Luke 4:1-13 – The Temptation of Christ
With today’s reading it almost feels like we’ve gone back to the beginning, or almost the beginning. We’ve been working our way through Luke’s gospel, getting a feel for who Jesus is and what this Kingdom of God looks like, and now it’s like we’ve taken a flashback like they do in the movies, to the scene just after Jesus’ Baptism at the start of his ministry.
Even though it’s from the beginning of his ministry, the Temptation or Testing of Jesus in the Wilderness is a traditional reading for the Sunday in Lent. Not because we’ve often associated Lent being tempted with sweet treats after giving up chocolate or something like that, but because this reading is reminiscent of our own wilderness experience and it sets the scene for Christ’s intentional journey toward Jerusalem, and to the cross, reminding us of what it’s all for.
In the Bible, the wilderness is often linked with exile. Exile from the garden sent east of Eden,
Exile from entering the promised land, wandering in the Sinai wilderness
Exile from the Land, Jerusalem, in the wilderness of the foreign land.
It’s a powerful metaphor. Today, we know that heading into New Zealand’s wilderness means relative isolation, where the elements and odds are stacked against us, and where we have to be intentional and prepared to survive.
In the previous chapter, after Jesus’ Baptism, the gospel author gives their take on Jesus’ Genealogy, and links him to the figure of Adam, in a way establishing Jesus as an archetypal Human, but also his divinity by linking him to God.
Many people who have reflected on this passage have noticed that the trials Jesus faces are not trials unique to his experience.
This presents us with the question, what is our wilderness?
To be sure we have our own micro-wildernesses, times, places and seasons in our lives where we feel we wander in spiritual dryness and confusion, where the good life seems like a pipe dream. This passage wants us to see that Jesus is there with us in the desert, leading us through.
Then there is the Larger, macro-wilderness if you will, of our human condition: humanity’s brokenness and seeming inclination for selfishness and evil. In the incarnation, Christ met us in this wilderness too. Christ leads us through the wilderness of our human condition, brokenness, and poor choices. Christ shows us the way to be Human.
In this depiction of Christ in the wilderness, we are meant to see a greater truth, that where humanity has seemed doomed to repeat itself in the past, Jesus overcomes.
Looking to God v2b-4
I love how verse 2 feels the need to state the obvious, in case we missed it. That after his days of fasting, Jesus was hungry. No kidding.
The first test Jesus faces plays on this hunger and is framed as a pragmatic solution to a simple problem. You’re the son of God, you have the power to create, use that power to make yourself some food. Surely this is not unreasonable! What harm is there here?
But there is more at stake here. This is about more than just bread. It’s the idea that lies behind it
The gospel author has been at pains to point out that the Spirit of God has led Jesus into the wilderness. Jesus is there because of his faithfulness to God’s calling. For him in that time, God had called him fast.
We’ve already made the link to Adam, from the Garden of Eden in Genesis, who was also tempted with a choice by a rebellious chaos creature, symbolised in a fruit tree. In that story, we see a choice presented to every person, to choose to learn wisdom, good and bad, from God, or to choose to define good and bad on our own terms.
With our modern understanding of the world, with our value on things we can see and touch, it can be difficult to talk about the devil, or “the Satan,” a title which means, “the adversary”. The Biblical authors use the language of a rebellious shadowy spiritual world to make sense of the way that evil has this insidious way of spreading itself, seemingly against all better judgment.
However, we understand this today, Scripture wants us to take seriously the fact that there are things in our world that are not aligned with God and stand in opposition to God’s kingdom of love and justice. Things that cause brokenness and mar the good images of God we are created to be.
We still encounter the temptation to define good and bad for ourselves and do what is right in our own eyes.
Jesus shows us the way through the wilderness by teaching us to rely on God’s teaching and guidance. We truly find satisfaction for the hunger in our souls by feasting on God’s Word and wisdom.
Teresa is now going to bring the first of three sonnets, written by Malcolm Guite, each reflecting on a different test that Christ faced.
God gives through Him what Satan never could;
The broken bread is our only food.
The Fountain thirsts, the Bread is hungry here
The Light is dark, the Word without a voice.
When darkness speaks it seems so light and clear.
Now He must dare, with us, to make a choice.
In a distended belly’s cruel curve
He feels the famine of the ones who lose
He starves for those whom we have forced to starve
He chooses now for those who cannot choose.
He is the staff and sustenance of life
He lives for all from one Sustaining Word
His love still breaks and pierces like a knife
The stony ground of hearts that never shared,
God gives through Him what Satan never could;
The broken bread that is our only food.
Weakness not power v5-8
The second test plays on another sacrifice Jesus had made. In the incarnation, Jesus emptied himself, he chose to lay his glory aside and be found as one of us. Subject to the same limitations and frustrations we have.
