Bibliography: Finding Christ, Finding Life: Temptation
When I was younger - much younger, I put all my energies into acting and the theater. I remember when I was 14 and my family moved from the metropolis of Pasadena, TX. to a small town in rural Arkansas. I was devastated that there were no performing arts electives in the high school.
Soon, someone else moved to town with an interest in the performing arts and started a community theatre. I was a part of their first production in town. You would think I would remember the name of the play, but I don’t. I do however, remember the kind of play it was. It was a melodrama.
Do you remember those? There was always some poor, fair damsel in distress who lived with an elderly widowed father. There was always a villain - a Simon le Gree sort who wanted to foreclose on the family farm and marry the pretty damsel. There was always a hero who rescued the damsel. She would either be chained to a log about to be sliced in two by a buzz saw, or tied to a chair in a remote cabin with a lit fuse attached to a powder keg of TNT. Do you remember those?
They were always so much fun. Often they had a wild west motif to them and this one I was in did also. I was one of eight girls who sat in costume on the front row, center and led the audience in their participation in the play (The eight of us also danced a Can-Can number during the intermission, but I won’t talk about that if you won’t ask).
If you remember, in a melodrama, the audience was a part of the play. When the hero comes on stage, everybody cheers. When the villain comes on stage, everybody boos and hisses. And just like the old westerns, we know the hero will be decked out in all white and the villain will be wearing all black.
Its easy to tell who is on the good side and who is on the bad side.
In some ways, the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness is like that for us. We read the story, knowing who the good guy is suppose to be and who the bad guy is suppose to be. We know what the devil - Satan - wants Jesus to do is wrong. We know he is trying to tempt, to persuade Jesus to do what he shouldn’t, to do evil instead of good. And because of who Jesus is - the guy in the white hat - we know that Jesus’ responses to Satan are correct and appropriate answers to Satan’s coaxing. We know Jesus’ responses are correct and good answers to Satan’s propositions
Yet I wonder if we perceive this story having any relevance to our life today. This story of temptation and trial fits into an understanding of what it means for Jesus to be fully human like us. This much we can understand and accept. We are assured Christ can understand our predicament in life because he’s been there. He has been tempted as we are tempted, and he rose above temptation. We can accept Jesus as Lord and Savior because he has faced difficult decisions as we have faced difficult decisions. As we have had to cope with temptation, Jesus also coped with temptation and has overcome.
However, I don’t think we see these particular temptations Jesus faced as being ones we face. In the first place, though Jesus is all human as we are human, Jesus is also all God. As the Son of God, can the temptations Satan poses to him truly apply to us as well?
Secondly, these temptations seem so like the melodrama. They seem within the story to be black and white issues, but life is complicated. Its not a list of questions with black and white answers. If that were the case, temptation would be so much easier for us to deal with. Were we only faced with whether to follow the 10 commandments as faithful Christians, most of us wouldn’t have any trouble. In fact, probably none of us have tried to kill anyone in our life time. Perhaps none of us have ever stolen anything. If the question of adultery comes up, we know what the definitive answer is. But temptation doesn’t work that way. Temptation is subtle and life is complicated.
Life brings us questions and decisions that seem to fit more in a gray area. Sometimes, the waters seem so muddy, the issue so confusing, we have difficulty determining what the motive for our decisions really are. When faced with such decisions, where lies temptation? Which answers are the right answers and which answers are the wrong answers? How do we know which way to go? Which is the faithful decision to choose?
When do decisions made for the good of the group outweigh the needs of the individual?
Who has the greater claim - the individual who is unemployed, or the company that would hire them except they are faced with being put out of business due to pollution and environmental issues?
What is God’s path for fetal research, euthanasia, the death penalty, just war and retaliation? What about the battle against terrorism? Is it a just war, or are we giving in to the temptation of revenge for personal reasons?
These are the questions we need answered in this encounter between Jesus and Satan.
What are our answers to be? How are we suppose to respond?
We don’t face black and white issues very often. How does the temptation of Jesus address the decisions we make and the choices we are called to choose from?
One of the unique things about God, is that God has a way of being in the past, present, and future all at the same time. Von Unruh shares a unique perspective on Jesus’ wilderness experience that helps us to understand this event, not only as it relates to our life today, but also as a pivotal point that links us back to our ancient heritage as children of God. Von parallels Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness with that of the Hebrews fleeing Egypt and our own spiritual journey as well.
I found his interpretation of this story very insightful. Listen to his retelling of the temptation of Christ and its relevance across time barriers:
“Sooner or later, we all have to come to terms with who we are. What does it mean to be followers of Christ? Coming to terms with who we are means coming to terms with God’s call on our lives. God intends to lead us away from our sinfilled past. But sooner or later, this call will take us down a path that reaches what seems to be an impasse not unlike that faced by the people of Israel.
“Pursued by the Egyptians, the Israelites were running headlong toward the Red Sea! So we are pursued by the hostile world of our own Egypt - our culture - that is not pleased with whom we are becoming. We are forced to make a decisions. Should we trust more in the mercy of Egypt advancing or in the love of God beckoning?
“Physical appearances can be spiritually deceiving. For Egypt is not pursing us to rescue us, and neither is our Lord leading us to the water’s edge merely to abandon us. For Christians, there is always a path that lies straight ahead, straight through the water.
