First Reading: Deuteronomy 26:1-11
1{Moses said to the Israelites,} “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. 3And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’ 4Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. 5And you shall make response before the Lord your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. 6And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. 7Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. 9And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God. 11And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.”
Psalm 91:1-13
1He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, abides under the shadow of the Almighty. 2He shall say to the Lord, “You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust.” 3He shall deliver you from the snare of the hunter and from the deadly pestilence. 4He shall cover you with his pinions, and you shall find refuge under his wings; his faithfulness shall be a shield and buckler. 5You shall not be afraid of any terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day; 6Of the plague that stalks in the darkness, nor of the sickness that lays waste at midday. 7A thousand shall fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. 8Your eyes have only to behold to see the reward of the wicked 9Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your habitation, 10There shall no evil happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling. 11For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. 12They shall bear you | in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. 13You shall tread upon the lion and adder; you shall trample the young lion and the serpent under your feet.
Second Reading: Romans 10:8b-13
8b“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Gospel: Luke 4:1-13
1Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” 5And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” 9And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” 12And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Knowledge vs. Believing
The defense attorney looks at his client and says, “I have good news and bad news.” “What’s the bad news?” asks his client. The lawyer says, “Your blood matches the DNA found at the crime scene.” “No!” exclaims the client. “What’s the good news?” “Well,” the lawyer says, “your cholesterol is down to 170.” Our lives are filled with good news, and bad news. Yet somehow, the world, it seems, is filled with more bad news than good. There’s bad news everywhere we look. Violent unrest in the Middle East. The war in Ukraine. Tariffs, inflation, political posturing, layoffs, the reaction of the Stock Market…it seems the airwaves and our inboxes are filled with one troubling story after another.
The story is told of a construction worker in Lehighton, Pennsylvania who accidentally severed his hand with a power saw while working in a basement. The pain quickly became so great that his coworker put two nails into his foot, pinning his foot to the floor. What did you do that for, asked the first guy? Well, you’re not thinking about your missing hand anymore, are you?
Commenting on the accident, one observer said, “In life we will, at times, go through some intensely painful experiences: the death of someone close, dealing with a broken past, relationship pain, and more. In reaction, we will, at times, do foolish things to try and ease the pain, such as substance abuse, workaholism, materialism, etc. And oftentimes the “cure” we try is worse than the problem!” The whole world seems to be in pain and all we seem to hear is bad news everywhere we look. Bad news in families. Bad news in cities, and bad news among nations. But thanks be to God!, you and I are blessed; we have Good News to share with this hurting world.
As we begin this season of Lent, as we spend the next 40 days contemplating the life, passion, and death of Jesus, we have the healing news that this world needs: into this sin filled world, bursting with bad news, came extraordinarily Good News–the Good News of Jesus Christ. But the world will never hear of this Good News unless you and I share what we know, believe, and confess. St. Paul put it like this: “. . . if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in [Jesus] will never be put to shame’” (Vs. 9-11). You and I have the message the world longs to hear, and we cannot, and must not, keep this amazing information to ourselves.
Now we need to be careful, putting our faith in Jesus and being a faithful disciple of His, doesn’t mean that we won’t experience difficult times. Consider the Apostles. St. Paul, for example, had difficult times. Shipwrecked three times, imprisoned three times, beaten three times, left adrift as sea, and ostracized by and from his own people. Paul isn’t saying that those who trust in Christ will live a life of ease. It does mean, however, that the person who trusts in Jesus will be able to cope with and better conquer whatever adversity life sends. What Jesus tells us, is that He will be with us always. Additionally, we’re also encouraged by other people who have been dealt a difficult hand in life and yet have overcome that difficulty.
Kent Crockett, in his book, Making Today Count for Eternity, tells the story of Trey Wood. Wood was born with only one arm. Most people assumed that his handicap would prevent him from participating in a sport like football. However, instead of feeling sorry for himself, Trey decided to prove the experts wrong. Not only did he learn to play football, but he also received an athletic scholarship to Sam Houston State University. He went beyond expectations and earned a starting position as a defensive back. Another one-armed young man named Dawuan Miller also had a dream to play football. Despite his disability he, too, earned a scholarship and became the starting defensive back for Boise State University.