He experiences what it is like to be overlooked, targeted, and dismissed. The Jesus through whom and by whom all things were created is wandering alone in the desert, called to a mission announcing the good news of God’s reign to everyday people in the street.
The adversary tries to sow seeds of doubt. What a silly idea, Jesus. This isn’t any way to change the world. Roaming about the countryside, hanging out with nobodies. Everyone knows how we really change things. How we get things done.
Power simply works. Power means security, for you and for your vision.
Come on Jesus, If you really believe in a vision of a flourishing world, make it happen, take control. Do what must be done. Surely if it’s that good, the ends justify the means.
We’ve seen the results of this bargain made for power. How individuals, lobby groups, companies, political parties will trade seemingly anything that will secure their vision of the future. Every person has their price, it is said, and it seems to be true.
We experience the other side of these powerplays in that we feel powerless to do anything about the situations concocted by others. We can only watch the disasters unfold.
When we make our bargains for power we forget that many end up being pawns in a game for kings and queens. We don’t want to be weak, trodden on. We all want to be powerful in some way. What sort of person am I when I want something? Christ’s second test stares at us and asks us “How do you use your power”
“How do you use your power?r”.
Will we use the finite power we have to serve our own ends, and so shape our lives around that old rebellious darkness? Or will we look to God, who reigns in the power of eternal love, and come to know our place among others in relationship to the one who is worthy of all Glory? For Jesus, the ends never justify the means if the means contradict God’s character.
Teresa, would you bring us our second Sonnet.
‘So here’s the deal and this is what you get:
The penthouse suite with world-commanding views,
The banker’s bonus and the private jet
Control and ownership of all the news
An ‘in’ to that exclusive one percent,
Who know the score, who really run the show
With interest on every penny lent
And sweeteners for cronies in the know.
A straight arrangement between me and you
No hell below or heaven high above
You just admit it, and give me my due
And wake up from this foolish dream of love…’
But Jesus laughed, ‘You are not what you seem.
Love is the waking life, you are the dream.’
They will be done v9-13
One view of the last test Jesus faces is that it is a test of fame and self-glorification, the temptation or desire to win love for oneself by being spectacular. There have been many excellent reflections that unpack that idea in our age when everyone can have their two minutes of fame on social media.
But I think the text also goes further, hinting at a nuance here. It’s not clear from the reading whether or not Jesus was physically transported to these places or if it was something metaphorical or visionary. We can’t guarantee there were any people to watch a jump from the top of the Temple. But, however this played out, what seems to be at the heart of the matter is an attempt to call God’s bluff. It’s a question of trust. When it counts, will God really be in your corner?
Testing, God, says you don’t know best, God, I do. I would like you to do this for me, God. Jesus, won’t you come follow me?
It takes the serpent’s subversive suggestion: “did God really say…” and extends it: “will God really follow through…?”.
So often, we skip the testing part and go straight to keeping a plan B in our back pocket. The prophets called Israel’s leaders out on this time and again. Don’t make alliances with Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, looking to them in times of trouble will cause you injury.
What drives this is our fear of abandonment. Of being on the outside. It’s understandable really, in a world where even the truest human love appears to have its limits, it’s hard to wrap our heads around trusting the perfect love of God. So we hedge our bets, try to make alliances for ourselves, leveraging our skills, our humor, our looks, our social connections.
But Jesus refused the test of the leap of false faith. He did put himself in God’s hands, but he chose another day, on a cruel cross on a lonely hill. While his death wasn’t spectacular or unusual, it was a spectacle, as people lined up and threw taunts.
In the face of every reason to not trust, Jesus remained faithful, trusting God to care for him. And because of his faithfulness, God gave Jesus the name above all names and put everything under his authority. Showing us how the depth and sureness of divine love, we can surrender ourselves to.
Teresa would bring us our final sonnet.
‘Temples and Spires are good for looking down from;
You stand above the world on holy heights,
Here on the pinnacle, above the maelstrom,
Among the few, the true, unearthly lights.
Here you can breathe the thin air of perfection
And feel your kinship with the lonely star,
Above the shadow and the pale reflection,
Here you can know for certain who you are.
The world is stalled below, but you could move it
If they could know you as you are up here,
Of course they’ll doubt, but here’s your chance to prove it
Angels will bear you up, so have no fear….’
‘I was not sent to look down from above
It’s fear that sets these tests and proofs, not Love.’
Closing
Perhaps when we see these tests that Jesus faced in this light, we can see, as one New Testament Scholar puts it,
“that the Christian discipline of fighting temptation is not about self-hatred, or rejecting parts of our God-given humanity. It is about celebrating God’s gift of Full humanity and like someone learning a musical instrument, discovering how to tune it and play it to its best possibility.”
Jesus does for us what we could not do for ourselves, and shows us the way through the bareness of our wilderness into life with God, by looking to God for wisdom, embracing God’s way of weakness over power and by trusting in the perfect love of the one who promised life with God.
Amen.