Today’s story tells of a pivotal moment in Jesus’ journey: his baptism by John the Baptist. Coming out of the river Jordan, Jesus has a vision. He sees the hard dome of the heavens rent open and God’s Spirit descend on him, like a dove. And he has an audition – a voice he alone hears – “You are my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
The gospel writers do not speculate on what this singular spiritual experience meant to Jesus. And Jesus is not given the leisure to think on it overly long. That same descending spirit – like a dove transformed into a hawk – drives Jesus into the wilderness. The wild place which Jews avoided for it was the place where spirits roamed free.
Mark does not tell us the details of those forty days. For that we turn to Matthew and Luke, who had collected a story about Jesus’ desert retreat. In Matthew & Luke’s telling, perhaps a better word would be to call it a “vision quest.”
In Native American tradition, a young man goes on a vision quest to seek wisdom about his path in life. Similarly for Jesus, these forty days were an opportunity to sort it out. What does it mean to be a son of God? What is the faithful way? What is the Father asking of me – to continue my mentor John’s work or something else?
And the power of evil, Satan, seizes this opportunity and comes to him.
Now Satan, in Jewish mythology, is a trickster. He seduces humankind to make wrong choices and then acts as a prosecutor with God. For example, in the Eden story, Satan seduces Adam and Eve with cunning: “Did God really say you cannot eat this fruit? Not sure why. I mean, God made it and God is good so the fruits gotta be good too, right? Maybe you misheard…”
What Satan does, as told by Matthew and Luke, is to present Jesus with seductive options for accomplishing God’s mission.
But let’s be clear. The temptations are metaphors.
The first involves food. Jesus, fasting, is very hungry. The round desert rocks resemble fresh loaves. Satan says, “Turn these stones into bread.” The temptation here is to reach the people through works of charity. In a time of deep need – fully 90- 95% of the people were living at a subsistence level – feeding hungry people would enable Jesus to reach them with the good news of the Kingdom. But humankind cannot live by bread alone.
The second path is worldly power. Satan says, interestingly enough, that all the kingdoms of the world are my possession. “I can give them to you.” The temptation here is political power. “As the King of Israel – I can make that happen, Jesus – you could command the people to follow God’s will. Coercion is more efficient than persuasion.” But power corrupts and ultimately warps the one who wields it, and the message delivered by brute force is more bad news than good.
And lastly, in a vision, Satan takes Jesus up to the very top of the temple – 151 feet high – and tells him to jump. “When God saves you, the people will believe and follow you.” The temptation here is to prey on people’s superstition. Spectacle.
Magic. But superstition and fear is not the same as faith.
Now, Luke tells us that Satan then withdrew until a more “opportune time.” These temptations will reappear, again and again. Jesus feeds a crowd on a hillside with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. In response, the crowd sought to force him to be their King and Jesus makes a hasty retreat.
Generosity, too easily, becomes dependence.
On the Sunday before Passover, Jesus provocatively entered into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. The peasants scatter palms, shout Hosanna, and proclaim him Son of David – that is, the rightful King. The placard on the Roman cross proclaimed his guilt: King of the Jews.
When Jesus exorcized demons and cured the sick, his critics will say that he did those things by the power of Satan, not God.
And finally, hanging on the cross as death draws near, bystanders call out “come down from the cross, save yourself and we’ll believe.” Bring the magic, Jesus.
My point here is simply that the temptations Jesus endured in the wilderness were ever present archetypes of power. A compassionate leader would exercise power in compassionate ways, right? Theoretically. Possibly? Ideally?
But that was not God’s way. God does not coerce or manipulate or trick. The God revealed in the life of Jesus is a God of love who exercises power through weakness, as a babe in a manger, and vulnerability on Calvary’s hill.
What lessons are we to take from all of this? In movies and television and books, the power of evil is presented as overwhelming and pervasive and terrifying. Recall the Exorcist? But that’s fiction. The power of evil lives in seduction – to choose the wrong path. But the choice is never between good and evil: Shall I help save starving puppies by donating to SPCA or shall I knock the little old lady over the head and steal her disability check? No. The choices we struggle with are either one of saying Yes or No; or if it involves a choice, it’s between seemingly good things. To say it better, in the real world, it’s so often between good and good enough.
How do we make the faithful choice? Teresa of Avila suggests this: when we have a tough choice to make, pray about it and then lay the tentative decision at the foot of the cross; leave it there and walk away. Some time later, come back and explore your feelings around that tentative choice. God communicates with us in our guts, not in our heads. Discernment is this: if you feel a sense of consolation, of peace, it’s the right
choice. If you feel a sense of desolation, of unease, it’s the wrong choice. In your baptism, you received – as Jesus did – the gift of the Holy Spirit. You, too, are God’s beloved son or daughter, and the Spirit will lead us in the right pathways.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Paul, from his letter to the Christian community in Rome: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’, it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ…” Romans 8:14-17a.
And Jesus himself said: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” John 16:13.