“Once we are safe on the far side, we offer to God our heartfelt praise in jubilant thanks. The way of faith seems easy. We wonder why we didn’t do this years before. We are apt to grow spiritually cocky. We are hardly out of the water when we hear again the familiar voice reminding us that our journey is far from complete.
“We notice that the path is heading for what looks like wilderness. It is a path we find tough to tread. It is a murky dense, unhabitable sort of place, full of shadowy haunts and filthy recesses of temptation. Given a choice, we would prefer that our faith result in a life of ease and plenty. But when it comes to issues of faith, there are no choices to make, only calls to accept.
“We are not the first people to have to come to terms with who we are. This was the same path Israel had to tread as they left Egypt behind. It is the same journey Jesus had to make, too. Thankfully, the temptations we meet in the wilderness are not unique, either. Evil is hopelessly unimaginative. The temptations we face in this life are the same ones Jesus faced in the wilderness, the same ones Israel experienced before him.”
The life of the spiritually faithful is not an easy life. In some respects, life as a non-Christian is easier, because as Christians we are often called to say no when we would rather say yes, and to say yes at times when it would be easier to say no.
Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. Its a long time to feel alone. Its a long time to feel helpless. Its a long time to hunger - for food, for love, for compassion.
Recognizing his hunger, Jesus is approached by Satan, who encourages Jesus to turn the very stones of the desert into bread. Like the Israelites wondering in the wilderness, his invitation is for Jesus to question God’s ability to provide for him. As the Son of God, Jesus has the power and ability to see to his own needs. He doesn’t have to rely and depend upon God. He could have used his divine powers to see to his own needs, forsaking the reason he had come to be among humanity.
Satan first tempts Jesus to be self-centered and consider his own needs rather than considering the needs of the world.
Satan then offers Jesus all the power and wealth of the world if Jesus will only worship Satan. It is a laughable offer. Jesus as the Son of God already has all power and authority given to him by God in heaven. What Satan offers is a sham of success that will make Jesus look good and appear powerful and successful. The way planned for Jesus is not the way of fame and fortune. His is the way of humility and humbleness. It is an invitation to compromise his faithfulness to God in order to achieve worldly success.
Finally, Jesus is taken to the top of the temple. There essentially Jesus is called to prove he is the Son of God. Satan knows no harm would come to Jesus if he were to throw himself of the top of the temple. Legions of angels would come to his rescue so that he wouldn’t be harmed. Once again, it is ironic, for Jesus will save the world through the sacrifice of his very life. Here Satan tempts Jesus to avoid the sacrifice of his life and choose personal deliverance instead.
When we look in the temptations in this light - an invitation to be self-centered, to comprise our Christian ideals when agreeing with worldly ways would be easier, to avoid self sacrifice and suffering in the name of Christ - the temptations Jesus faced our certainly our own. We can relate to them and we face them daily in our Christian walk. I would imagine if we were to ask these three questions concerning most of the difficult questions we face:
Is the decision I am making one of self-centered desire?
Am I compromising Christian ideals for worldly ambition?
Is my decision one that will lead me down the path of Christian sacrifice?
- we will often have yes or no, black and white answers to these questions.
Perhaps when our answers to these questions still allude us, it is because God is waiting at the end of both paths, whichever one we would choose. Perhaps both paths lead to God.
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We might wonder why God would lead us on such a course through a world of temptation. We might wonder why a life of faith isn’t one of ease and plenty all the time. In fact, it might see cruel for God to have rescued us from Egypt, only to lead us into a wasteland of a wilderness. Why would God do that?
Let me try to answer that by asking another question. If your parents knew that giving you immunizations would hurt you, why did they give them to you? If your parents knew that you were going to fall down and get hurt, why did your parents get you a bicycle or rollerskates. We assume they knew from having bicycles and rollerskates themselves that when you are learning to ride and when one is learning to skate that it takes several times of trying and failing, attempting and falling before one can experience the joy that comes from riding a bike or skating.
If they knew you might get hurt when you fall - and often we do - why would they put a bike in front of you and invite you to ride? Does it mean they don’t love you?
No.
It means they love you enough, they love you so much, that they know a greater joy awaits you on the other side of the trial. As in the immunizations, God knows we will be healthier, better off for wondering through a wasteland of temptation, and emerging on the other side. The Israelites were led through the wilderness to the promised land, to the land of plenty and abundance, the land of God’s hope and God’s love. God has the same journey in mind for you and me. It seems a difficult journey to make, but our hope is for the promise we have in God to see us through to the other side, to the land of plenty and celebration God has in store for each of us.
Once again, Von Unruh summarizes the journey best:
“We didn’t ask God to put us out here in the desert to learn obedience. But here we are, all the same; and the surrounding are pretty barren. There’s not much to do but pray and fast. And daily we are having striped from us all those things we have learned to depend upon. Out here it’s just God and us, and all these strange visions and demonic temptations. God knows we are new at this. We don’t know what to do next. We are not even sure we know hat God’s voice sounds like. All we know is that this is where God has brought us; and where God leads us, there we have said we will follow, all the way. So here we are, wondering why so many of our dreams come to nothing, why our hopes and aspirations have to wither and die. We are awaiting further instructions, faithfully practicing the disciplines, trying our best to be brave, and hoping against hope that we will be mature enough to recognize the right signs when they appear. With God’s help we will, you know! For strange as it may seem, the barren place is exactly where God wants us to be right now.
God help us all! And for this help, thanks be to God!”
In Jesus name, Amen.
