The devil in this story reports popular thinking—what the polls show people want. The devil describes a messiah who is an all-powerful warrior king with an angel army, a vindicator of apocalyptic proportions. This king will make Israel a nation among nations again. Even Jesus’ closest disciples share these expectations.
When Jesus does not fulfill these expectations, most of his friends abandon him to a criminal’s death on the cross. His crucifixion argues he is not the messiah from God. A crucified messiah is a contradiction. Why would the Son of God suffer death when God has the power to do anything and save him?
The gospel asks us to examine the God we worship. Perhaps our God inspires success and personal gain more than service. Perhaps we blame God for letting bad things happen to good people. Or perhaps God seems too old-fashioned, pre-scientific, and irrelevant. Not Jesus, he refuses to put God to the test. He worships God alone, the first commandment, and lives by God’s word.
- What images of God have you found false and left behind in your life? What images do you hold fast?
The temptation story is a verbal duel. The devil wants to know why, if Jesus is the Son of God, he refuses to use his divine powers for his own gain.
A lot of us have the devil’s questions. If Jesus is the Son of God, why doesn’t Jesus show what he can do? Why does evil happen? Why doesn’t Jesus heal my child or save my spouse? Why doesn’t Jesus provide the hungry children of the world loaves instead of stones?
Peter plays the same role the devil plays when Jesus first predicts his suffering, death, and resurrection. Peter says, “God forbid anything like this should happen to you.”
“Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus says to Peter. “You are trying to make me stumble. You are not judging by God’s standards but by human standards” (16.22-23). Jesus’ followers have to correct their own notions of the messiah.
At stake in Jesus’ temptation is not only who he is but who we are, his followers. Jesus shuns divine stunts and opts for giving life through love and forgiveness. Lent calls us to discern how we are using our gifts toward building up our families and the human family.
To tempt means not only to entice, lure, urge, persuade but also to test, to put to proof, to try. Like desert time Lent is time for listening to the Spirit within us and in our interactions. We live directed by our own plans and choices but also alive in the buoyancy of God’s creative love.
Each year the temptation story from one of the synoptic gospels begins the Lenten season, calling us to test our knowledge of good and evil, to correct our course, to turn away from what numbs us or erodes our relationships. The story challenges us to live by the word of God.
- To what degree do you live by bread alone? To what degree by the Word of God?
- What is currently putting you to the test in your life?
- Whom do you trust and serve?
- What three temptations might Jesus face today in our world?