Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve"

 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, 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 he 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 Philip'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, being tempted for forty days by the devil.   My study bible says that the exodus of Jesus into the wilderness following His baptism has a dual symbolism.  First, it fulfills the Old Testament type, in which Israel journeyed in the wilderness for forty years after its "baptism" in the Red Sea.  Second, it prefigures our own journey through the fallen world after baptism as we struggle towards the Kingdom.  It's important to understand, from the point of view of emphasis in the Gospels, that Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness for this struggle.   The wilderness is a battleground, an image of the world in the sense that it is both the dwelling place of evil (or demons) and also a source of divine tranquility and victory, the beauty of nature as inspiration to worship Creator.

And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. Jesus is tempted for forty days.  This is a reversal of Israel's falling into temptation in the wilderness.  The Israelites were tested for forty years and were disobedient and disobedient and disloyal.  They were humbled by first being allowed by God to go hungry and then fed with manna to help them learn dependence upon God (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).  Jesus is tempted with hunger for forty days, and yet doesn't sin.  His answers to the devil come from Deuteronomy, and call for loyalty to God.  Christ's forty day fast is the basis for the Church's Lenten fast before Holy Week, and by tradition also before Christmas.  He fasts to overcome temptation, giving us an example of our own capacities and limitations in the face of temptation.  His hunger doesn't control Him.  We, too, have the Holy Spirit with us to help us face our own struggles.

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.'"   My study bible notes that the devil challenges Christ's relationship to the Father.  If You are the Son of God calls into question the Father's declaration at Jesus' Baptism (see yesterday's reading, above).  The devil wants Jesus to act independently, detaching Himself from the will of the Father.  In His divine nature, Christ shares one with with the Father and the Holy Spirit; in John 5:30, Jesus says that He can do nothing of Himself apart from the Father.  But as human being, Jesus possesses free will and at all times must choose to remain obedient to the divine will of the Father.

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.'"  Jesus has already rejected an earthly kingdom in the sense that He shows us not to pursue earthly comfort in the "food which perishes" (John 6:27).  In Christ, we have the power to conquer temptation.  Here the temptation extends to earthly power and possessions, a worldly glory rather than the glory of God.  Jesus is asked to choose worldly power over the Kingdom of God, as the devil is the "ruler of this world" (John 12:31), and has also been called "the god of this age" (2 Corinthians 4:4), because the whole world is in his power (1 John 5:19).  Jesus refuses earthly glory, which would lead Him away from His mission of suffering and death for the redemption of the world.

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.'"  Since so much of Christ's power to deflect temptation comes through Scripture, Satan tries to use Scripture to put God's power of protection to the test (see also 2 Peter 1:19-21).  The devil quotes from Psalm 91:11-12.  Jesus' response teaches us that trials and temptations enough will come on their own.  We should never 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.  There will be other times of great temptation, particularly during the events of His Passion and Crucifixion (Luke 22:40-46, 23:35; Matthew 16:21-23).

Each of us has our own temptations we encounter in life.  In modern understanding, many temptations can come from psychological formation in childhood.  Father Thomas Keating, one of the founders of the Centering Prayer movement, writes often of our "programs" (that is, impulses within us) that derive from the experience of trauma, which he says form the basis for the "false self."  That is, a false understanding of who we are.    He places them in three categories:  power/control, esteem/affection, and security/survival.  If we look closely at Jesus' three temptations, they would seem to fall into these categories:  the false tempting of God seems to indicate power and control, the temptation of worldly kingdoms and glory falls under esteem and affection, the temptation to use power to turn the stone to bread under security and survival.  Father Keating's understanding is one example of how we might discern what temptations we face in our own lives.  The notion of "false self" is akin to the idea of "ego" in popular language.  We have to dig deeply into our relationship with God, just as Jesus does, to find and follow who we truly are in the image of God, and who we may become as we dwell in Christ.  This leads us "becoming" the person God knows us to be, as only our Creator can know.  The battle for struggle and temptation, when viewed in that modern context, becomes all the more important in a world where we face constant challenges to our sense of ourselves.  Modern social media puts us in an immediate kind of environment that challenges the need for esteem, linked to worldly belonging, security, even survival.  There are all kinds of articles and studies done on the effect of a large number of "likes" on a Facebook post!  Jesus' experience in the wilderness meets the challenge of the distortions of who we are and who we need to be, and it teaches us about our own power to transcend the worldly temptations that may come fast and furious.  A priest's sermon I heard the other day spoke of demonic temptation in the internal voices that seem to tell us that we're all alone, or that we're not loved.  The Gospels testify to the lie in each of those thoughts for every single one of us.  Christ is always present, and God's love for us always steady.  More than that, in Christ we live also in a Kingdom which is alive with a communion of saints, with whom we may also pray and worship.  The Holy Spirit, whom Jesus calls the Helper (or "Paraclete") in John's Gospel, is always with us.  We have an infinite force of those who are with us, and all form the Church, the Body of Christ -- that great cloud of witnesses by whom we're encompassed.  One can see the need for affection and esteem and its temptations to chase after false idols and a sense of belonging, even pulling at our survival instincts to be one of the pack or tribe or group.  But we're made for something more and something better.  And this is where Christ leads us. This is where His temptation in the wilderness takes us and what it teaches us.  We rely on God, and therein comes our strength to make of our lives something more:  the difference between a good and rich fruitful life, and a barren wilderness.