Scripture can be found here…
We circle back, today, in the gospel of Luke. Epiphany season showed us the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but today’s passage takes us back before the beginning.
The last thing to happen to Jesus, before this, was his baptism by John in the Jordan River: that moment when the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit showed up in the form of a dove, and God’s voice boomed—or whispered, it’s hard to tell—“You are my Son, my Beloved: in you I am well-pleased.”
And then, full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus follows the Spirit into the desert.
How does it feel to be full of the Holy Spirit? Is it a sense of confidence? A hedge of protection? A feeling of being centered, and peaceful? Is it a moment of great clarity? Or maybe a vision that extends beyond the moment itself, and allows you to see the big picture? I believe we’ve all experienced it… though, we weren’t necessarily thinking in those terms at the time.
Whatever it is, Jesus has it… and then the desert has its way with him. The extreme temperatures, the relentless landscape of rocks and hills and wadis that are mostly bone dry. Jesus fasts for 40 days in this wilderness—he must have access to some water, or he’d have been dead in ten days or less. According to our passage, it seems as if the tempting and testing doesn’t begin until he is utterly parched and depleted, at the end of the 40 days. Which, as someone in our bible study pointed out, would certainly be an “opportune time” to push against his boundaries and principles. To push against his faith. The devil would surely know that.
We find the word “devil” in the New Revised Standard Version of New Testament 35 times; we find the word “satan” 33 times. The words carry slightly different meanings. “Satan” is a Hebrew word meaning, “tempter.” It’s something like the phrase “devil’s advocate,” someone who’s trying to poke at you and prod you and find your weaknesses.
“Devil,” on the other hand, means, literally, someone who throws stuff into a situation, throws stuff at you—stuff, undefined. Think, agent of chaos.
And that is what he does here, to Jesus, presumably still filled with the Holy Spirit, but no doubt, exhausted and frayed by weeks without food and minimal water.
The first thing the devil throws at Jesus is aimed directly at his growling stomach: Hey, “Son of God,” he taunts. Here’s a stone. If you’re all that, turn it into some bread.
There are a couple of things going on here. Of course, the devil is trying to take advantage of Jesus’ hunger. But he is also ridiculing Jesus’ self-understanding, that revelation we witnessed at his baptism. After all, Roman emperors call themselves sons of god, and they can snap their fingers and get all the resources they want, any time, day or night. Why doesn’t Jesus just do the same? If he is a “Son of God.”[i]
Jesus offers a firm response, a quote from Deuteronomy (8:3): One does not live by bread alone.
The devil continues in a mocking mode. He leads Jesus up to a high place where he can see the world—the whole world, spread out before him like, Peg Corwin’s Christmas village. And the devil says, Look. All this is yours, the glory, the authority, everything, because, you know, I have all that at my disposal. It’s all mine to give. Bow and worship me, and it’s yours.
Which is a complete lie. Or the truth, it depends. For it is written, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it” (Psalm 24:1). But also: Do the powers and principalities that are running much of the world have a bargain with the devil? I lean towards, the devil is a lying liar.
Jesus’ response is terse, a paraphrase of the first four commandments:
It is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
The last test the devil offers up is a cruel one, terrifying, really. He brings Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and taunts him, Jump. No really, jump. And then he delivers the coup de grâce, or at least he thinks so. He continues, for it is written, ‘
‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you,’
and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ (Psalm 91:11-12)
So. Even the devil can quote scripture. Good to know.
Wily beast.
Jesus dismisses this last temptation as he has the other two: calm, drama-free. It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
And that’s that. Off goes the devil, waiting for another opportune time.
But see, the real end of the story is verse 14, which I almost left out, until, again, saved by the wisdom of the members of our bible study, I realized we needed to hear it:
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.
Jesus was filled with the Spirit before his encounter with the devil, that agent of chaos, ready to throw anything and everything at him in order to divert him from his chosen and anointed path. But notice, after the encounter, he was still filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. As a wise pastor noted,
“The Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the desert wilderness and there’s no reason in the text to think she leaves him there alone. There’s also nothing in the text to make us think God the Father isn’t present with Jesus while he is there.”[ii]
Even in the desert, Jesus is full to the brim with the grace and power of God. And just as there is no reason to think Jesus is left alone with the chaos agent, there’s no reason to believe that the same isn’t true for us when we’re in our desert places, parched, dry, and honestly at the end of our ropes.
There’s no reason to believe God isn’t with us in our weakness and suffering.
I know. It’s a bold claim. And when we’re in the midst of it, it can be the hardest time to notice. I know I often don’t, in the moment. But when I circle back, later, I wonder: how did I get through that? And sometimes I have to admit: God. God is how I got through that, even though I didn’t see it at the time.
We all encounter desert places in the course of our lives, times of trying and testing. Diagnoses, accidents, bad news about the people we love and whose lives we have no ability to help or fix. Bad news about the world, complete with fully illustrated, hourly accounts, not to mention texts from loved ones for whom the bombs are not just a TV show or news report.
The story of Jesus’ encounter with the devil reminds us that there is good news, too. Because, the Holy Spirit shows up, for Jesus and for us. And God’s voice booms—or whispers, it can be hard to tell: you are my Beloved child. Even when we are parched and dry, even in middle of the godforsaken desert. Because guess what? It’s not godforsaken. The presence and power of God are as close as our next breath. The love and consolation of God are as near as the tears rolling down our cheeks. The overflowing grace of God is already with us, and within us, and never left us, and never will.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Jeremy L. Williams, “First Sunday in Lent: Commentary on Luke 4:1-13,” Working Preacher, March 6, 2022, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-in-lent-3/commentary-on-luke-41-13-5.
[ii] Rev. Ruth Farrell, Full to the Brim Bible Study, p. 4.