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 

 

On Saturday, 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.  My study Bible explains that to be tempted is to be tested in fundamental areas of faith.  As we also read in Mark's Gospel, in the Greek, the text tells us that the Spirit leads, or rather literally "throws" Jesus into the wilderness after His Baptism to be tested by a struggle with the devil.  It notes that we who are baptized in Christ need not be defeated by temptations because we also are helped by the Holy Spirit.  The wilderness, it explains, 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.  In the encounters with the devil in today's reading, Jesus reverses Israel's falling to temptation in the wilderness.  My study Bible 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 learn to be dependent upon God (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).  Here, Jesus is tested with hunger for forty days.  But He does not sin.  All of His responses to Satan are from Deuteronomy, and all call for loyalty to God.  My study Bible adds that Jesus fasted in order to overcome temptation, which gives us an example of our own power and limitations in the face of temptation.  The hunger of His flesh does not control Him; rather, He controls His flesh.  Christ's fast of forty days is the foundation of the Church's historical forty-day Lenten fast before Holy Week and and before before Christmas.  

Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."  My study Bible points out that the devil first challenges Jesus' relationship to the Father.  If You are the Son of God is calling into question the Father's declaration at Christ's Baptism (see Saturday's reading, above, in which it was declared, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased").  The devil wants Jesus to act independently and also to detach Himself from the will of the Father.  My study Bible notes that in His divine nature, Christ shares one will with the Father and the Holy Spirit; He can do nothing of Himself (John 5:30), apart from God the Father.  But in Christ's humanity, He possesses free will, and at all times He must choose 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 this first temptation, Jesus rejects an earthly kingdom.  According to my study Bible, it 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 (Genesis 3), and here the New Adam -- Christ -- conquers all temptation by the divine word, giving human nature the power to conquer Satan.  Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3.  

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.  My study Bible comments that, seeing that Christ had defeated him through the power of the Scriptures, Satan vainly tries to use the Scriptures to put God's power of protection to the test.  Here the devil quotes from Psalms 91:11, 12.  (See also 2 Peter 1:19-21.)

Jesus said, to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"  Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:16.  My study Bible comments here that trials and temptations come on their own, and we should never intentionally expose ourselves to danger in order to test or to prove God's protection.  To do so is to tempt [or "test"] 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.   My study Bible comments that God's Kingdom is not one of earthly power and possessions.  In the devil's test, Jesus was being asked to choose worldly power over the Kingdom of God.  The devil is the "ruler of this world," my study Bible says (after John 12:31), "the god of this age" (2 Corinthians 4:4), because the whole world is in his power (1 John 5:19).  It notes that Jesus refuses the road of earthly glory, which would lead Him away from His suffering and death for the redemption of the world.  We may note also that Jesus' response is to issue a command, showing His authority, "Away with you, Satan!"  Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:13; 10:20.

If we look closely at Christ's temptations, we see the things that we might expect someone would like to make a possible ministry look like.  First the devil wants to shake and challenge Christ's claim to be the Son of God.  Now we know that in His earthly ministry, He is very careful not to openly declare Himself for a great period of the ministry.  Rather, in following the Father's will, Christ reveals Himself first the way He is meant to, long before this messianic secret is revealed to His disciples -- and even then He says to tell no one.  So this test is really a challenge to act independently, and not depend upon God the Father for the direction of His ministry and particularly the revelation of the truth of His divine identity.  He's not to go out and clobber the world with showy uses of power, abuses of His authority, or flamboyant declarations about Himself.  Moreover, He could make life very easy for Himself by the sort of use of power He's tempted to do here.  But Jesus comes not just as one of us, but as one of the poorest among us.  He will declare, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head" (Matthew 8:20).  In His itinerant ministry He will depend upon what His followers can bring (Luke 8:1-3).  In their first apostolic mission, He will direct His apostles to take very little with them, even though He will share with them His power over unclean spirits (see Mark 6:7-9).  The next temptation is again to give a great show, to convince everyone that He is who He is by a spectacular proof.  And once again, we know that Christ's ministry will unfold in quite another way, that He will present Himself as a Man from among common people, not one of authority and not one who seeks to prove to others who He is by any means, except to follow God the Father's will in His unfolding ministry to the world.  Indeed, even on the Cross, He will still be challenged by the religious leadership to "prove" who He is by saving Himself in some great show of divine power (see this reading).   Finally there is the temptation to grab a whole kingdom for Himself or even for His mission, but the kingdom of God which Christ preaches will have to be established in an entirely different way, one that includes the voluntary participation of human beings, their hearts and minds not being made slaves but rather those who love Christ.  As Jesus will say, "For many are called, but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14).  The temptations of the devil, if we look closely, may also be temptations that we all face in our own lives.  How often might we say to ourselves that we lack the capability to magnificently create shortcuts to fulfill our desires?  Or that we should be able to prove to all how worthy we are in some way?  Perhaps our social media use is over-preoccupied with the desire to impress -- for this is what social media naturally inclines itself to.  Do we think we'll be more happy if only we have more -- money, material power, clout, property?  But Jesus responds with only one thing needed:   a reliance on God, and all things come from that.  This is the story of Israel in the wilderness, and it is the story of Christ in the wilderness as well.  We are all faced with such worldly temptations, but let us consider His example that came first for all of us.  What we need to do in our lives is given by God, and so is whatever we truly need to fulfill that purpose.  Let us consider what it means to do so, as He did.   For Christ, the devil's temptation is based on the challenge, "If You are the Son of God."  What is your challenge or vulnerability?  We each must face this struggle and this choice for where He leads us to go as well.  We do not have to prove to anyone that we are God's beloved children; we need only to seek God who loves us instead.