sunday, Jesus was midway through his ministry. For today’s Gospel, we go back to the beginning, to the time just after his baptism, just before his ministry starts.


In today’s Gospel reading, we find Jesus in the wilderness, the place of prophets, the place of preparation. We might associate the word “wilderness” as a time where bad things befall us and our faith is tested. The first Christians, hearing or reading the Gospel of Matthew, would have had different associations, and the number 40 gives us insight into a different relevance of this text.


Think about the meaning of 40 in the Old Testament: Noah is on the ark for 40 days and 40 nights, Moses fasted on Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights as he wrote down the words of the new covenant that God offered, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and for 40 days and nights Elijah fasted in the desert before getting a new mission from God. The number 40 is a sign of preparation and waiting for the next thing that God will be doing, not a sign of being punished by God.


It shouldn’t surprise us that the devil takes advantage of this time out of time, this space between what has happened and what has yet to come. The temptations are familiar, because they are still what the devil uses to tempt us today: the seduction of knowing that we will have enough for our physical needs still has power, and we only need to watch a news program, from any end of the political spectrum, to see how many ways humans lust for power: power over people and power over nations, power over the whole world. The middle temptation might seem strangest, but if we put it in other terms, we see that it, too, can wreck our best laid spiritual plans. I can almost hear the devil whispering it now: “Aren’t you tired of waiting for God to act? Aren’t you tired of waiting to find out what’s next? Don’t you want to claim God’s powers for yourself?” Our first reading for today gives us one of the more well known versions of this temptation: “Go ahead and eat the fruit—claim that knowledge for yourself. Why should God have all the power?”


Jesus responds to the devil as we would expect. He resists temptation, but not only that: he offers well-reasoned responses as to why he rejects the devil. In the reading from Genesis, we see the devil’s reasoning; here in the Gospel of Matthew, we see Divine reasoning.


Jesus will go on to do the things that the devil suggests: feeding multitudes, enduring the suffering of the body, and ultimately possessing the nations. What the devil offers to Jesus are powers that he already possesses. But the reasons that Jesus has for these displays of Divine power will be very different than the ones that the devil offers.


In these early days of Lent, we, too, might find ourselves in an in between time, like the one where we find Jesus in today’s reading for the first Sunday of Lent. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has just been baptized, just experienced the heavens open and the spirit come down on him. Jesus has heard that God is pleased with him. But what now? The wilderness becomes a time of discernment. The devil’s temptations give Jesus several possible road maps and force Jesus to wrestle with important questions: what will Jesus do with his life? How can he best serve God and serve as the bridge to reunite the people to God? How can he be a beacon to show the ways that God is already at work in the world? The devil offers a warped version of the mission, but Jesus shows that he understands that he serves a very different purpose.


We, too, serve a different purpose. We, too, are called to serve God by showing the ways that God is already at work in the world. We, too, are living in this in between time, where it may seem that the devil is in charge. In our current time, the devil offers us gifts and powers that we already collectively possess.


Lent is a time that offers space to wrestle with the question of who we are serving and how we will use our power. When we’re assembled here in this building on Sundays, the answer seems so clear. Of course we serve God. We’re not off in a fancy restaurant having a champagne brunch—although the idea of combining the worship service with a champagne brunch is one we might find tempting: mimosa mass for the masses!


Isn’t it amazing how many ways that Satan has to tempt us? A wilderness time can be a time of temptation, when the devil tries to move us from service to God’s vision to service of our own vision of what the world should be. It’s especially hard to resist the devil’s temptation if we’ve grown impatient with God’s timeline. It’s so intoxicating when we first grasp the message of Jesus, about the inbreaking Kingdom of God, which is already here and not yet fulfilled. As the time drags on and fulfillment seems further away, it’s tempting to take matters into our own hands. We might even tell ourselves that we’re serving God in any number of ways. For example, by making lots of money which we’ll use to feed the poor. By getting political power so that we can change policies to be more Bible based. But once we’ve had a taste of the power of money and being in charge of policies, we might see their spiritual danger as more temptations come our way. It can be hard to remember who we are and who we serve, and it’s so easy to get pulled away by the glittering attractions of the world.


These ideas aren’t necessarily bad ideas, but in today’s Gospel of Jesus in the wilderness, we see how easy it is for the devil to take ideas for serving God and warp them into ideas that will disrupt God’s timeline. The time of temptation in the wilderness shows that the devil has a sense of where Jesus’ mission will take him. The difference is that Jesus will do these things in a different spirit.


Jesus knows that he already has the gifts that the devil offers him. We, too, have gifts given to us by God, although we may have felt that we’ve been in the wilderness so long that we’ve lost sight of those gifts. Lent offers us a time of discipline and enrichment, so that we can rediscover those gifts and strengthen ourselves to withstand the devil’s temptations.


Rest assured, the devil is always around the corner, always ready to tempt us. Don’t fall for those empty promises. Remember that God has already given you everything you need and more. Renounce the devil and all those empty promises. Serve God, who has promised us everything and who will deliver.