Both players played as starters. Both excelled at their positions. Despite lacking an arm, Wood broke the career record for Sam Houston State with eleven blocked kicks. Dawuan silenced the doubters by using his one arm to intercept two passes in playoff games. On September 16, 1995, Sam Houston State played Boise State in football. For the first time in the history of the sport, two colleges played a game with one-armed defensive backs starting for each team. Few will remember the score of the game, but no one who was there, will forget how two one-armed players’ gutsy performances overshadowed the rest of the talent on the field. Each of these two football players did more with one arm than most people do with two. And when we focus our energies on serving God, our ability to overcome grows exponentially.
When we join our spirit with the divine Spirit of God, we will be empowered to turn almost any difficult experience into a victory. “Anyone who trusts in [Jesus] shall never be put to shame.” When we believe in our hearts and confess Him with our mouth, our life will never be lived in vain, and Jesus assures us that we will never be put to shame. St. Paul says there are two elements to trusting in Christ: “Believing with your heart” and “confessing with your mouth.” These two components are different and are linked, we must confess what we believe. Why does Paul link these two together?
To better understand why, we need to examine these two statements. First, notice that Paul says, “believe with your heart;” he didn’t say, believe with your mind. Certainly, believing with your mind is part of the equation. Jesus doesn’t expect us to check our brains at the door when we come into worship. I believe it was Mark Twain who defined faith as believing in something you know is not true. But that’s wrong and dangerous. Some people have done some pretty stupid things in the name of faith. That’s not what authentic Christian faith is. All truth is a gift of the Holy Spirit. And if something clearly isn’t true, it cannot come from God. God created us with a brain to think and reason, and I believe if Jesus were here today, He would say, “Use your brains, my friends, use your brains.”
We’ve all heard the story of the man who drown waiting for God to rescue him. As the flood waters came to his door, a deep-water rescue truck came by. No, the man says, I have faith that God will rescue me. Soon the water was to the second story of his home and a team came by in a boat. Again, the man refused to go with them saying, I have faith God will rescue me. Finally, the flood waters pushed the man to the roof of the house. Before long a helicopter came to rescue him. Again, he refused saying, God will rescue me. The man drown. As he stood before Jesus, the man asked Jesus why He let him die. Jesus, with a puzzled look on His face said, I sent a truck, a boat, and even a helicopter, what more could you expect? Intellectual faith alone isn’t enough. To trust in Jesus requires that we embrace Him with our emotions, with our imagination, with “every fiber of our being,” as we like to say.
Pastor Michael Yaconelli tells of the first time his two-year-old nephew saw snow. The whole family gathered around to witness this momentous event. The boy’s eyes grew wide with awe as he saw the sparkling crystals fall from the sky. He quivered at the touch of a snowflake on his face. As Yaconelli writes, “His mind was a confusion of strange, conflicting realities: white, cold . . . tingling . . . melting all of it causing an overload so great, so overwhelming, he fell backward (into the drifts) . . . He had given up trying to understand snow and had given in to experiencing snow.”
There’s a difference in believing in Christ in an abstract way and experiencing Christ as a reality in your life. Consider this. In my head I know about String theory; in my heart however, I believe God spoke and the stars, planets, and everything in all the universe was created. In my mind I know about the theory of evolution; in my heart I believe in God spoke and everything in this world was formed. In my mind I know the laws surrounding so called marriage equality; in my heart I believe that God made them male and female, and marriage is between one man and one woman. Just because I know something in my head doesn’t mean I believe it or confess it.
St. Paul tells us to believe with our hearts as well as our minds. Another person has explained the difference as, there is head knowledge and there is heart knowledge. Knowledge in the head is simply information; it informs the heart. The heart is the seat of the will. The seat of the will is where our faith is stored, where our emotions reside, and where our actions originate. This is why Jesus warned the disciples, “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart” (Matthew 15:18). I can know all sorts of things, but unless I believe them in my heart, it’s nothing but information. When we believe something, real or not, it will affect our actions.
People hold a variety of convictions relating to the prevalence of modern diseases. In the late 1800’s a natural health movement came to the forefront in Europe. A leader in this movement was Adolf Just. Adolf Just taught that a vegan diet, abstinence of smoking and alcohol and the necessity of walking barefoot and sleeping on the ground all had curative effects on the body. His teachings paved the way for a movement called Body Earthers.
