Temptation
03/09/2025
This week marks the first Sunday in the season of Lent. The Gospel reading for today comes from Luke chapter 4 verses 1 - 13. In today’s reading, we see the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. In the Gospel of Luke, this event follows directly after Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan river. The event at the river was the initial launch of Jesus’ ministry. Some who stood by heard the words of John, as well as the words from God, and took notice of Jesus. His first disciples came as a result of his baptism.
Immediately after this event and the gathering of his first disciples, we see Jesus leave the crowd, and the new disciples to go into the wilderness. The time in the wilderness was likely a time of preparation. However, it was also a time of temptation. Jesus was on the brink of beginning the work that he had come to do. Jesus, fully man, was seeing the power and his influence was having on the people around him. He was not at a point of decision. He knew who had sent him, and that he came with the mission of teaching God’s kingdom. But now for the first time he was seeing the effect that his words and actions had on the people. While it may seem that Jesus would not be impacted by these events, we have to remember that he was a man. As a man, he was subject to all the same influences and pitfalls that we face in our human lives. His trip to the forest was a time of centering and preparation for what was to come. It was also, I believe, a time to make firm his commitment to the mission. In facing the temptations of the devil he faced the same kinds of questions that we face in our lives. Questions like, will we act to our own self interest or for the interest of our family, community and world. The greatest temptations in our lives do not come from external, supernatural forces but from within our own humanity.
By saying this I am not denying that there are powers in the world beyond our human understanding. Just as God exists, so do forces of evil that reside outside of the world that we can comprehend. What I am saying is that for most of our lives it will be basic human needs and emotions that challenge us the most. If we make a decision that we wish to live in God’s kingdom the daily challenges we face will most often be rooted in our own lives. Daily life is filled with opportunities that will make us decide if we putting God’s priorities or our own first
Small subtle decisions will ask us to compromise God’s principles in order to gain a little more for ourselves. They may not be bad things, they are often good things that God has created for us and wishes for us to have. However, in our desire to acquire or achieve these good things there are often many choices available. The choices that honor God will never be the ones that hold others back or push others down. In every situation, if we look, we can find choices that lift us and others up as well as choices that help us while hurting others. These are the life temptations that I am talking about.
Jesus came to be the savior of the world, and as that he came with power and dominion over the world. However, to show the kingdom of God as he wished the disciples and others to see it, he had to live in a way that exemplified God’s love. The first thing that the devil offers Jesus is a simple thing. God does not want anyone, including Jesus to starve, or even to suffer with hunger. The devil’s first offer is just a bit of bread. He says to Jesus, “Command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” We know Jesus can do this; we see this exact thing later in the Gospel. However, this is a tricky request from the devil. He is telling Jesus that his power is available to him to use as he likes. He is telling Jesus to use what has been given to him to serve his own needs. Jesus sees this slippery slope for what it is. Knowing he has all the power and authority of God on earth, he replies that bread is not what is needed to sustain a man. To place his needs in front of God’s mission was not even a temptation to Jesus. How do we find and live with that kind of kingdom focused in our own life?
The next temptation is the one I want to focus on. Verses 5 and 6 state:
5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.
First off, we need to recognize this was a mystical, supernatural experience. It tells us “in an instant” the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. He didn’t take out his phone and flip through a PowerPoint of major cities or scroll through google earth. We have no idea what this experience was like, or how it took place, but Luke tells us this was his experience. For today I don’t want to think about what this was like for Jesus. I am not even going to focus much on how he responded. Like the invitation to create bread, Jesus passed on the devil’s offer to turn his back on God and pursue earthy power.
When I read this passage the thing I wanted to learn about most, to talk about most was this character, the devil, and how the passage describes him. Who is this character that the passage refers to as the devil? Where did he get the authority over the world that he is showing Jesus? How can he give this authority to someone else? These two versus prompt many questions, so I set about thinking about them. To try and answer them, I had to think about and try to answer other questions. I had to think about scripture and what it tells us about God and the world and who or what has authority over it.
If we start by thinking only about Jesus’ people, the Israelites, we see God gave authority over them to Moses. Moses was to lead them, free them, protect them and teach them. But this is not Moses talking to Jesus. Later God gives authority to Saul to be king over his people. However before Saul even died God had already anointed a new King. Next, I realized that those men were not even “big” enough to be the one speaking to Jesus on this day. The devil had shown Jesus “all the Kingdom’s of the world.” Never did even Moses or David have authority over all the world, only over God’s people.
So I had to look for something bigger, a time when God granted authority over not just his chosen people, but over all people, over all creation. This took me back to the beginning. In Genesis we are told that God created Adam and gave him dominion over all the world. He was to oversee all of creation, on land, in the sea, and under the sea. So, is this devil a representation of Adam, the man. No, that does not seem right. Adam has died and with him his dominion on the earth. What did Adam represent? Adam, the first man, represented humanity. It was humanity that God, through Adam, empowered with all authority over creation.
The devil, I believe, represents the humanity that we all share as we walk out our daily lives. That humanity can show love and care for creation but it can also bring great harm. The spirit of humanity, serving its own interest, has come to offer Jesus all power and authority, if only he will shift his allegiance from God to himself. If Jesus is willing to put his human wants ahead of God, then the spirit of humanity, and not the Spirit of God, will reign over creation.
This is the temptation that we face. The human spirit, full of good and bad desires, is alive in us, just as it lived in Jesus. The human spirit, left to its own design, is easily corrupted to seek and to serve only itself. The temptations are many. We are rarely satisfied with enough bread; we want to be full. We can become discontent with our lives in numerous ways, and rarely is enough ever all that we desire. Food, entertainment, money, power, and attention all call out to us. They promise to make us more than we are, and they remind us that we are not yet “enough.” Jesus says we are enough. After 40 days without eating, Jesus knew that a loaf of bread would not sustain him; he also knew that something far greater than bread was already doing the job.
We, like Jesus, are challenged to be aware of what really sustains us. We are told that after we drink we will be thirsty again. Our nature, our humanity, will always want more. But, just like Jesus, we can recognize that God’s Spirit is enough. To be filled with that spirit is available to each person who chooses to live in the kingdom of God. Each decision that we make, big or small, is a step. Each step is taking us somewhere. In the world as Jesus explained it, there are two places to be. We can be in the kingdom of God, or in the kingdom of the world. Each step, each choice, each action determines where we are going to be next. The kingdom of God is ruled by His Holy Spirit, and the kingdom of man is ruled by the spirit of humanity. We have access to both. The spirit of man seems to speak loudly and to drive us to live in the human kingdom, but the Spirit of God is a still small voice. We have to choose which we believe is more powerful, more truthful as we go through our lives. It can be hard to choose the still small voice when the voice of the world is always pulling at us. That is a mission. We, like Jesus, will face the devil over and over because life is full of “opportune times” for us to be tempted. Like Jesus, our responsibility is to choose to walk in the kingdom of God.
Thanks for reading.
David
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You can find this week’s reading here.
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