It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God"

 

 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 

 

In yesterday's reading, the Gospel tells us that as the people were in expectation, and all reasoned in their hearts about John, 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 . . .   Luke opens chapter 4 with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.  The lectionary has skipped over the genealogy of Jesus, given in Luke 3:23-38, in which we're told that Jesus began His ministry "at about thirty years of age."  This account of Christ's time in the wilderness, therefore, happens at the beginning of ministry.  Note that it is the Spirit who led Christ into the wilderness.  My study Bible comments that this exodus of Jesus into the wilderness following His baptism has a dual symbolism.  First, it fulfills the Old Testament type, in which Israel journeyed in the wilderness for forty years after its "baptism" in the Red Sea (Exodus 14); and second, it prefigures out own journey through the fallen world after baptism as we struggle towards the Kingdom ourselves.  

. . . being tempted for forty days by the devil.  And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.  My study Bible remarks that to be tempted is to be tested in fundamental areas of faith.  Christ is tested by a struggle with the devil.  Just as it is the Spirit who leads Christ to this place of testing, we who are baptized in Christ need not be defeated by temptations as we also have the Holy Spirit to help.  My study Bible says 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.  Christ fasted in order to overcome temptation.  My study Bible says that this gives us an example of our own power and limitations in the face of temptation.  The hunger of His flesh doesn't control Him -- instead, He controls His flesh.  His fast of forty days is the foundation of the Church's forty-day Lenten fast before Holy Week, and a lesser known but also traditional fast before Christmas. 

And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."  Here is the fundamental area of testing for Christ:  the devil begins his challenge with, "If You are the Son of God."  It calls into question the Father's declaration at Christ's Baptism (see yesterday's reading, above).  Everything about Christ's ministry, His signs, His preaching, His word, His authority, His identity, is bound up in His relationship to the Father.  This was particularly emphasized in the readings in John's Gospel, which was our more recent material in the lectionary.  My study Bible comments 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 the Father.  But in Christ's humanity, He has free will and at all times must make the choice to remain obedient to the divine will of the Father. 

But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'" Jesus rebukes the devil with the truth and power of Scripture, each time He's tempted.  My study Bible comments that it teaches us, the faithful, to become immersed in Scripture in order to resist and drive away every temptation (see Psalm 119:11).  Here Christ rejects an earthly kingdom, showing us not to pursue earthly comfort in the "food which perishes" (John 6:27).  My study Bible comments 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, giving human nature the power to conquer Satan.  Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3.  My study Bible reminds us that the Israelites were tempted for forty years in the wilderness and proved disobedient and disloyal.  God humbled them first by letting them go hungry and then feeding them with manna to help them learn to be dependent upon Him (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).  Here Jesus is tested with hunger for forty days, but does not sin.  Each rebuke from Christ to the devil comes from the book of Deuteronomy.

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 the devil seeks to tempt Christ away from the authority given in His relationship to the Father with the devil's worldly authority and glory.  The devil is called "the ruler of this world" (John 12:31), and the "god of this age" (2 Corinthians 4:4), as the whole world is in his power (1 John 5:19).  He seeks to turn Christ away from the Father and toward himself.  Each time Christ is tempted, He rebukes the devil with Scripture.  This is the same phrase He will use to rebuke Peter when He is tempted not to go to His Passion (and therefore the glory given by the Father; see John 12:16, 23, 28).   My study Bible comments that Christ refuses the road of earthly glory, which would lead Him away from His suffering and death for the redemption of the world.  Here Christ 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.'"  Here the devil tries to win Christ over by quoting Scripture himself (Psalm 91:11-12).  In so doing, he tries vainly to use the Scriptures in order to put God's power of protection to the test (see also 2 Peter 1:19-21).  My study Bible comments that trials and temptations will 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.  See Luke 22:40-46; 23:35; Matthew 16:21-23.

