Temptation
This week is on Luke 4:1-4:
I was led to these verses this morning. It's interesting to look at them as both a theological lesson and as a way to experience a moment of common experience with Jesus during his time on earth. Jesus lived with the same issues we live with, but overcame them. He wasn't some being who floated a few inches off the ground and spoke with a preachy, heavily-sedated voice, wearing a halo and followed by a choir of angels. He was happy and unhappy, hungry, thirsty, dirty, tired, etc. He experienced life like we experience it, not as some cosmic visitor in a man-shaped space capsule.
Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, and that Spirit led him to leave town and go off into the wilderness. How many times have we felt ourselves drawn to do something that makes little sense, and yet we try it anyway? We're following Jesus when we do that.
There was no food where he went, and he got hungry. The devil used that as an opportunity to try to tempt him into corruption. But imagine things from Jesus' perspective. He felt the spirit lead him out to the wilderness, only to find nothing there but hardship and temptation. That experience probably sounds familiar to at least some of us. How do we react when we reach what appears to be a fruitful dead end to a calling? Do we give up and turn back? Do we become irritable? Do we press on anyway? Jesus endured that situation for forty days, confident that the Holy Spirit had called him to the wilderness. Imagine that scenario. Run through forty days in your head, not eating, not talking to people, not having anything to entertain you.
The devil decided to use Jesus' hunger to corrupt him. "Hey, use your powers to make food. Forget your place in the world, your calling, the experience of being a man, and cheat a little." Does that sound familiar too, maybe? How many times are we exhausted and at the end of our rope, and that little voice comes up and says something that seems like an easy shortcut, if only you'll forget who you are, why you came, how you got to be here, what your purpose is, and what pleases the God you follow? The devil spoke the perfect words, at the perfect time, but they were useless on Jesus.
Jesus quotes scripture. Do you suppose he might have done that if he hadn't memorized it and dwelled on it before? The Bible is full of useful advice, bits of wisdom, and so on, but only if you have access to it. I can't see Jesus poring through a stack of scrolls going "Let me see if I can find the loophole that lets me turn rocks into bread like the devil has asked." No, Jesus knew the truth. It was cached in his heart where he could access it more quickly than books.
The verse Jesus quoted was "Man does not live on bread alone." The implication was that there is something bigger to life than just meeting our physical needs. Do people go into ministry to get rich, or famous, or powerful? If they listen to the devil they do. Is life about eating and drinking, breathing, and getting ahead of your fellow man? Sometimes maybe, but is that all there is? No. We are eternal spiritual beings as well as physical. We have to take that into account.
So just from these few verses, we're reminded that Jesus was tempted in life as we are. We're reminded that he overcame. We discover that he was familiar with what God had already said, so he was prepared before he needed the truth. And we are shown that there is more to life than physical existence. Like Jesus, our role model, we have the power to overcome temptation, the ability to absorb God's words into the center of our being, and the obligation to stick to the path we're invited on, despite the poor catering the world provides at times to support it.
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
I was led to these verses this morning. It's interesting to look at them as both a theological lesson and as a way to experience a moment of common experience with Jesus during his time on earth. Jesus lived with the same issues we live with, but overcame them. He wasn't some being who floated a few inches off the ground and spoke with a preachy, heavily-sedated voice, wearing a halo and followed by a choir of angels. He was happy and unhappy, hungry, thirsty, dirty, tired, etc. He experienced life like we experience it, not as some cosmic visitor in a man-shaped space capsule.
Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, and that Spirit led him to leave town and go off into the wilderness. How many times have we felt ourselves drawn to do something that makes little sense, and yet we try it anyway? We're following Jesus when we do that.
There was no food where he went, and he got hungry. The devil used that as an opportunity to try to tempt him into corruption. But imagine things from Jesus' perspective. He felt the spirit lead him out to the wilderness, only to find nothing there but hardship and temptation. That experience probably sounds familiar to at least some of us. How do we react when we reach what appears to be a fruitful dead end to a calling? Do we give up and turn back? Do we become irritable? Do we press on anyway? Jesus endured that situation for forty days, confident that the Holy Spirit had called him to the wilderness. Imagine that scenario. Run through forty days in your head, not eating, not talking to people, not having anything to entertain you.
The devil decided to use Jesus' hunger to corrupt him. "Hey, use your powers to make food. Forget your place in the world, your calling, the experience of being a man, and cheat a little." Does that sound familiar too, maybe? How many times are we exhausted and at the end of our rope, and that little voice comes up and says something that seems like an easy shortcut, if only you'll forget who you are, why you came, how you got to be here, what your purpose is, and what pleases the God you follow? The devil spoke the perfect words, at the perfect time, but they were useless on Jesus.
Jesus quotes scripture. Do you suppose he might have done that if he hadn't memorized it and dwelled on it before? The Bible is full of useful advice, bits of wisdom, and so on, but only if you have access to it. I can't see Jesus poring through a stack of scrolls going "Let me see if I can find the loophole that lets me turn rocks into bread like the devil has asked." No, Jesus knew the truth. It was cached in his heart where he could access it more quickly than books.
The verse Jesus quoted was "Man does not live on bread alone." The implication was that there is something bigger to life than just meeting our physical needs. Do people go into ministry to get rich, or famous, or powerful? If they listen to the devil they do. Is life about eating and drinking, breathing, and getting ahead of your fellow man? Sometimes maybe, but is that all there is? No. We are eternal spiritual beings as well as physical. We have to take that into account.
So just from these few verses, we're reminded that Jesus was tempted in life as we are. We're reminded that he overcame. We discover that he was familiar with what God had already said, so he was prepared before he needed the truth. And we are shown that there is more to life than physical existence. Like Jesus, our role model, we have the power to overcome temptation, the ability to absorb God's words into the center of our being, and the obligation to stick to the path we're invited on, despite the poor catering the world provides at times to support it.
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