Sunday Worship 1 February | The Man in the Wilderness

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 

The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Over the last few weeks I have said that we are looking at some of the stories that follow the Christmas story. We were really pushing that description last week, as Jesus’ baptism happened about thirty years after his birth, so perhaps I should say instead that we are looking at some of the stories that fall between Christmas and the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. We might expect to hear this morning’s passage at the beginning of Lent, as the traditional forty days of fasting and reflection are often thought to mirror the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, but scripture goes straight from Jesus’ baptism into this time of testing, so it seems good that we follow the narrative and do the same.

In preparing for last week’s sermon, I read a suggestion that Jesus could not have survived the wilderness without his baptism, that what happened in the river was an important touchpoint that gave him the strength he needed to endure. That idea really resonated with me, because I know that there are touchpoints in my own life, moments that I return to when I am in need of confidence or consolation, including my own baptism. I think I have shared before that in my vestry I have what I call my ‘bunting of encouragement’, a literal string of bunting to which I have clipped messages that were given to me at my baptism and when I started training for ministry and when I was inducted into this church, and it is helpful to have those physical touchpoints too. Perhaps Jesus’ baptism is an act of solidarity with us not simply because it is an act we too are invited to participate in, but also because it reveals so much of the humanity he shares with us.

So Jesus is led out of the water and into the wilderness. Previously in scripture, the wilderness has been a place of hardship and disorientation. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years, forced there in order to escape captivity, and desperate to leave it in order to find true freedom. That is often how wilderness is used as a metaphor in our own lives, representing a place of struggle and confusion that is not chosen. There is an obvious parallel between the forty years the Israelites spent in the wilderness and the forty days Jesus spent there, and yet something different seems to be happening here, as any need for Jesus to be in that place is purely spiritual. There are no men with chariots and whips chasing him into the wilderness, but instead he willingly submits to the guiding of the Spirit.

It is possible then for us to choose the wilderness? There are certainly some wilderness spaces that we do not choose. The wilderness of grief or serious illness. There are some wilderness spaces we stumble into. The wilderness of deconstructing our own faith. And there are some wilderness spaces we only choose out of necessity or desperation. The wilderness of a small boat on a rough sea. I do not want to underestimate or overspiritualise the terror and trauma of those wilderness spaces. But perhaps there are other wilderness spaces that we might choose, or at least not fear. The wilderness of silence and solitude. The wilderness of not knowing what comes next. There is a wildness and wideness to laying down our own plans and seeing where the Spirit might lead us, and there we might find not danger or emptiness, but possibility.

Back to Jesus in the wilderness, and after forty days of fasting, the tempter comes to him. It has been suggested that what is recorded here is not an actual episode from Jesus’ life, but a story intended to comment on scripture and reveal something about Jesus’ identity. Whether it happened as we have read it or not, it certainly does those two things. In the first place, we see Jesus use scripture as a defence against the devil. But what I find really interesting is that as part of that, we see Jesus use scripture as a defence against a misuse of scripture. What this passage tells us really clearly is that we must not twist scripture to use it for our own ends, because that is the work of the devil. That does not mean that we cannot wrestle with scripture, or that we cannot read it in ways that go against tradition, because Jesus himself goes on to do those things, but it does mean that all our readings must lead not to ourselves but to God, as Jesus’ readings do.

And as for Jesus’ identity, two of the three temptations begin with the words “If you are the Son of God…” Other translations have “Since you are the Son of God…” and it does seem that Satan is not testing to see if Jesus is the Son of God, but rather trying to tease out what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God. Here it is helpful to remember that Caesar Augustus was also known as the Son of God, and so the world already had an image of what that looked like, an image that was ostentatious and authoritarian. What we see in this passage is that the true Son of God is very different indeed.

To understand that difference, let’s look more closely at the temptations. The first is to turn bread into stones. We know that Jesus is hungry after fasting for forty days, so this temptation is about survival, although given that Jesus could easily have left the wilderness to find food, we could also see it as being about choosing the easy way out. The second temptation is to jump off the temple. Satan says that angels will catch him, so this temptation seems to be about protection, although given that such a spectacle would be entirely for show, it is also about courting fame. The third temptation is to be given the kingdoms of the world. The implication is that Jesus would then rule over these kingdoms, so this temptation is about power, although given that it would come at the cost of worshipping Satan, we could also see it as being about compromising integrity.

We face same those temptations as individuals, and also as society and as a church. It is really to be tempted by comfort or spectacle or power. We want life to be easy. We want to be admired. We want to be in control. But none of these things are the goal. The goal is faithfulness to God, because that is where we find life. and that is where we find the true fulfilment of the desires that lead us to temptation. In God we find not the comfort of an easy life, but the consolation of loving presence when life is hard. In God we find not the spectacle of showy displays, but the miracle of life in all its beauty and absurdity. In God we find not the power of earthly authorities, but the quiet strength which allows us to stand firm against its corruption.

Those of you who worship here regularly will know that we will usually have prayed the Lord’s Prayer together by this point in our service. I haven’t forgotten it this morning, but I did want us to come to it after this reflection, because I am fascinated by what this passage brings to our understanding of it. Jesus tells the devil that we do not live by bread alone, so what does it mean for us to pray “give us today our daily bread”? I think it means we are praying for more than just food, we are praying for all that we need to strengthen us, for a daily receptiveness to the word of God. And Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted, so what does it mean for us to pray “lead us not into temptation”? I think it means Jesus knows how hard it is to resist the evils of this world, and wants to protect us from them. The Lord’s Prayer is a gift to our lives because it is born out of Jesus’ experience of what it means to be human, so let us pray it together now.