LESSON: MATTHEW 26:36-41

If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. Matthew 4:3

After approaching Christ, the devil assails Him by confronting Him with His bodily welfare and casting doubt on God’s goodness, saying, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

It is as though he meant to say: “Rely on God and don’t bake; wait until a roasted rooster flies into your mouth. Do you now claim that you still have a God who cares for you? Where now is your heavenly Father, who looks after you? I am telling you; He is leaving you in the lurch. Eat up now and drink in faith and let us see how satisfied you will be, especially if they are stones. What a fine Son of God you are! What a Father He is to you, when He does not even send you a crust of bread, and lets you be so poor and needy. Just keep on believing that you are His Son and He is your Father.”

With such thoughts the devil assails all the children of God. Christ certainly experienced all this. He was no stock or stone, although He was pure and without sin and remained so, as we cannot be.

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PRAYER: For our sakes, O Lord, you suffered yourself to be tempted by our enemy, the devil, and overcame him with the powerful testimony of your Father’s holy Word. Enable us, your disciples, to gain a similar victory over the devil whenever we are assailed by him, for your truth’s sake. Amen.

LESSON: MATTHEW 4:1-11

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

It is customary to read the Gospel of Christ’s temptation by the devil at the beginning of the season of Lent to set Christ’s example before Christians and encourage them to fast as Christ fasted.

This is utter tomfoolery!

In the first place, no one can ever measure up to such an example and fast without any food at all for forty days and nights as Christ did. Christ, moreover, followed the example of Moses, who also fasted for forty days and nights when he received God’s law on Mount Sinai. Accordingly, Christ also wanted to fast when He was about to bring us the new law and to publish it.

In the second place, our fasting is a complete mistake instituted by men. Although Christ fasted for forty days, there is nothing at all in His Word in which He orders us to do likewise. He probably also did other things that He does not want us to do. But what He tells us to do and not to do, we should keep carefully in mind and act according to His Word.

Our worst mistake of all was to regard and practice our fasting as a good work. We did not fast to discipline our flesh but to acquire merit before God, to blot out our sins, and to obtain grace.

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PRAYER: You have bound us, O Lord, as your children to your Word as our rule of faith and life. In this Word, you assure us we shall know the truth, and the truth will set us free. This we also pray in your name. Amen.

LESSON: MATTHEW 26:57-58

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

We have no hesitation at all in declaring that anyone who contemplates God’s sufferings for a day, an hour, a quarter of an hour, does better than fasting for a whole year, praying a psalm every day, and hearing a hundred masses. For such contemplation changes a man quite basically and is very close to the new birth of baptism. Here the sufferings of Christ perform their true and noble work. They choke the Old Adam and dispel all pleasure, joy, and confidence in creatures, even as Christ was forsaken by all and even by God.

Because this work is not under our control, it happens that at times we must pray for it. The result does not follow immediately. Nevertheless, we must not lose heart and desist from our efforts. Sometimes, it happens that we do not pray in accordance with God’s will. God acts in freedom and will not become our captive. And so, a man may become saddened in his conscience and very dissatisfied with his life without realizing that it is Christ’s sufferings, of which he thinks very little, that are influencing him in this way, just as others can ponder Christ’s sufferings almost continuously without ever coming to self-knowledge. With the former, the sufferings of Christ are a hidden but genuine factor; with the latter, they are merely apparent and deceptive. In this way, God often brings the unexpected to pass.

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PRAYER: Keep us ever mindful, heavenly Father, of the grim reality of the suffering and death of our Lord and grant us your grace fully to accept all that our Lord gave and suffered for us in our stead. Amen.

LESSON: MATTHEW 26:47-56

Rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:13

Anyone who remains so completely unmoved and hard-boiled that the sufferings of Christ do not horrify him and bring him to his senses has cause to be afraid. For it cannot be otherwise. You must become conformed to the image and suffering of Christ, either in this life or in hell. At the very least, you must be terrified in the face of death, tremble and quake, and feel everything that Christ suffered on the cross.

It is a gruesome experience to witness agony on a deathbed. Therefore, you should pray God to soften your heart and permit you to ponder the suffering of Christ fruitfully. It is impossible for us of ourselves to ponder the sufferings of Christ thoroughly unless God Himself implants the resolution in our hearts. Pray God that this contemplation of Christ’s sufferings may not result in any doctrine or teaching which you hurry to accomplish of yourself before you have earnestly sought God’s grace so that you accomplish it by His grace and not of yourself.

Here we see why so many have gone astray in regard to the sufferings of Christ. They do not pray to God for His grace to profit from Christ’s passion, but they try to attain their end in their own strength and by their own methods. They operate in a thoroughly human and unfruitful manner.

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PRAYER: Soften our hearts, O God, by your grace that we may fruitfully ponder the sufferings of Christ and see in them the stripes whereby we are healed, for the sake of Jesus our Savior. Amen.

LESSON: MATTHEW 26:36-46

He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities. Isaiah 53:5

Christ’s passion should help us to a knowledge of self, to be horrified at ourselves, and to bring us to contrition. If this is not the result of Christ’s passion as far as we are concerned, it has not yet achieved its purpose in us. In His passion, Christ placed Himself on an equal footing with us, so that, as He suffered in body and soul in a wretched manner because of our sins, we must also suffer with Him in the knowledge of our sins. This is no matter for many words, but for deep thinking and a proper estimate of our sins.

Consider this illustration! If a criminal was convicted of murdering the child of a prince or a king, and you were quite unconcerned, sang and played as though you were quite innocent until a terrible attack was launched upon you, and it was proved that you had prevailed upon the criminal to commit his crime. The world would become too narrow for you, especially if your conscience left you in the lurch.

You should become much more anxious when you ponder the sufferings of Christ. For although the Jews, the criminals, have come under God’s judgement and have been cast off, they were merely the ministers of your sin. You are really the one who, through your sin, throttled and crucified God’s Son.

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PRAYER: My sin and guilt, Lord Jesus, were no small part of your passion, suffering, and death. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of your grace and mercy and, above all, for your wonderful love to me and all other sinners. Amen.

LESSON: PSALM 32:1-7

If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Psalm 130:3,4

David says in the psalm, “I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord;’ then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:5). No one can stand before God without bringing this confession of sins with him. That is why the psalmist also declares; “If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared” (Psalm 130:3,4).

Anyone who really wants to stand before God must be quite sure that this confession of sins really comes from his heart and firmly believe that, unless the Lord is merciful to him, all is lost, no matter how pious he is in himself. Even all the saints must acknowledge the need of God’s continual grace and mercy and in all humility confess their sins before Him.

There is no difference here, for all have sinned. If anyone has received special grace, thank God for it and do not boast. If anyone has fallen into sin, it simply demonstrates that he is flesh and blood. But no one has fallen so deeply that one who stands may not fall ever deeper. As far as we are concerned, there is no difference between us and others; it is God’s grace alone that divides us from others.

This confession of sin is so necessary that we dare not overlook it for a moment. It must be our concern during our whole life as a Christian. Without ceasing we must evermore praise God’s grace and recognize that all boasting on our part is vain before God.

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PRAYER: Because of your wonderful grace, Lord God, loving heavenly Father, we poor sinners can stand before you, confessing our sins. When we do this, give us the assurance of the forgiveness of sins, in and through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.