This account of the temptation of Jesus by the devil
in the wilderness is in my opinion a very misinterpreted passage for two
reasons. First, the devil is not
tempting Jesus in some sort of pseudo-Lenten idea of temptation where we give
up chocolate, beer, lunch, TV, or looking at pretty women because the absence
of these things in our lives and the hungering for them will remind us of how
hungry we are for God. That whole “what
are you going to give up for Lent” thing in my humble opinion is bogus. If I were Jesus hung on a cross for four to
six hours to die after being beaten all night mercilessly by Roman soldiers who
are arguably history’s best at doing that sort of thing so that humanity can be
free of sin and death and be a new humanity living in my image, I would be a
bit insulted if the best my people can come up with is fasting from chocolate. But, Jesus is not me and you can take what I
just said with a grain of salt.
Jesus is not being tempted here in the way we think
of temptation. He’s not lusting to
partake of something he’s grown habitually dependent on such as coffee, TV, and
deserts. The Greek word is better
translated as tested. The devil is
testing him as to the nature of his person.
If he is the Son of God, how will he use his authority and abilities as
such? Will he use them to serve himself
or will he stay obedient to his Father?
Well, that was misinterpretation number one. This passage isn’t about how to deal with
temptation when it comes to things that we lust after. It is about staying true to our born again
nature as children of the living God.
The second way we go about misinterpreting this passage is presuming we
can put ourselves in the place of Jesus.
Usually when we study this passage our tendency is to put “me”, the
individual, in the place of Jesus and try to say how “I” am tested in the same
way that he was.
This has been my favourite way to deal incorrectly
with this passage over the years. In the
past I’ve preached on how we each are tempted to turn rocks into bread meaning
we take the talents that God has given us and use them to serve ourselves
rather than serve God. I’ve preached on
how we use our personal power to get our own way and build our own little empires
rather than to serve one another. I’ve preached
on putting God to the test rather than accepting our lot in faith. But those “temptations” are not what this passage
is about. The tests that Jesus faces
here are specifically aimed at him the Son of God become human and whether or
not he will succumb to acting like a fallen human or will he be faithful.
Strangely, this passage is probably the only passage
in the Gospels in which we put ourselves in the place of Jesus. When we read the stories in the Gospels we
naturally will try to say what do I have in common with whichever of the characters
in the story. Usually, we find ourselves
being like the disciples or the Pharisees or the paralytic on the mat or the
guy who has to bury his father before coming to follow. But we never put ourselves in the place of
Jesus. That really is like putting ourselves
in the place of God. We have to look
beyond the unholy Trinity of “me, myself, and I” here. It is inappropriate for us as individuals to
put ourselves in the place of Jesus in this passage and reduce its meaning to simply
Jesus giving “me” good advice on how to deal with “my” temptations.
What we can do here is put the Church in the place of
Jesus. I am not Jesus. You are not Jesus. We, us together, are the body of Christ. The Church is his body and he is our
head. We are bond to him by the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Us, this
fellowship of believers in Jesus bonded together in the Holy Spirit, (indeed us
Christians – the Church universal in all times and places) we are the body of
Christ and we, the body of Christ as fellowships of believers all over the
world face the same three tests that Jesus faced here by the wiles of the
devil. So what does this passage look
like when we place us as the body of Christ in the place of Jesus?
The first test sounds like this, “If you are the
beloved children of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” We the church in North America are in the
wilderness and very hungry these days. The
Church as we have known it has lost its authoritative place in our
communities. The local congregation is
wasting away into obscurity. Our
temptation is to taking the route of institutional survival over and above
being the body Christ, being a fellowship of believers that lives by loving
God, one another, and our neighbours sacrificially and unconditionally expecting
nothing in return. The church does not
live by buildings and programs and doing whatever we can to keep them going. It lives by the Word of God, Jesus, who gave
us one commandment – to love one another as he has loved us, sacrificially and
unconditionally.
The second test has to do with how the church tries
to rule the world. The history of
Christianity in the Western world is the story of an institution readily
corrupted by the power of empire. Paul
tells us that we reign with Christ (2 Tim. 2:11-12), but the type of reign that
he is talking about is not establishing Christian governments and ruling the
world according to a Christian interpretation of the Bible. That’s what ISIS does with Islam. Whenever the church tries to take political
power as it has done for the last 1,700 years in the West, we fail this
test. In the U.S. we see this readily
right now as they are shaping up for a Presidential election. Donald Trump plays the card of being a good
Presbyterian to increase his voter base.
Hillary Clinton plays the “I’m a devote Methodist” card. Bernie Sanders probably won’t get elected
because he’s a Jew.
The type of reign that we share in with Jesus the Christ,
the Lord of all Creation, is exhibited and exercised by how we love one
another. How different would our
communities be if local churches simply got down to feeding the hungry,
clothing the naked, looking to the needs of the elderly and children and
stopped trying to ensure its waning institutional place. What if we simply got down to just loving
people sacrificially and unconditionally rather than trying to figure out how
we are going to get people to come to our Sunday worship club to do the things
we have grown tired of doing or are otherwise too busy with other stuff to
do. Just saying.
Moving on to test number three. The devil is trying to get Jesus to prove who
he is as the Son of God by going to the highest part of the temple in Jerusalem
and jumping off knowing that he’s not going to go splat on the ground because
according to Scripture the angels will catch him. If Jesus were to do something
like this in Jerusalem at the Temple, the heart of faith at his time, he would
prove to the religious authorities beyond a doubt that he is the Son of God. They would set him up as the Messiah and
welcome in their version of the Kingdom of God.
In turn, Jesus wouldn’t have to go to the cross.
For us, this is the temptation for Christian
communities to do things that are ridiculously congregationally
self-aggrandizing, indeed spiritually suicidal, to try to prove that we are the
true people of God. We do this by trying
to establish the church by spiritual coercion rather than by going about the
quiet, humble, and yet loudly prophetic task of loving sacrificially and
unconditionally expecting nothing in return.
Well in closing, as the children of God, the body of
Christ, we – indeed this Christian fellowship, this congregation – we participate
always in all times and all places in the ongoing work of worship and reigning
that Jesus does. That is a given. Since that is the case our task, our purpose
as a congregation is exclusively to simply be a communion of people who love
God, who love our neighbour, and who love each other sacrificially and
unconditionally and to do so openly in word and in deed without reserve expecting
nothing in return. To focus on anything
else truly is succumbing to the devil’s testing. Amen.
