If You are the Son of God

 

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 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.  To be tempted, my study Bible says, is to be tested in fundamental areas of faith.  As in Mark's Gospel, the Spirit leads, or "throws" Jesus into the wilderness after His Baptism to be tested by a struggle with the devil.  We who are baptized in Christ need not be defeated by temptations because we too are aided by the Holy Spirit.  The wilderness is a battleground, an image of the world, both the dwelling place of demons and a source of divine tranquility and victory.  

And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.  During this forty-day fast -- as we observe in today's reading -- Jesus reverses Israel's falling to temptation in the wilderness.  My study Bible comments 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 the with manna in order to help them to be dependent upon God (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).  Here, Jesus is tested with hunger for forty days, but He doesn't sin.  His answers to Satan are from Deuteronomy, and all call for loyalty to God.  Jesus fasted to overcome temptation, which gives us an example of our own power and limitations in the face of temptation.  His physical hunger doesn't control Him; it is the opposite, He controls His flesh, so to speak.  Christ's fast of forty days is the foundation of the Church's historical forty-day Lenten fast, both before Holy Week, and also traditionally a 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." In this first temptation, the devil challenges Christ's relationship to the Father.  If You are the Son of God frames the temptation, and it calls into question the Father's declaration at Christ's Baptism (see yesterday's reading, above, or Matthew 3:17).  The devil would like Jesus to act independently and to detach Himself from the will of the Father.  In His divine nature, my study Bible explains, Christ 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 Christ's humanity, He possesses free will, and at all times must make a choice to remain obedient to the divine will of the Father. 

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.'"   In rejecting the first temptation (with a quotation from Deuteronomy 8:3), Jesus rejects an earthly kingdom, and shows us not to pursue earthly comfort in the "food which perishes" (John 6:27).  Adam disregarded the divine word in order to pursue the passions of the body, my study Bible explains (see Genesis 3), but the New Adam, Christ, conquers all temptation by the divine word, and gives 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.  Here the devil becomes just a little more clever in his temptation:  as Christ had defeated him through the power of the Scriptures, Satan now tries to use the Scriptures to put God's power of protection to the test (see also 2 Peter 1:19-21).  We notice once again that the temptation begins with calling into question the relationship between Father and Son, repeating, "If You are the Son of God."

 

 Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"  Jesus responds again by quoting from Scripture, and specifically from the time of Israel's temptation in the wilderness (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 to prove God's protection.  To do this 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.  Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:13 (NKJV, see also Septuagint).  Jesus' "Away with you, Satan!" can also be read in the Greek as "Get behind Me, Satan!"  My study Bible comments here that God's Kingdom is not one of earthly power and possessions.  In the devil's test, Jesus is being asked to choose worldly power over the Kingdom of God.  The devil is the "ruler of this world" (John 12:31), "the god of this age" (2 Corinthians 4:4), because the whole world  is in his power (1 John 5:19).  Jesus refuses the road of earthly glory, which would lead Him away from His Passion, the suffering and death necessary for the salvation and redemption of the world.

Sometimes our paths in life seem difficult, hard, impossible to achieve.  When we pray and seek to find answers as to how God wishes us to conduct ourselves through a difficult time of hard choices, it might almost seem as if we're being led to something absurd, and hard to understand at the time.  Often, it might only be in hindsight that we can see where God is leading us.  In this experiential sense, we can view the necessary choices of Christ as led by the Father.  Often to do what we know is right might involve standing up to what would seem to be something that gains us the world, or the approval of certain peers, giving in to temptation in some way or other.  But we should note that, like Christ, these are all temptations that are worldly in nature, in the sense that they give us something worldly in return (or at least they promise to).  To "do the right thing" will often involve some sort of sacrifice, even losing face in front of others.  That is, when we choose not to victimize someone that others are picking on, when we choose to befriend or stand up for someone who seems an outsider or unpopular, or perhaps someone who doesn't have much power or currency in a particular circumstance, but nevertheless we know is being treated unfairly or cheated.  There are often ways in which "going along with the crowd" is the same as being tempted by Satan to do what will seemingly get us the most glory or currency, and standing out by opposing will not, even though in our heart we feel that is the truly righteous thing.  All of these are examples of what it is to follow God's plan in a time of temptation, when it doesn't seem to make much difference or really matter what we do, and the sacrifice or penalty we might pay doesn't seem to be worth it.  So it is with Christ and the temptations here in the wilderness from the devil.  Let us understand that what is really being tested, as with Jesus, is our relationship to God.  Does God really love us?  Does Jesus really care about us?  Where's our first loyalty?  Who will notice over here in the particular desert or wilderness we might be going through right now in our little corner of the universe, or even somewhere in a private time of struggle, or off with a friend who tries to persuade us to something which gives pleasure in a moment and seems to promise a worldly goal?  But let us notice that despite all that we might notice about Jesus' refutation of the temptations of the devil, what really matters here deep at the heart or gut level of the matter is the love that is between Father and Son.  For us, that is the love that we know is Christ's for us, that does not desert us in prayer and in the real experience of our faith.  Christ is the One who went to the  Cross for us, who gave His life for us.  As John the disciple testifies in his letter:  "We love Him because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).  And this becomes the root of our faith:  Who's got your back and your best interest at heart?  Who is the One who will not turn away?  Who will always listen?  Who wants us back?  Whose love does not fail?  When we can answer that question truly for ourselves, we will find the One who is present with us, even when we fail, or when the whole world seems to look on with rejection.  He is the One with us even when the whole world cheers for what we know in our hearts is a cheat, who waits to show us how to make our way back to His love.