"Your salvation does not hang on your wilderness performance. It hangs on His!" Invocavit 2026

22. February 2026
Invocavit
Matthew 4:1-11

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

“Invocavit me.” He shall call upon Me. That is how this Sunday receives its name. It is drawn from the Psalm: “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him” (Psalm 91:15). That promise governs everything today.

Lent begins not with our calling upon God, but with the Son calling upon His Father. Not first with our struggle against temptation, but with Christ entering the wilderness for us.

The Gospel places Him there immediately: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). Notice that carefully. He was led. This was not an accident. Not a miscalculation. Not weakness. The Spirit drives Him into combat.

And He goes as the Second Adam. The first Adam was placed in a garden. Surrounded by abundance. No hunger. No thirst. No thorns. Only one prohibition. And he fell. The Second Adam stands in a wasteland. No food. No comfort. Forty days of fasting. And there He stands for you.

“And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry” (Matthew 4:2).

That sentence should not be rushed past. He was hungry. Real hunger. Human hunger. He does not pretend at humanity. He assumes it. He feels it. He suffers it. The Son of God stands weak in the flesh. And that is when the tempter comes.

“If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Matthew 4:3).

It is not merely about bread. It is about sonship. “If You are the Son of God…” The same voice that whispered in Eden now whispers here. The same strategy: sow doubt in the Word of God. At His Baptism, the Father had declared, “This is My beloved Son.” The devil now presses: “If You are…”

It is the same attack he wages on you. “If you are baptized… If you are forgiven… If you belong to God… why hunger? Why suffering? Why deprivation?” And what does Christ do? He answers with Scripture.

“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ ” (Matthew 4:4).

He does not argue philosophically. He does not perform a miracle to silence the accusation. He clings to the Word. He lives as Israel failed to live. Israel hungered in the wilderness and complained. Israel demanded bread and tested the Lord. But Christ trusts. He strives with God and wins.

The second temptation escalates. The devil takes Him to the holy city, sets Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and now quotes Scripture himself: “For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over You…’ ” (Matthew 4:6).

This is how temptation often comes. Not through obvious evil, but through distorted truth. Psalm 91 is twisted. The promise of protection becomes an invitation to presumption. Throw Yourself down. Force the Father’s hand. Demand visible proof.

Christ answers again: “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God’ ” (Matthew 4:7). Faith does not manipulate God. Faith receives. Faith waits. Faith trusts even when no angel appears.

The third temptation reveals the core conflict: worship. “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). There it is. First, Bread.Then, Spectacle. And now, Glory. A kingdom without the cross. Authority without suffering. Power without obedience. But the Son will not take a crown that bypasses Golgotha.

“Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve’ ” (Matthew 4:10). And the devil leaves Him.

You see? Jesus is not merely a moral example. He is a substitute. He stands where you failed. He obeys where you did not. He remains faithful where you were faithless. That means you are not neutral observer in this story. You are the ones who turned stones into idols. You are the ones who demanded signs. You are the ones who grasped for glory.

St. Paul puts it bluntly: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” (Galatians 3:10). That is not theoretical idea. That is the diagnostic. The Law exposes the same unbelief that Eden exposed. And yet Paul continues: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

That wilderness victory leads to a tree. The obedience in the desert culminates at the cross. There, He bears the curse you earned. This is why Lent cannot become a self-improvement season. If you treat this as forty days to conquer your vices by grit and religious discipline, you have misunderstood the Scriptures. The wilderness is Christ’s battlefield, not yours.

You do not defeat Satan by fasting better. You do not silence accusation by stronger resolve. You survive only because the Son has already triumphed. Notice how the Gospel ends: “Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him” (Matthew 4:11). Angels minister to Him so that He may minister to you.

And this is where Psalm 91 returns: “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble” (Psalm 91:15). The Father answers the Son. Not by removing the cross, but by raising Him from the dead. The wilderness is not the end. The grave is not the end. In Christ, that promise now belongs to you.

You will face temptation. You will feel hunger — not only for food, but for recognition, control, comfort, vindication. You will hear the whisper: “If you are a child of God…” And you will fail. That must be said plainly. You will not match His record. You will not answer every accusation perfectly. You will sin.

But your salvation does not hang on your wilderness performance. It hangs on His.

You are baptized into this victorious Son. The One who refused bread apart from the Father now feeds you with His own Body. The One who refused to test God now invites you to trust Him. The One who refused false glory now gives you a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

Lent preaches honestly. It teaches sober judgment. It strips away illusions. It reminds you that the Christian life is not triumphalism. It is warfare. It is cross-bearing. It is clinging to the Word when hunger gnaws. But it also teaches confidence — not in yourself, but in Christ.

When the devil accuses, you answer not with your spiritual résumé but with Scripture: “It is written.” You answer with your Baptism. You answer with Absolution. You answer with the Supper. Because the decisive battle has already been fought. The Son entered the wilderness for you. He emerged obedient. He went to Jerusalem. He went to the cross. He rose.

So now, when you call upon the Lord, you do so in Him. And the promise stands: “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him” (Psalm 91:15).

That deliverance is not abstract. It is crucified and risen. It has a name. Jesus.

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin