Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil

Temptation of Christ, 1527, fresco (detail).  Monastery of St. Nicholas Anapausas, Meteora, Greece

 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.  Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."  But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"

Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down.  For it is written:

'He shall give His angels charge over you,'

and,

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

Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me."  Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan!  For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"  Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

- Matthew 4:1-11

Yesterday we read that Jesus came from Galilee to John the Baptist at the Jordan to be baptized by him.  And John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?"  But Jesus answered and said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."  Then he allowed Him.  When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him.  And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.     Let us note the attribution of Jesus' time in the wilderness to the action of the Spirit.  In Mark 1:12, the language is even stronger; in the original Greek, it could be translated literally that the Spirit "threw" Jesus into the wilderness.  My study bible explains that to be tempted is to be tested in fundamental areas of faith.  This test for Jesus comes immediately after His baptism, in the form of a struggle with the devil.  My study bible says that we who are baptized in Christ need not be defeated by temptations as we are also aided by the Holy Spirit.  Here in the Gospel, the wilderness is a battleground and an image of the world:  both the dwelling place of demons and also a source of divine tranquility and victory.

And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.  Here my study bible explains that through this forty-day fast and temptation, Jesus reverses Israel's falling to temptation in the wilderness.  It explains that the Israelites were tested forty years in the wilderness, and proved disobedient and disloyal.  God humbled them by first letting them go hungry and then feeding them with manna in order to help them to learn to be dependent upon God (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).  Here, it is Jesus who is tested with hunger for forty days, and yet He does not sin.  All of His responses to Satan in today's reading are in fact from Deuteronomy, and all call for loyalty to God.  My study bible further explains that as Jesus fasted to overcome temptation, so we are given an example of our own power and our limitations in the face of temptation.  The hunger of Christ's human body doesn't control Him; rather, He controls His flesh.  The Lord's fast of forty days is the foundation of the forty-day Lenten fast before Holy Week, and of a traditional fast before Christmas.

Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."    Here, the devil challenges Jesus' relationship as Son to God the Father.  If You are the Son of God, my study bible explains, calls into question the Father's declaration at Christ's Baptism (3:17).  The devil would like Jesus to act independently and to detach Himself from the will of the Father.  In Christ's divine nature, He shares one will with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  He can do nothing of Himself (John 5:30), apart from the Father.  But in Jesus' humanity, He possesses free will, and at all times He must choose to remain obedient to the divine will of the Father.  Let us note that this temptation is similar to the temptation of Eve in the Garden, in the sense not only of a demand to act independently of God's will and to take matters into one's own hand, but also to take a kind of shortcut.  There is a particular plan for salvation at work here just as there no doubt was in the Garden.  The devil challenges Christ to use His power to see to His own hunger from the perspective of the purely earthly and self-centered, and not to act according to the will of the Father in accordance with the necessary steps for the fulfillment of righteousness and salvation for all.

 But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"    Jesus affirms His loyalty to the Father, quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3.  My study bible comments that by rejecting the first temptation, Jesus rejects an earthly kingdom and shows us not to pursue earthly comfort in the "food which perishes" (John 6:27).   As Adam disregarded the divine word in order to pursue the passions of the body (Genesis 3), it notes, the New Adam -- Christ -- conquers all temptation by the divine word, giving human nature the power to conquer Satan.

Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down.  For it is written:  'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, / Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"   The holy city is Jerusalem.   As Jesus countered the devil's temptation through the use of Scripture, so the devil attempts to use Scripture on Christ in order to put God's power of protection to the test (Psalm 91:11-12). 

Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"   Jesus replies with a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:16.  My study bible comments that trials and temptations come on their own; we should never intentionally expose ourselves to danger in order to test or prove God's protection.  To do so is to tempt the LORD.  