Body Earthers believe that processed foods, sedentary lifestyles, or increased exposure to toxins are among the causes of all diseases. According to Body Earthers, the reason we suffer so much sickness is that we’re simply not spending enough time with our bare feet in wet grass. This movement teaches that an overabundance of free radicals within our bodies can lead to diabetes, cancer, inflammation, and all sorts of other ailments. While some antioxidant-possessing foods can counteract free radicals, Earthers say that we’re missing out on one of the most vital antioxidants of all—the Earth.
Earthers theorize that the Earth can transfer positive electrons into the body, and these electrons have the ability to neutralize potentially harmful free radicals. The ball of the foot is the ideal area to absorb the electrons, since it “connects to all acupuncture highpoints and essentially connects to every nook and cranny of your body”—but just being in general contact with the ground is understood to be beneficial. They further teach that we, unlike our ancestors, who regularly walked and slept on the Earth, are suffering because our rubber-soled shoes, concrete, and skyscrapers that limit our exposure to natural ground. What we believe can have great power in our life. Even if what we believe is wrong, it can affect us in profound ways.
Now to be clear, St. Paul isn’t advocating a course in homeopathic medicines or dietary practices, Paul is telling us to believe in something specific–the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Imagine for a moment what it does to a person when he or she truly believes in Jesus, that Christ died for our sins and that on the third day “God raised Him from the dead . . .” Think how it would change our lives if that were as real to us as the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Knowing for certain that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again, wouldn’t that temper our fear of death? Knowing “Christ and Him Crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2), wouldn’t that mitigate the uncertainties about this life? Think how much more effective we would be as disciples if we truly believed and confess that because Christ lives, we too will live! Truly believing that Jesus walks with us every moment of every day would make handling our problems, our stress, our frustrations, and our pain, so much easier. We would have a sense of victory in all things, if we truly believed the Gospel.
St. Paul, quoting the Old Testament prophet Joel, says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Furthermore, quoting Deuteronomy 30:14 Paul writes, “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart, (that is the word of faith we proclaim). Paul was also recalling the promise God made to His people in Jeremiah 31:33, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” This is why St. Paul continued by saying, “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’” This brings us to Paul’s second statement which is joined to the first by the conjunction and. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord.’” This is certainly the harder part of Paul’s statements here.
Strangely enough, talking about Jesus with others is more difficult for many people than trusting Jesus. How many times have you heard, there are two things you should never talk about–politics and religion? And yet, this is one of the requirements of our faith, that we share with others what God has done for us in our lives. Some of you may remember the name, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. Bishop Sheen was a powerful 20th century speaker and TV Bible teacher. He was so popular at one time during the 1950s that he knocked the Jackie Gleason television show off its perch as the number one television show in America.
Fulton Sheen wasn’t bashful at all about confessing Jesus with his mouth. One day, late in the thirties, when he was presiding over the weekly radio program, The Catholic Hour, Sheen put in a telephone call to the renowned curmudgeon Heywood Broun. They had never met, so Broun asked, “What are you calling me about?” Sheen answered: “Your immortal soul.” Nobody had ever spoken to Heywood Broun in quite that way. He was so astonished by the experience that, a few months later, he did some radical thinking, abandoned his agnosticism, and became a Catholic.
Fulton Sheen had the advantage of a spellbinding presence. One Sunday the network announcer, at the close of Sheen’s broadcast, solemnly informed the radio audience that the subject of Sheen’s next show would be, “Thou hast cast bread upon the waters.” Then the radio announcer gave the network sign off, “You are listening, to the National Breadcasting Company.”
Most of us are not as spellbinding as Bishop Sheen. But’s that’s okay. God also needs people who are good listeners as well. There are many people today in pain and they need someone to listen to them. And after they have poured out their hearts, would it not be appropriate to say, I believe in someone who can help you with that, His name is Jesus. Let’s pray about what’s going on. Or, you could share a few passages of scripture that give you comfort in difficult times. What is there in your faith that gives you the strength to carry on? Share that with others. Could it be that the best thing we could do for a friend is to share with them what has been most helpful to us?
I’m not suggesting that we mount a soap box, only that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Listening to doubts, fears, and longings of those around us and telling people what you know to be true in our heart is what we’re being called to do. Not only will we help your neighbor, but we will also be fulfilling the words of St. Paul, “Believe with your heart and you will be justified, and one who confess with your mouth and is so saved. For no one who believes in [Jesus] will not be put to shame. And the message for our neighbors? “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now that is the Good News the world is longing to hear!
Amen