Matthew 4:1-11
4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 4:2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 4:3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4:4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. 4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 4:6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'” 4:7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 4:9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 4:10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'” 4:11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
On its face, this text about Jesus’s time in the desert seems pretty straight forward. It comes to us just after Matthew has hit us with this cinematic smash cut of the greatest hits of Jesus’s life to date. In the first 3 chapters – He quickly covered the geneology, the birth, the escape to Egypt, the return from Egypt, and Wild Prophet John the Baptist proclaiming “all Y’all! The one that comes after me? I’m not even fit to carry his sandals!”
Then Jesus shows up. The last time we saw him – he was a child, returning from Egypt and now He’s all grown up into a fine, upstanding young man. He comes to John and says
“John – Let’s do this decently and in order. I need you to baptize me.”
John – wrapped in his camel hair robe and leather belt – has a bit of a fanboy moment – agrees and baptizes Jesus in the Jordan river.
At that moment of baptism when Jesus was coming up out of the water – that’s when God tears open the Sky and the spirit – like a dove – decends and settles upon Jesus.
If this wasn’t enough – God Speaks:
This is my son – my beloved – with whom I am well pleased!
All of that just lays the groundwork for what happens next. As we heard at the beginning of our text, Jesus is whisked away to the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. Matthew is signaling to the reader here – that phrase “40 days and 40 nights” is significant. Think about it – Noah and his family waited 40 days and 40 nights for their deliverance from wind and rain. Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Sinai to receive the 10 commandments. Elijah fasted for 40 days and 40 nights as he ran to Mount Horeb (also known as Mount Sinai) where he encountered God.
These stories would have been common knowledge for Matthew’s audience. They tell us something about what it means to be faithful and how hard it is to remain faithful in the world.
40 days and 40 nights or maybe it’s 40 years wandering in the wilderness either way; Nights or years it’s about the people’s struggle to be faithful – day and night.
Matthew is telling us when he says that Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the Desert in prayer and fasting – that it is a signal for the listener to hold on – that what’s coming next is a big deal. And that’s when he shows up. The walkin’ dude. The peirazon, the “ha satan”, “the devil”.
An interesting note, in the greek – the first time Matthew mentions the “devil” or the tempter figure – the greek word is διαβόλου which comes from 2 greek words δια and βόλλο which – when put together – roughly translate as “to throw over or across” so the noun διαβόλου here means “one who attacks, misleads, deceives, diverts, discredits, or slanders”
So this tempter – this devil – shows up to “test” Jesus.
I can imagine it. After 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus is pretty tired. He’s dirty, hot, thirsty and hungry. And this tempter says to him – hey – since you are the son of God. Tell these stones to become bread.
I can’t imagine how that might have felt – much less, what I might do in that situation.
Jesus answers – “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
The devil takes Jesus to the Holy City and from the highest point in the city and says to him “If you are the son of God, throw yourself down. The angels won’t let you die. God will save you and you can hear the unspoken taunt .. If you are the son of God.”
Jesus answers – “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Finally, the tempter takes Jesus to the mountaintop and shows him all the kingdoms of the world in all their multi-varied splendor and tells him “All of this – all of this can be yours. All of it. Just give me what I want – worship me and no one gets hurt”
Jesus finally yells at the tempter “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'”
With that The tempter leaves and suddenly the angels appear to tend to Jesus.
3 times Jesus is tempted
3 times.
As we enter into this season of Lent I want you to Hang on to that – we are going to see that 3 times thing again before the sun rises on the third day.
We read these temptations of Jesus as a test of will. That is, we read them like it’s like a contest – Will Jesus break and show off how he is the son of God by making stones into bread or by throwing himself from the highest point in the holy city?
Of course not.
We know this. Jesus is the Son of God. He’s not going to crack even when he is at his most human. I think that the temptations that are being offered to Jesus, and by extension to us, are not about testing God, but rather they are about making us take our eyes away from God. Not abandoning God per se, but looking away from what we are called to be as the church.
