Away with you, Satan!

 

 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be temped 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, sarom heying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

 

  Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be temped by the devil.  My study Bible explains that to be tempted means to be tested in fundamental areas of faith.  It is the Holy Spirit who leads Jesus into the wilderness after His Baptism to be tested by a struggle with the devil.  (In St. Mark's Gospel, the Greek literally reads that the Spirit "throws" Jesus into the wilderness.)  My study Bible remarks that we who are baptized in Christ need not be defeated by temptations because we also are aided by the Holy Spirit.  It says explains that the wilderness is a battleground, 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. In the whole of today's reading, Jesus effectively reverses the falling to temptation of Israel in the wilderness.  The Israelites were tested for forty years in the wilderness, and proved disobedient and disloyal.  My study Bible explains that God humbled them by first letting them go hungry and then feeding them with manna to help them learn to be dependent on Him (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).  Here in today's passage, Jesus is tested with hunger for forty days, but He does not sin.  All of His answers to Satan are from Deuteronomy, and all call for loyalty to God -- which Jesus' life and righteousness exemplify.  My study Bible adds that Jesus fasted to overcome temptation, and in so doing gives us an example of our own power and limitations in the face of temptation.  It's not the hunger of His flesh that controls Him.  Instead, He controls His flesh.  The Lord's fast of forty days is the foundation of the forty-day Lenten fast in the Church before Holy Week, and also 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."  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.' "  Here the devil challenges the relationship of Christ to the Father.  If You are the Son of God isn't simply a taunt to Jesus, but it also calls into question the Father's declaration at Christ's Baptism (see yesterday's reading, above), challenging Christ's faith and obedience.  The devil, my study Bible says, wants Jesus to act independently and to detach Himself from the will of God the Father.  In Christ's divine nature, it notes, He shares one will with the Father and the Holy Spirit; He can do nothing of Himself (John 5:30), separately from God the Father.  But in Jesus' humanity, He has free will, and therefore at all times He must choose to remain obedient to the divine will of the Father. Jesus responds to the tempter by quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3.  By rejecting this first temptation, Jesus is rejecting an earthly kingdom.  He also shows us not to pursue earthly comfort alone in the "food which perishes" (John 6:27).  My study Bible remarks that while Adam disregarded the divine word in order to pursue the passions of the body (Genesis 3), the New Adam -- Christ -- conquers all temptation by the divine word, which 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.  Again, the devil tries to shake Christ's confidence and loyalty to God the Father, saying "If You are the Son of God . . .. "  My study Bible says that as Christ had defeated the devil through the power of the Scriptures, Satan now vainly tries to use the Scriptures to put God's power of protection to the test.  The devil is quoting from Psalm 91:11, 12. 

Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.' "  Again, Jesus quotes from the book of Deuteronomy and the story of Israel's temptations in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 6:16).  My study Bible explains 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.  My study Bible comments that God's Kingdom is not one of earthly power and possessions.  It says that 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" (John 12:31), "the god of this age" (2 Corinthians 4:4), because the whole world is in his power (1 John 5:19).  Here, Christ is refusing the road of earthly glory, which would lead Him away from His suffering and death for the redemption of the world, as my study Bible notes.  Jesus quotes again from Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 6:13, 10:20; see also Joshua 24:14, referring to the same event).

How do we worship the devil?  Does the devil come to us and claim that if we worship him, he will give us all that we want?  Well, it might not happen in this clearly declarative way in people's experience (that would be quite frightening to witness), but temptations come nonetheless, and in ways that we can all relate to through the examples here.  If we pay close attention to our prayer lives, we might find that we are prompted in deep prayer to a kind of humility that doesn't make sense in terms of "the world's" logic.  In the world, we are constantly tempted -- particularly on the internet -- to conform and aspire to all kinds of images and acquisition of things that will impress others, declare us to be "good" or "superior" in some sense, perhaps even "great" in terms of achievement or the things we have.  There are numerous studies regarding, for example, internet use and young people in terms of the depression caused not through isolation alone, but through the endless feed of impossible images to acquire for oneself.  This is particularly true when it comes to body image for young women.  These are all forms of temptation that ask us to turn away from the heart -- and concerns about the state of our hearts -- to outward acquisitions that will favorably impress others or give us a sense of being acceptable on purely worldly terms.  Great skill, hard work, beauty in whatever form (such as dance, art, music), are all wonderful things to enjoy.  But at the expense of devotion to God, to what is truly good for us, even to the place of our communion with God where we'll find true identity (and not something patched together from what the world is offering today), none of these things are worthwhile in the sense that they take us off the path of our own righteousness and love of God.  The communion with God of the heart is the place where from which Christ speaks for all of us when He expresses His loyalty to the Father.  It is in this place where we find the One who loves us and knows us better than we know ourselves, and who can teach us who we are and what we need to pursue in life and even in the world.  This is the place where we learn both love of God and proper love of neighbor.  The themes we have encountered so far in our readings in St. Matthew's Gospel which have begun this week all center on what constitutes righteousness.  Jesus exemplifies the love and loyalty to God -- lived faithfulness -- that define what it means to be truly righteous.  When we have the humility necessary to understand that we need this guidance, then we can find Christ who has lived and experienced this world for us first, to show us His light so that we can walk in it through a world filled with temptations to  false and misleading ways in life.  They may look good, but don't deliver.  Above all, we will find the love that anchors it all in a deep sense of being truly cared for.  Let us trust in Him and His way for us.  Let us note how all the things offered to Christ are things that would make Him "great" on worldly terms.  But His loyalty to the Father comes first, and the greatness of Christ is what will be accomplished through humility, loyalty, and love.