What does temptation mean to you?  For some people, life is about sticking to their goals, like staying on a diet, for example.  For others, goal-setting becomes something more than a simple desire to have a particular job or a particular appearance to the rest of the world.  Sobriety, for example, is a long-term goal for those who struggle with addiction of all kinds.   To truly struggle with the difficulties that life can put before us becomes a kind of reckoning that addiction-related behavior covers up.  It dulls the pain to some extent, but then creates huge problems of its own.  To try to hide from this struggle often brings more pain and intolerable circumstances.  Ask those who've gone from the frying pain of trauma or difficulty into the fire of addiction and a life that is out of control.  It seems that avoiding the conflict that asks us to separate ourselves from the evil we know only gets us further into problems, for the thing we avoid is still there under the surface, and still remains for us to confront.  Christ's temptation in the wilderness is an example to us all in the sense that it teaches us to face our temptations and make the tough choices.  It teaches us to make the sacrifices in the light of the real end goal, which is the kingdom of God.  Our true stumbling block lies right there:  in the choice to make between serving God and serving something that might sound good but is in truth deceptive in its seductive appeal to our worldly senses.  Let's take a look at the temptations that confront Jesus.  As one who is clearly capable of great leadership, great authority, and the use of power, He's tempted by the devil first of all to use His power to make Himself food, as He's been fasting in preparation for His ministry.  Jesus counters with the understanding that it is only the commands of God that are worth following, and if His commitment to this fast is really His commitment to following the Father's will -- especially for His ministry which is just at its inception -- then His hunger has to come second.  He won't use His power for a lesser or a contradictory goal, even if it sounds good or somehow appropriate.  The next temptation is about authority.  Jesus' authority is not worldly, but is from God the Father for what He is to do in His life.  But the devil's sense of authority is worldly:  if Jesus would only switch His allegiance, love, loyalty, and worship to him (as opposed to God the Father), then Jesus could have all the compelling, dictating, authoritative worldly power He wanted.  We have to think in this context of the worldly power of Caesar, who ruled absolutely and which included worship by his subjects.  But Jesus wields an authority that comes from God, not this worldly sense of the ability to force or to compel.  God's authority must work differently, and it calls people to their own response of loyalty, love, worship, that must be freely given.  Jesus' rejection of the devil's promise of easy ways to find followers and subjects becomes an assertion of the right to worship and the need to serve God alone, nothing less.  Finally the devil offers a temptation to test the power of God, and God's protection and loyalty to Christ Himself.  We know that the Cross will come to Christ, and the way the Father will desire for Him to come to His glory.  But Jesus affirms absolutely His choice of allegiance to the Father.  One should not tempt or test the Lord; there is only communion and relationship -- and that means trust.  For faith, above all in Christ's example, means trust:  Trust to the Father, trust to the Holy Spirit, trust in choosing His disciples and evolving His ministry, trust even in drinking the cup of Crucifixion (John 18:11).  In the end, Jesus remains loyal, facing and meeting every temptation with an affirmation of His first priority, which is to God the Father.  Although none of us has Christ's role as Savior, He sets the example nonetheless for each of us.  For while He will make sacrifices for these choices, so He calls upon us each to take up our own crosses.  He does not promise a simple life full of worldly benefits, but one in which our choices matter -- and in which we are to understand that the hard choices are there to help us grow in His light, to become stronger human beings, to understand that sacrifice will not kill us, but will instead bring us something better for us than the temptation we refuse.  He asks us to feed our souls with the good bread that sustains more deeply than temporal nourishment, and all else will be added (Matthew 6:33).  In modern psychology, it is understood that the avoidance of such choices -- especially through addiction to substances such as alcohol or drugs -- actually becomes an avoidance of growth and maturity.  What we don't seek to cope with in a healthy way, which may always involve a sacrifice of one kind or another, becomes our loss.  We miss out on what is actually better for us.  I would suggest that faith is the best way of coping, of finding compassion for our pain, One who listens and hears prayers, and the support one finds through a great cloud of witnesses.  Like Christ, we may seem to be alone at times by worldly standards, but the truth is that we are never alone (John 16:32).  Some people believe, falsely, that faith can be a crutch or a drug of some sort.  But faith becomes strength.  The truth is that the faith of Christ asks us to face the world and see it as it truly is, to make our choices, and to find the best way to grow and to cope, even in an imperfect world full of temptations and tests.  Let us learn from Him and follow His example.  Don't be fooled by false promises; Christ is the real deal.   For He is here for the life of the world (John 6:33)

 

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.