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me."  Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan!  For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"  Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.   In John's Gospel, Jesus calls Satan the "ruler of this world," and so Satan behaves as all those who abuse their worldly power, demanding worship and levels of absolute obedience that belong only to God.  My study bible comments that God's Kingdom is not one of earthly power and possessions.  In the devil's test, it says, Jesus is being asked to choose worldly power over the Kingdom of God.  Similarly to Jesus' phrase for him from John 14:30, St. Paul calls Satan "the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4), because the whole world is in his power (1 John 5:19).   My study bible adds that Jesus refuses the road of earthly glory, which would lead Him away from His suffering and death for the redemption of the world.  Here, Jesus' reply to the devil is a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:13.  Moreover, in the Greek, that which is translated Away with you, Satan! is rooted in the same word Jesus will use when He tells Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!" in Matthew 16:23.

Perhaps one of the greatest virtues on display through Christ in today's reading is forbearance.  Also called "longsuffering" in the Bible, it is frequently attested to be a quality of the Lord, but also often declared a fruit of the Spirit for human beings in the letters of St. Paul (see 2 Corinthians 6:6; Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 1:11, 3:12; 1 Timothy 1:16; 2 Timothy 3:10, 4:2).  Perhaps it is not very frequently in our modern lives and understanding that we are called upon to exhibit longsuffering.  But clearly we are called to be like our Creator, and the entire purpose of the Incarnation is to teach us what we, in fact, are capable of being and becoming.  In setting plans for the future, those of us who struggle to make virtually any personal vision come to fruition must be familiar with "longsuffering."  Parenting comes to mind as also a process that requires "longsuffering" -- a kind of patience borne of love, and linked to forbearance.  But here, Christ's sacrifice is for the plan of salvation for the entire world; His work of refutation of temptation and the forbearance required of Him all a part of serving the Father -- and all of creation through love.  If we love Christ, and seek to participate in His life, I feel it is certain that we also will have to come to terms with the temptations for short cuts, for what seems altogether rational in doing things according to our own sights, and not in a prayerful manner.  The fruits of God, I have found, take time in our lives.  To live life in a prayerful manner requires a kind of longsuffering which is specifically the product of faith, just as Jesus displays in today's reading.  It is perhaps not logical to those without faith that there is a particular way of living one's life that requires dependency upon God, a trust that is placed in a higher level than a worldly perspective.  Just as St. Peter's denial that Christ would suffer and die resulted in Jesus' rebuke (Matthew 16:21-23), so we, in our own lives, may encounter circumstances in which -- if approached in a truly prayerful manner -- will result in an experience requiring our patience and longsuffering, all while we perhaps cannot understand what "plan" is being evolved, nor why it can't be fixed with a simple worldly response of counter-attack or force in kind.  Sometimes, we will find, there are simply times when we meet stresses and temptations with forbearance and "longsuffering," all while we place our faith in prayer and following what we believe God asks of us, discerning such to the best of our ability, and seeking help in the Church as we need it.  Prayer has the power to help us in all of this, whether we speak of our own prayer or the help of others such as clergy, fellow faithful, or the prayers of the communion of saints, that "great cloud of witnesses" as St. Paul puts it (Hebrews 12:1).  Let us not forget that this "great cloud" includes angelic help as well.  The victory of  Christ calls us to an understanding of victory which may not look like worldly victory.  Jesus does not make bread appear to assuage His hunger.  Neither does He force Satan to worship Him.  He does not destroy Satan.  Nor does Jesus accept to have all the kingdoms of the world at His material disposal, nor succumb to the temptation to "prove" that He is the Son of God.  This does not look like a "worldly" victory, but it is a firm and greater victory nevertheless, for it is a spiritual victory, as Christ will declare: "I saw Satan fall like lightning" (Luke 10:17-20).   This spiritual victory occurs through our faith, just as Jesus' declaration comes in response to the first apostolic mission.  The one and only way this victory comes is through our understanding of obedience as shown through the life and mission of Christ.  We put our faith and trust in God, we call on all the help available through fellow faithful and the ministers of our faith both seen and unseen.  We seek as best we can to follow that will for ourselves, through all temptation and difficulty.  It may take longer, but the fruits we find in our lives -- and in the lives of those generations that have come before us -- are unmistakable.  We will find that those who will always fail to discern such through time are those who do not share in our faith, and that is as it should and must be; it is as it was for Christ and it will be so for us.  Let us walk the walk of faith, taking Him as our example, and know that we share in His life, for He has shown us longsuffering and forbearance first, "for the life of the world."