This is Jesus when he is at his most human. He’s been whisked off to the desert for 40 days to fast and wrestle with being faithfully tested, like Moses and Elijah before him. The insistence on the 40 days that Matthew uses is to signal to us that this is hard and it is part of a pattern that we have seen before.
I believe there is a temptation to read these texts at face value. And while they have something to teach us on their face, there is more going on here than we might initially see. You might have heard the phrase “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” When I was in my undergrad program studying the holocaust, one of the things we talked about when we discussed how somehting so abhorrent could just happen was the banality of evil. We defined that banality as the willingness to turn a blind eye to, or to look away from the atrocities that were being done, in order to keep yourself safe or to elevate your own comfort in society.
I think it’s that banality that the tempter is offering. Not power nor a test of God’s will – no, When the tempter tells Jesus to tell these stones to become bread, it’s not about whether or not Jesus will do it. The temptation is to give into a different story about who we are or who Jesus is and to give in to a way of life that is comfortable; or banal.
Of course Jesus in God can resist the temptations but this isn’t about God’s ability to resist. God needs to show us a new way.
The temptations that Jesus faces might not be familiar to us, but if we are honest, and I hope we are, we understand what it is to be tempted. There are so many ways for us to be tempted – Pride, vanity, fear and apathy are familiar to us whether we give in to them or not.
I don’t believe that the tempter is trying to create people that are actively Anti-God. I think these temptations serve to distract us from the work that we are all called to do, that is, doing the work of building the kin-dom of God. If we stop paying attention and miss the moments where the spirit guides us to building the kin-dom, we become a people defined by our own selfishness, pettiness, pride and fear. We become everything that Jesus is resisting.
Bono – the lead singer for the Band U2 – has talked about their song Vertigo as a lenten experience. He says it’s a disorienting song with lyrics that can seem nonsensical, but as you listen in the middle of the song there is a moment where the listener hears – “girl with crimson nails has Jesus ‘round her neck – and he describes this moment as a mashup of the divine and the secular – it’s meant to jar us out of our complacency – and Jesus ‘round her neck is an allusion to the cross that is coming at the end of lent. In the bridge of the song, Bono takes on the part of the tempter and leans in whispering –
All of this – all of this can be yours. All of this – all of this can be yours – just gimme what I want, and no one gets hurt.
The lie is subtle and arrogantly obvious. If I just turn my eyes from the kin-dom, if I just listen to what those in power say and trust their words, If I just do what they want, no one gets hurt. Of course, that means ignoring that command to take up my cross and follow Jesus.
Complacency and acceptance of the status quo that is, accepting injustice as just the way things are – is what the tempter is trying to pull Jesus and all of us in to. The temptation to give in to apathy and complacency results in the nameless, faceless other that we vilify and ignore as they stand at our borders and on our street corners asking for our help. The temptation to give into apathy and complacency results in children in seclusion and restraint in our schools. The temptation to give into apathy and complacency results in being willing to turn a blind eye to rhetoric that recasts our brothers and sisters as something less than how we view ourselves.
That complacency that results in us taking our eyes off building the kin-dom of God where each person is loved and valued – that’s what God is showing us here. We see Jesus – who has the power to turn stones into bread or to command angels to keep him from falling – we see Jesus refuse to use his power for his own benefit. Over these three temptations we see the tempter trying to lure Jesus into using his power for his own sake – that is to turn from building the kin-dom of God toward his own comfort and complacency.
As we focus on taking these first steps into the lenten season, we are again offered a new way to examine our lives and faith, in light of God’s work on the cross. God’s work is not offered in order to shame us, but to help us re-orient toward building the kin-dom of God. This is God showing us a different way than the way offered by complency and apathy. This is God inviting us to walk toward the cross knowing that our reconciliation to the divine is not by giving into complacency, but by working to build the kin-dom. We build the kin-dom everytime we resist apathy. We build the kin-dom everytime we choose kindness to strangers over fear. We build the kin-dom when we choose to amplify voices other than our own.
This is the way. Let us journey into lent together.
Amen.
Matthew Messenger 