This is a communion homily I gave on March 22,2009:

This is the season of Lent.  We at RCC don’t emphasize or do much to practice Lent, but the 40 days of Lent is a reminder of other 40 day events in scripture, not the least of which is the 40 days our Savior spent in the wilderness after His baptism.

In the gospel accounts of His baptism by John (which is Christ’s appointment by God as the warrior priest, prophet and king), Matthew says the Spirit descended on Him like a dove and the Father commended Him from Heaven, and then,

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. (4:1-2)

Mark says,

12 Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. 13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts…

And Luke says,

1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.

The very first thing Jesus did following His baptism was to do battle with the Devil. It was the Spirit who filled Him and led Him into this battle. He is our Spirit-empowered deliverer par excellence. When He finished the skirmish in the wilderness the Gospels say that the Devil left Him and angels came and ministered to Him. Presumably by giving Him food and rest. But that was just the beginning. Luke said that He went by the power of the Spirit to Galilee and began His public ministry, preaching about the coming of the kingdom and doing works that brought it forth in the world. Peter Leithart wrote:

The Spirit is the Warrior Spirit.  He clothes Othniel and Gideon, Jephthah and Samson and Saul, and trains their hands to fight.  He descends on Jesus like a dove, and then drives Him to the wilderness to battle Satan in the howling waste.  By the Spirit, Jesus heals.  By the Spirit, He casts out demons.  By the Spirit, He cleanses lepers.  By the Spirit, He topples Satan’s kingdom.  By the Spirit, He binds the strong man and plunders his house.

He is our example, for after the first Christian Pentecost, we too are Spirit-empowered deliverers. Again Peter Leithart:

The Warrior Spirit falls on the disciples, and Peter boldly calls the Jews to repentance for crucifying the Prince of Life.  The Spirit makes war against the flesh, as the flesh wars against the Spirit, but the Spirit will be the victor.  It’s only through the Spirit that we can trample Satan underfoot.  By Him, we put on the armor of God to fight principalities and powers and wickedness in high places.  The Spirit is a sword that circumcises hearts rather than flesh, and the word is the sword of the Spirit that divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow.  The Warrior Spirit stirs our spirits, filling us with battle rage, with holy blood wrath.  By the Spirit, each of us become one of God’s beserkers, [driven with] the zeal of Jesus.

After we are baptized we are filled with the Spirit and led into battle with the world, the flesh and the devil. We become hungry and weakened in the battle, and God invites us to this table to renew our strength so that we can rise up again for Kingdom work. Interestingly, the section in 1 Corinthians that deals with Paul’s instructions to the Church about the Lord’s Supper is followed immediately with a discussion of the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to believers enabling us to be His ministers of Christ in this world. We are His Spirit-empowered deliverers.

Tags: Holy Spirit, Lent, Peter Leithart