Get behind Me, Satan!

 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.  And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.  And the devil said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'"  Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.  Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."  And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written,

 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"

Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.  For it is written:

'He shall give His angels charge over you,
To keep you,'

and

'In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"

And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"  Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.

- Luke 4:1-13

Yesterday, we read that as the people were in expectation, and all reasoned in their hearts about John the Baptist, whether he was the Christ or not, John answered, saying to all, "I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire."  And with many other exhortations he preached to the people.  But Herod the tetrarch, being rebuked by him concerning Herodias, his brother Philips's wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done, also added this, above all, that he shut John up in prison.  When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened.  And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, "You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased."

  Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness . . .   The lectionary skips over the genealogy of Jesus, in which we're told that Jesus begins His ministry at about thirty years of age.  (See Luke 3:23-38.)   My study bible explains here that Jesus' exodus into the wilderness following baptism has a dual symbolism.  It fulfills the Old Testament type in which Israel journeyed into the wilderness for forty years after "baptism" in the Red Sea.  Secondly, it prefigures our own journey through the fallen world after baptism as we struggle towards the Kingdom.

. . . being tempted for forty days by the devil.  To be tempted is to walk through a world in which evil is present, and engage in the "struggle towards the Kingdom," as my study bible put it, above.   A note explains that to be tempted is to be tested in some fundamental area of faith.  As Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into this struggle, so we, also, are accompanied by the Spirit.  My study bible says that the wilderness is a battleground, and thence an image of the world in spiritual terms:  the dwelling place of demons and also a source of divine tranquility and victory. 

And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.  And the devil said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'"  Here's Christ's first temptation; He's practiced a fast in preparation for His ministry.  The first test isn't about hunger but rather about His identity as Son, His relationship to God.  So, what's this Kingdom as Son to be about?  Is it only about His worldly comfort?  Jesus' rejection is about His resolution of oneness with the Father, that He will live by "every word of God."  Everything comes second to this, even His hunger, and thereby the category of "worldly comfort."   It's a reversal of Adam, says my study bible, in which Adam disregarded the divine word in order to pursue the passions of the body.  It's really all about what comes first, what is paramount.   My study bible notes, "the New Adam -- Christ -- conquers all temptation by the divine word, giving human nature the power to conquer Satan."   This resistance of temptation to Jesus' hunger is also a "reversal" of the temptation of the Israelites in the wilderness, in which they learned dependence upon God.  Jesus answers to the devil are all from Deuteronomy.   Here He's quoting Deuteronomy 8:3.

Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.  Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."  And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"   Here Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:13.  We'll note also that each time Jesus rebukes the devil, it's with the truth and power of Scripture.  To become immersed in Scripture, my study bible reminds us, is to be armed in order to resist and drive away every temptation  (see Psalm 118:11).   Once again we note that this is a temptation about what it means to be Son, how Jesus will use His power, what kind of a Kingdom this is.  Everything depends on His loyalty, love, and oneness with the Father.

Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.  For it is written:  'He shall give His angels charge over you,  to keep you,' and 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"  The devil quotes Scripture, seemingly trying to trip Jesus up with His own weapon already used against the devil.  My study bible says that Satan vainly tries to use the Scriptures -- as do the Pharisees in John 7:52 -- but Satan neither understands their truth nor their power.  It notes, "Knowing and quoting Scripture without true understanding is worthless at best and ultimately condemnable.  Without true understanding through the Holy Tradition of the Church, the Scriptures are robbed of their authority (see also 2 Peter 1:19-21)." Again this is a temptation to use power in a "personal" or self-centered way, without the guidance of the Father.  It's also tempting Jesus to question or to need to "prove" His relationship to the Father as Son.

And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"  This quotation is from Deuteronomy 6:16.  My study bible tells us that trials and temptations will come on their own -- we shouldn't intentionally expose ourselves to danger in order to prove God's protection.  To do so is to tempt the LORD.

 Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.  This verse seems to bear out the truth of the note quoted just above:  temptations will come at certain "times."  We don't have to seek them out.  One such time for the apostles is in the garden at Gethsemane, when Jesus tells them, "Pray that you do not enter into temptation"  (Luke 22:46).   Another example is Peter's immediate reaction to Jesus' news that He will be killed (see Matthew 16:21-23).

One thing we can read very clearly in today's Gospel reading:  Jesus' dependence, right from the beginning, is solely on the Father.  As we observed numerous times in John's Gospel, everything Jesus does and is refers constantly back to the Father.  Every teaching, every sense of who He is, every kind of way of relationship and relatedness goes back to the Father.  Here, the devil's three temptations are essentially about a selfish understanding of what it is to be a  Son, to be tempted to use power, authority, standing, and the love of God the Father, in ways that ignore the counsel of the Father.  In so doing, Jesus undoes the Fall, the temptation in the Garden, the original sin of the world.  But He does so as one of us, with our own temptations, as a vulnerable human being.  My study bible has a note which I quoted above that suggests that all of this is done with the help of the Holy Spirit, and this is something that we always need to remember -- that we have the help of the Spirit who is with us.  My study bible also notes that the temptations of the Israelites in the wilderness, which Jesus' time in the wilderness is a sort of "picture" of, or type, was a time in which they were tested in order to develop a reliance upon God.  A spiritual director once suggested to me that we, too, may go through the same things in life, for the same purpose, in order to develop a deepening reliance upon God.  That is certainly what Jesus affirms in His responses here.  We've just been through a great deal of reading in the Gospel of John, and Jesus' expression of relationship to the Father is still fresh in my mind.  The explicit and repeated need to include us in the love of God is in some way paralleled here, but with maybe a different "viewpoint."  It always goes back to the Father.  Here, it is Jesus who is tempted.  But the example is for all of us, and all of us are included in His prayer at the Last Supper in this oneness with the Father, and the love of the Father.  Our dependence should be as His.  It's our real rock of faith, especially when temptation comes.  This is why the devil quotes Scripture without understanding and for false purposes.  It's this love that makes all the difference.