Did you notice that the Gospel appointed for today begins with a reference to the Baptism of Jesus?  Luke writes,

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil.

The Jordan is the place where Jesus was baptized, and I think that Luke’s mention of it in connection with the Temptations of Jesus is intentional.  So, let’s pause for a moment and get our bearings.  . . . Luke says, in the chapter just before the one that was read to you this morning; . . . Luke says that John the Baptizer “went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  And then a little further on Luke says that

when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”

Now, at this point in his narrative Saint Luke seems to interrupt himself in order to tell us that “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph” . . . and then Luke gives us the whole genealogy of Jesus, going all the way back to the Beginning; . . . going all the way back to “Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”  And right after saying this, Luke writes,

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil.

    Do you see the connection Luke is making?  Adam, the first man, had no father but the Lord God Almighty Who created him.  But, to his shame, Adam was incapable of obeying God.  He and his wife ate the fruit God had forbidden them to eat and passed on to us the consequence of that Original Sin.  . . . And now, here is Jesus, Whose human father is only parenthetical, Luke reminds us; . . . here is Jesus, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary; . . . here is Jesus, declared to be God’s son at the River Jordan; . . . here is Jesus, the son of God . . . just like Adam.  . . . Here is Jesus Who finds Himself, as Adam did, face to face with temptations by which He might ruin His soul.  In fact, it’s God’s own Spirit that does it!  The Holy Spirit brings Jesus up from the Jordan, not to some safe and holy place to meditate upon the goodness of goodness, . . . but God’s Holy Spirit brings Jesus up from the watery Jordan into the arid wilderness of the Judean desert to fast for forty days . . . and to be tempted by the devil . . . just as Adam was.

    And so, what Luke has recounted for us today, in his Gospel, is a recapitulation of our human family’s Fall from grace.  Just as in the Garden the devil’s agent, the serpent, puffed up the woman’s sense of self-importance by asking an ignorant question, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”, . . . so now, the devil asks Jesus, “Did God really call you His Son?  If it’s true then you should be able to eat of anything in this wilderness.  You should be able to command this stone to become bread.”  And just as in the Garden the devil’s agent, the serpent, assured the woman that she would not die if she ate the fruit God forbade her, . . . so the devil, standing on the pinnacle of the temple, says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you.’ ”  . . . And just as in the Garden the devil’s agent, the serpent, declared “God knows that when you eat of [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,” . . . so the devil tantalizes Jesus with an image of all the good to be done if He could command all the kingdoms of the world to obey Him . . . by assuring Jesus that “all this authority and their glory. . . has been delivered to me, and I give it . . . If you, then, will worship me.”

    In the Garden . . . it was a disaster.  We disgraced ourselves.  The snake convinced Eve, and she convinced Adam, that God was not to be trusted; . . . that there was life and power apart from God; . . . there was life and power in being disobedient.  . . . And when God asked Adam “What have you done?”, . . . the man blamed both the woman and God for his disobedience, the woman blamed the snake, and both hid themselves from God and from one another because they were full of shame.  . . . But in the Wilderness, Luke shows us; . . . in the Wilderness things turn out differently; . . . in the Wilderness our shame has been removed and our original dignity restored; . . . in the Wilderness Jesus, son of God as was Adam, has given us a new beginning; . . . Jesus, son of God as was Adam, has given each of us a second chance.

    You may be a son of Adam . . . you may be Adam’s daughter, . . . but Luke assures anyone hearing his Gospel who has been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus; . . . Luke assures us that the very same Spirit Who lighted upon Jesus at the Jordan . . . is the Life that the risen and ascended Jesus breathed into you when you were baptized; . . . Luke assures us that the consequence of the Life breathed into you at your baptism is that you are God’s son; . . . you are God’s daughter.  . . . Saint Luke tells you about the Temptations of Jesus so that you will remember the assurances of God’s sacred Word we recite in the Proper Preface for Lent:  . . . that God is not unsympathetic toward us in our human frailty; . . . God is not unsympathetic toward us when we sin, . . . God is not unsympathetic because He “was in every way tempted as we are, yet did not sin”; and so, “by [His sinless] grace we are able to triumph over every evil.”

    And today . . . Jesus has shown us how to access that sinless grace by which we are able to triumph where our father Adam could not.  Jesus has shown us that we triumph over every evil by the grace of the Holy Spirit Who is our Life and our constant Defender.  And Jesus has shown us that we access the Holy Spirit’s grace by keeping our attention -- our heart and mind and soul -- . . . by keeping our attention fixed upon God!  . . . Relaxing our grip upon our lives; . . . relaxing our grip upon the temptations of our living; . . . relaxing our grip upon the enticements of the world, the flesh, and the devil, we are in the world as God’s sons . . . we are in the world as God’s daughters; . . . we are in the world with Chastity, living not by bread alone but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord; . . . we are in the world as God’s sons and daughters; . . . we are in the world with Obedience, not accomplishing whatever good we conceive by whatever means that may come to hand . . . but accomplishing God’s good by worshiping and serving Him alone; . . . we are in the world as God’s sons and daughters; . . . we are in the world with Simplicity, putting our entire trust and confidence in the love and care which the Lord God Almighty has for us, . . . never wasting our lives by inventing little tests by which God must prove Himself to us; . . . never tempting the Lord our God.  We are in the world as God’s sons and daughters; . . . we are in the world as Jesus was in the world:  with Simplicity, Chastity, and Obedience to our heavenly Father.

    In the Old Testament Lesson appointed for today you heard a very ancient confession of Jewish identity.  For nearly four thousand years, no matter where a Jewish person has lived, . . . they have known who they are:  they have an identity; . . . they have a history; . . . they have a home.  And it is not like that of the people among whom they lived -- even if they had lived there for hundreds of years.  A Jewish person is unique:

A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation . . . And the Egyptians treated us harshly . . . Then we cried out to the LORD the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction . . . and . . . brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm . . . and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

A Jewish person is a child of Abraham.  Abraham:  a wandering Aramean who had left his ancestral home to give himself and all his posterity to God.  A Jewish person, then, is a child of a covenant:  a covenant with the One True God -- Maker of Heaven and Earth.  A Jewish person is a child of a covenant, and lives by that covenant, . . . belonging to the God Who claims all Jewish persons.  And a Jewish person belongs to the land which God gave them:  the land of Israel, their father.  They are sojourners in any other land.

    In the Gospel Lesson appointed for today . . . Saint Luke reminds us that we too are children of a covenant.  We are children of a baptismal covenant in which we have renounced our grip upon the world, the flesh, and the devil . . . and given ourselves completely to God, . . . following Jesus as our Lord and Saviour in Whom we put our entire trust and love.  We have an identity, . . . we have a history, . . . and we have a home.  Our history began in disobedience, . . . but Jesus has made obedience possible.  Our identity was one of shame and blame, . . . but Jesus has given us the means by which to act honorably toward God and one another.  Our home was the grave -- the only option Adam’s disobedience gave us was to return to the dust from which we came -- . . . but Jesus has made it possible for us to be sons and daughters of God.  . . . The Gospel Lesson appointed for today reminds us that we have a unique identity, . . . we have a sacred history; . . . we have a home.  And it is Jesus!