February 29, 2003

The Opening Shots

Luke 4:1-13

Wars can be launched in different ways. Sometimes they start with an intense barrage, intended to “soften up” the enemy. Sometimes they start with a bliztkrieg--Hitler’s favored method. Sometimes they begin with selective probing of the enemy lines, to find out the weakest spots. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry was of this kind.

We sometimes wonder how Jesus could possibly be tempted. The question must be answered in various ways, but an important consideration is that temptation is not necessarily the lure to evil; sometimes it is the pull toward lesser goods as substitutes for the highest good. C. S. Lewis pointed out (and he was not the first to do so) that saints are rarely tempted to the grosser sins: murder, adultery, theft. The wrongs to which they are tempted are the more subtly disguised sins: false humility which is pride in disguise; love of position; the desire for public attention and public approval.

The temptations of Jesus were of this subtle character. They were temptations to show that he had the power to do God’s work, and the faith to act on God’s word. What could be wrong with that? Taken together, they cover the range of the power and work that might be expected of the One whom God had chosen to carry out his saving plan.

The first was the temptation to believe that life is lived primarily on the basis of the material. “Command this stone to become a loaf of bread”(verse 3). The echo of Israel’s temptation in the wilderness is unmistakable (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). The purpose of the long wilderness journey was to see whether keeping God’s commands counted more to Israel than material comfort. The reply of Moses to Israel, repeated by Jesus to the Devil, is “one does not live by bread alone.” Jesus does not say “not by bread at all.” There is a material dimension to life, and it is God who made it when he created the world. But “life is more than food, and the body more than clothing” (Matthew 6:25).

There have been those who have sold their souls for a bowl of soup (Genesis 25:29-34). Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov tells of an imprisoned revolutionary who betrayed the cause to which he had dedicated his life and the comrades with whom he had toiled and suffered because of his craving for tobacco. On the other hand there are those who have given up freedom for the sake of conscience--Nelson Mandela twenty-seven years of it on The Long Road to Freedom. There are those who have given up life in the battle for liberty. And the roll-call of Christian martyrs from Stephen in Acts Chapter 7 to the latest missionary victims of terrorism stand as imperishable testimony to those who regarded obedience to God as taking precedence over regard for self.

Life lived “for bread alone” is a feeble substitute for life lived by spiritual principle. Jesus knew the temptation, but he did not flinch.

The second temptation was to believe that power is more important than principle (verses 5-8).

Much of life is a power-struggle, sometimes driven by the desire to win, often simply by the attempt to survive. But the battle Jesus was fighting was no mere turf war. It was the battle for his kingdom of truth, salvation and justice. The Devil had much to offer: “The Kingdoms of the world…their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours” (5-7).

Was it true? Are the kingdoms of the world in the grip of the Devil, for him to give to whomever he pleases? It is a half-truth. Wherever life is lived on the devil’s terms it is true. There he is king. And he can offer glittering, and seemingly low-cost bargains, as his offer to Jesus shows. “If you then will worship me, it will all be yours.”(7). No agony in Gethsemane, no rejection, no cross. The bill would come later, as it did for Israel in the Promised Land. Her endless compromises with false gods and debased values eventually led to her ruin. Jesus picked up the words spoken to Israel (Deuteronomy 6:10-15) and hurled them at the Tempter: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” (8). To make a compact with the Devil, to live life on his terms and to adopt his values is to sentence oneself to destruction which in the end will encompass him and all who have made common cause with him.

The third temptation was to believe that working eye-catching wonders was a superior way of winning followers than humble faith in God (9-12).

The insidiousness of the temptation was that it was a challenge to believe and act upon God’s pledged word (10-11). Why not jump off the pinnacle of the Temple, landing unharmed on the ground to the applause of amazed spectators, when God had promised to his Son that he could do that very thing? Jesus’ reply again is drawn from Deuteronomy: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (6:16). The miraculous power of God is real, but it is not a battery-operated toy to be switched on to impress and entertain onlookers seeking a cure for their boredom. The power of God is to be sought in a spirit of humble faith and obedience.

The words of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury in T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, find meaning here. Having resisted the first three tempters effortlessly, he is stunned by the temptation of the fourth. Let the king make a martyr of him, and his tomb will become a shrine of pilgrimage for posterity. Upon which Thomas comments:

“The last temptation is the greatest treason,
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

It is significant that while this temptation occurs second in Matthew’s account (Matthew 4:5-7), in Luke’s gospel it stands third and last. This may indicate the influence of Luke’s narrative. For the Temple temptation obviously takes place in Jerusalem, where the story will end with the rejection of Jesus by the Temple authorities. For Jesus, resistance to the third temptation is most clearly submission to the way of the Cross. That is how the world would be won back to God. Behind the pinnacle of the Temple, we see the silhouette of the Cross.

Taken together, the three temptations add up to one thing: allurement to do God’s will in appearance while rejecting it in reality. It is the cheap substitute for obedience, and it is a fraud. Jesus recognized that his whole work and ministry depended on total and unconditional acceptance of his Father’s will. The devil’s way was much more attractive: a square meal for an empty stomach, a position of (almost) supreme power, and throngs of followers attracted by mind-boggling conjuring tricks. It was the painless way to power. It was also the way to damnation--for himself and the world he had come to redeem.