Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time

 

 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 the Baptist, 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 the 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 comments that this exodus of Jesus into the wilderness immediately following His baptism (and being filled with the Holy Spirit) has a dual symbolism.  First, it fulfills the Old Testament type, in which Israel journeyed in the wilderness for forty year after its "baptism" in the Red Sea; and second, it's a prefiguring of our own journey throgh the fallen world after baptism, as we also struggle toward the Kingdom.  

 

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.'"   This first temptation is seemingly about hunger, but Christ's human hunger is really just a lever, for testing Him about His relationship to God the Father.  The real temptation is the question, "If You are the Son of God. . ." seeking to tempt Christ away from His faith in the Father and the identity given of the Father.  Keep in mind that at His baptism by John, the Father declared, "You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased."  This is a challenge to that declaration.  My study Bible points out that in His humanity, Christ must choose to obey that divine will, even if in His divinity His will is one with the Father's.  Just as Israel was tempted through hunger to disobey God when following Moses in the wilderness, Christ responds with Scripture from Deuteronomy 8:3.

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.'"  Here is the next temptation, and once again, it's a challenge to Christ's relationship to God the Father.  The devil tempts Jesus with a worldly sense of power, authority, and glory, if only Jesus will worship before him.  But as Jesus has already indicated with the first temptation, it's not the things of the world that make life, but the things of God.  My study Bible comments that 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).   Christ will so memorably teach, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36).  "Get behind Me, Satan!" is a phrase He will use again (Matthew 15:33; Mark 8:33), and in the similar sense that, as my study Bible puts it, He refuses the road of earthly glory, which would lead Him away from His suffering and death for the redemption of the world.   Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:13.

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.'"  My study Bible comments that here, seeing as how Christ had defeated him through the power of the Scriptures, Satan tries in vain to use the Scriptures to put God's power of protection to the test.  (See also 2 Peter 1:19-21).  It further notes 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.  Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:16.

Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.  The devil still works to wait until an opportune time (see Luke 22:40-46, 23:35; Matthew 16:21-23).  

We note that the devil departed from Him until an opportune time.  My study Bible comments on the temptation of hunger after forty days of fasting, that, while Adam disregarded God's divine word in order to pursue the passions of the body (Genesis 3), the New Adam -- who is Christ -- conquers all temptation by the divine word; in effect, Christ gives human nature the power to conquer Satan.  So this devil who waits until an opportune time is something we should take seriously, because we ourselves struggle against similar temptations and in the same world in which the devil remains the "god of this age" or "the ruler of this world."  That's not to say that the devil has utterly usurped the place of God or even that Christ hasn't power against the devil.  What it does say is that this struggle in which Christ engages Himself as human being, while He is yet also the Son of God, is our struggle.  In effect, Jesus engages in this struggle and even begins His ministry with it, because it is our struggle.  Everything about Christ's life, and especially His ministry, is to engage fully in human life in order to transfigure that life through His divinity, so that we also may follow, even drawing on the strength that He gives us to do so, as my study Bible explained.  Note that today's passage begins by telling us that Jesus, when embarking on this forty day fasting period, was filled with the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to do so.  This is a forceful statement, it's the Holy Spirit, essentially bringing or carrying Him here.  Moreover, if we look closely at Mark's Gospel, we'll see that St. Mark writes (in Greek) that the Spirit "threw" Him into the wilderness.  So this powerful period, which sets us up for understanding how we are to meet temptation in the world, is the first order of business of Christ's public ministry, and it's fully begun and set into motion through the actions of the Spirit.  So this public ministry in which Christ is now immersed, prepared through temptation, but also working in order to harness the power of redemption and resistance to the devil for us human beings, starts off with this selfless act guaranteed to transfigure what it is to be a human being following Christ in faith.  We're here not just to follow Him but to also be engaged in the same work we see Him doing.  Our faith is in some sense about being born into this battleground, where, in the words of St. Peter, "your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8).   We still face the same kinds of temptations that Jesus did:  questions that shake up our faith in God and God's love for us, temptations that look good -- like all the splendid goods of the world and its power and glory -- but really aren't very good for us after all.  We're born into a world where there might be all kinds of seemingly new "forms" of such things, but they're not really new at all.  We still hunger for things that nominally seem good, but given at the wrong time or gone after for the wrong reasons are all about defying what God wants for us, and falling into the hands of the one who wants to oppose God's plan.  The one thing the modern world, especially in its more "developed" environments may excel at is bombarding us with temptations of all sorts, and this is particularly so for those of us immersed in technological communications and their modern capacities over the internet.  We'll be feasted and tempted with a huge host of images to follow:  what we should look like, what we should pursue, what we should be collecting or consuming, who our friends should be, etc. in an endless parade that doesn't stop.  What we need to do amid this host of temptations is stop and pray, take the time for God, seek to set our feet upon the right path, asking for Christ's light to guide us the way through the darkness that still dwells in ignorance of what God has in mind for us.  Just ask anyone who's struggled with an addiction, engaged in self-destructive activities, worked their way into a fever pitch of chasing all the dreams that paid back very little in terms of meaning, and nothing in terms of love and goodness and mercy.  Let us be mindful of our faith amidst it all.  For it's Christ who'll teach us who we really are, and what we really need to be that person.