Location, Location, Location
Original sermon given on The First Sunday in Lent, Sunday, February 22, 2026 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
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“Location, Location, Location”
Matthew 4.1-11
In the name of the Living God and the Crucified Christ. Amen.
At the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, before things really get rolling for him, he’s led by the Spirit into a forty-day time of trial, testing, and temptation. It’s no coincidence that we begin the season of Lent, a forty-day preparation for the festival of Easter, with this reading. Here we behold our savior, both as an example for our own times of trial, testing, and temptation, but more importantly as the One, the beloved Son, the true Israel who succeeds where we fail, who endures where we give in, who is victorious even in our defeats.
This account is called “the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness,” but in the scene St. Matthew paints for us, most of the action is not actually in the wilderness.[1] (I have to say that in all my years of reading and preaching on this text I’ve never noticed this before: old dog, new tricks!) We know that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, and we assume tempted throughout that time, but of the three tests we’re specifically shown, two don’t actually take place in the wilderness at all. The first temptation the famished Jesus is in the wilderness, but then in the second the devil carries him to Jerusalem, to the pinnacle of the temple; and in the third he’s borne up a very high mountain, and in a flash shown the glory of all the kingdoms of the world.
I don’t want to appear irreverent, but doesn’t it seem like the devil takes Jesus on a bit of a field trip here? (Field trip with Satan, here we go! Everyone have their permission-slips signed?)
Reading the “Temptation in the Wilderness” as “The Temptation only 1/3 in the wilderness but mostly someplace else” places the emphasis not so much on the different type of temptations we endure (although this is true), but rather on the locations, or different spheres, of where our temptations occur. That is, this morning I’d like us to meditate on the context of our temptations, more than the content of them. Where they happen and not just what they are.
Location, location, location, the realtors still say. The first temptation, the one actually in the wilderness, is private, individual, personal. Just the devil and Jesus, and no one else around. The second occurs in the context of the community — Jesus’ people, his community of faith — at the heights of the temple in Jerusalem. The third locale is the broadest possible, the context of all the power and glory of the world. So, each time of testing becomes wider in its scope: private, community, world.
In the Wilderness
Alone, famished, at his weakest, Satan tempts him: “If you are the son of God.” That is, “Let’s assume for the sake of argument, that you are the Son of God… then why not just turn these stones to bread? Give your body what it craves. It’s only natural. No one else is here. No one can see. No one will ever know. If you are, indeed, the son of God, this the easiest of miracles for you.” Doesn’t the private, individual location of this temptation add to its difficulty, and make Christ’s victory over it even more remarkable? He does what is right, even when no one is watching.
In our solitary sins, in those private, internal “no one else will see” moments, all the more do we need to cling to God’s word and remember that we don’t live by bread alone. Especially in the lonely, private realm, Jesus warns us here to “watch what you crave”; “be careful what you consume.” Only God’s word can ultimately fill us, for “the word of the Lord endures forever” unlike all the things our sinful flesh craves, which all perish and spoil and fade.
Unlike us however, Jesus passes this test, for he would be Son of God not by taking all that he could from this world, indulging in this world, but by giving his very self as bread for the life of the world.
In the Community
The second stop on the field trip is the Holy City of Jerusalem, in the context of Jesus’ religious community, his own people. Here, Satan places him on the “pinnacle” of the temple. We don’t know precisely where this might have been — there’s some dispute. But the Jewish historian Josephus describes the temple soaring hundreds of feet above the ground, with a portico, or little wing-like structure extending east, over a deep ravine of the Kidron valley.[2] The height of the temple, and the depth of the rocky valley below would mean a horrifying death for any who would plunge down.
Satan, again, challenges him with this hypothetical: “Suppose that you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for doesn’t God’s own word say, ‘he will give his angels charge of you so that not a stone will scrape your feet.’”
Thing about the context of this location, where it’s located: In that same Jerusalem, in the sphere of his own people, we know Jesus will eventually be crucified. Can you imagine how tempting it would be to avoid that cross? To show himself as “son of God” in one dramatic moment, plunging hundreds of feet into the valley below, only to be saved at the last moment by winged warriors? He people, his community, all the Scribes and Pharisees surely would acclaim him son of God and messiah at that very moment. And then… no bloody sweat at Gethsemane, no 39 lashes, no nails, no cross, no death.
But giving in to this temptation here, avoiding that cross, would not be our Jesus, the one we worship. It would be the Jesus of Islam, where a group of followers stage and dramatic and violent rescue from the cross; or the Jesus of the gnostic heresy, where a ghost-like Christ only seemed to suffer and die, but in reality had much more important “spiritual” things to do.
No, the true Jesus our savior will not prove himself the son of God by a miraculous deliverance in Jerusalem, but by his suffering and death in Jerusalem for his people, for all people, for the sins of all the world. Even on the cross he could have summoned a legion of angels for rescue, but our Jesus is a king of a different kind.
In the World
The third and final stop on the devil’s field trip is to an unknown, soaring high mountain. Whether physically there or in spirit only, we don’t know. And we can only imagine the power and glory and splendor offered him in that amazing moment.
This is the broadest of spheres — perhaps the greatest temptation but with the most obvious sin — bowing down to Satan. Jesus could here get the most but would also give up the most. Jesus could have all of this, all the power, splendor and glory of the world, but only by being disobedient to his Father in heaven.
The great, sacred irony here, is that Jesus will indeed claim this world, and will one day be enthroned as ruler and king over all things — as we ourselves recognize on Christ the King Sunday, for example. But Jesus will accomplish it solely by being obedient to the will of his father in heaven — by bowing himself only towards to his father’s will. He’ll take the way of the cross, before the crown, of Golgotha before glory, of suffering before splendor, and thus reign in the lives of his baptized in mercy and love.
Location, Location, Location. Consider how you’re tempted in different contexts of your life, the different spheres of struggle. Privately, alone, no one there to see? Watch what you crave. In community, tempted to make it more about yourself than about God? More about success than sacrifice? Name it, claim it, use the faith to get what you want? Watch what you ask for and stay focused on the cross. And in the widest realm of the world, where you’re told you can have it all but must sacrifice your soul: Watch what you worship. Take the cross before the crown.
Location, Location, Location, most importantly helps us understand the gospel for us. Jesus has gone every place you could possible be, endured every temptation you could possibly endure, and yet and has done the work of the Father to save us. No matter how hard it was, how weak he was, how alluring it was, how easy it would be to turn away from God the Father’s plan of salvation, Jesus stayed the course, passed the test, won the victory, for us and for all people.
That includes little Theodore James, who in a few moments will be baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of this same Jesus. Like all the baptized, he will fail many times in the various spheres of his life: as an individual, in his community, and out there in the broader world. But from this day forward, we know that God’s grace accompanies him wherever he goes, from the lowest valley to the highest mountain heights. No matter what life will bring, by Jesus’ own promise, God’s grace holds him still, as it does all of us in every location, location, location.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] I am grateful to Dr. David Schmidt’s insights on this reading from “Lectionary Kick-Start”, from Concordia Seminary’s online podcast, scholar.csl.edu/lks. I have freely borrowed some of his ideas and wording throughout.
[2] France, Matthew, 132, who cites Josephus, Antiquities, 15:412
