In today’s Gospel reading, we encounter the most human and common experience: temptation, which Jesus also experienced in a very profound way.
The temptations of Jesus are found in all four Gospels. But we are accustomed to thinking that Jesus was tempted three times before his public ministry started, that he conquered them all, and that he went on living without any temptations anymore. So, one of the things we tend to overlook is that, like us, Jesus faced temptations throughout his life. How do we know that?
St. John’s Gospel provides us with the evidence. Before we consider what that evidence is, it is important to note that, unlike the other three gospel writers, John takes a very different approach to telling us about Jesus, his life, ministry, death and resurrection. John provides a profoundly reflective account of how the Word (Logos) of God has made Himself known among us (John 1:14). The New International Version of the Bible says: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” A more modern translation of these words would be “The Word became flesh, and he made home with us” or “The Word became flesh, and he pitched a tent with us”.
Compared to John’s gospel, the gospel accounts of Jesus' life and ministry found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke are biographic, not chronologically but thematically arranged. All the biographic events in St John’s gospel are arranged as a stage to demonstrate how the incarnated Word of God is manifested among us.
Now, back to John’s account of Jesus’ temptation. As I mentioned, John embeds the three temptations as temptations presented to Jesus throughout His ministry.
According to John, it is not the devil that asks Jesus to turn stones into bread and challenges Jesus to throw himself down from the highest point of the temple to show his divine power and protection. The ones who present the temptation to demonstrate his divine power are Jesus’ brothers. In John 7:1-5 we read them saying to Jesus: “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do”. In other words, they wanted Jesus to leave the countryside and perform in the big city, where he would draw a larger audience and have a better opportunity to rise to fame.
Then, in John, it is not the devil who wants to make Jesus king, but his own followers. In John 6:14-15 we read: "After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, 'Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.' Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself."
Lastly, the devi’s offer to give Jesus the kingdoms of the world if he bows down and worships him is presented in a different form. In John 12:31, Jesus refers to the devil as the "prince of this world." It’s Jesus’ way of presenting the conflict between the true prince and the prince of this world.
What we see in all this is that the experience of temptation is inherent—it's like the heartbeat. If we are honest, we can feel it in our bones, and at times, we may even feel as though it is eating through our bones. Or we may feel the power of temptation in the depth of our soul gushing through and burning through our entire body. There‘s no part of us that is exempt from the experience of temptation.
So, we must ask what it is and be aware of its power. The best explanation of temptation comes from the lips of Jesus. It comes in the prayer he taught us.
The word Jesus used for temptation in Aramaic (Jesus’ mother tongue) is Nisuna. Nisuna has many shades of meaning in Aramaic; knowing them could bring us very close to the heart of Jesus' teaching. When Jesus used the word Nisuna, he didn’t mean an urge or a desire to do something. Instead, He meant an experience, a test or trial, or, you may like to call it, a struggle created in us because of our love for things of this world, or we may call it our materialism. Nisuna also means a test we face because of our thirst, craving, and bondage to temporal things without eternal value.
So in Jesus' mind, Nisuna is an experience that is so much part of our lives - like the heartbeat, always present; An experience deeper than just being prompted or tempted to something; an experience which is in our reasoning, our rationale, our psyche, and every potential we have; an experience that runs through our blood vessels, eats into our borns and marrow, and vibrates in our nerves and the cells of our body. An experience that vibrates in our body close enough to the same sequence of the good we have in us.
To demonstrate the experience of Nisuna, I want to share with you a simile from Central Asia that describes a great furnace and a spark that may shoot out of it. The simile says that the spark that left the furnace can maintain its spark if it stays closer to the life-giving furnace. However, if it were to wander away, it would lose its spark and turn into ask. However, despite it wandering away, turning into ash and losing itself, it has no other place to drop but to the great furnace to be lit up again.
Nisuna, the conflict created in us to wander away from the great furnace, preventing us from being closer to God, the life-giving and all-sustaining power. It is the potential for us to walk away and lose ourselves.
The understanding of Nisuna helps us to understand that temptation is not so much a two-horned devil prompting us to do things. Still, an awful struggle and tension in our lives to hold ourselves closer to God and not wander away and lose ourselves. We can think and talk of a devil in full graphics because whatever it is, it is the source personified as the “prince of this world” – This “prince” can come across to us in personified and non-personified forms, of course.
Having described what temptations are, is there any hope? Yes, there is hope because, in all that tension in our lives, God is there as the Ground that bears up all that happens in our lives. He is the life-giving source of our being that holds us close to His heart. Even if we are to wander away and lose ourselves, there’s no place we could fall into when we lose our spark but to the very Ground and the Merciful Arms of God. This is also the message of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son.
Now, given that is the meaning of temptation and the nature of our lives, we can say that, whether we like it or not, the days of our lives are permeated with the experience of Nisuna. That is why the Gospels speak about the experience of 40 days in the wilderness. The biblical symbol of 40 (E.g. Genesis 7:12, Exodus 24:18,1 Kings 19:8, Numbers 14:33-34) is not what we may count in a calendar, but symbolic of a timeless spiritual event. It is a “period” of testing, trial, or preparation that ultimately leads to a deep transformation and a new beginning of life in God.
Temptation is our awful struggle not to lose ourselves and our potential to lose ourselves. Temptation also highlights God’s mercy and grace in our lives in the wilderness for forty minutes, hours, days or years.
So, at the beginning of Lent, Jesus invites us to be aware of Nisuna and the wilderness of our lives. We are invited to find a deeper meaning in our lives as we enter into this timeless spiritual battle of forty days.
May the good Lord be with us in this battle and life’s journey.
Amen
Let us Pray:
God of the desert, as we follow Jesus into the unknown,
may we recognise the tempter when he comes;
let it be your bread we eat,
your world we serve, and you alone we worship. Amen
(A NZ Prayer Book, p.573)
