4 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tested by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over he was famished. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ”
5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered him, “It is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’ ”9 Then the devil led him to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you,’11 and
‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”12 Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
– Luke 4:1-13 (NRSVue)
Growing up, humor was like a deposit of wealth in my family. Permit me to share one of the cherished moments of my adolescent years. It was customary for my mother to lead the night prayers with her younger children, me included, before bed. On one such occasion, she began the Lord’s Prayer, and repeatedly, she kept on saying “Lead us into temptation…” My father, being an astute observer and who had crafted the skill of using humor as a disruptive tool for awakening one to a deeper sense of awareness, said the following to my mother in my mother tongue (Ihievbe Language), but I will repeat it here in English: “My wife, have we not had enough temptations in our lives?; Why must you ask God to focus on us by leading us into another wilderness of temptations?” I recall laughing my head off and that was it for me that night. My mother caught herself and simply retorted: “That is it for the night. God, I am tired. I need some sleep!” That incident has held me captive each time I read about the temptation of Jesus.
The Lukan Gospel reading for this week’s liturgy begins with a troubling line, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tested by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished” (Luke 4:1-2). Why would the Holy Spirit, after filling Jesus up with Herself, would lead Jesus to the wilderness and allow him to encounter the devil as though he was all alone as he went through the ordeal? Is God a sadistic God that likes to play with our lives by giving us up to the devil as pawn in a chess game? How can one read this text in such a manner that it speaks to us today?
Before engaging the questions posed above, it is proper to retrieve briefly, a Christological understanding of the God-human and in doing so, demonstrate the link our own humanity has with that of Jesus Christ as I reflect on the relevance of this pericope on our own human condition. The Council of Chalcedon categorically made attempts to articulate not just the full humanity of Jesus, but his divinity as well in such a manner that both natures are rooted in the Second Person of the Trinity. For this hypostatic union to be possible, the two natures are themselves in an encounter that allows for both natures, divine and human, to be grounded in the personhood of the Son of the Father in a manner that is without confusion, change, division, or separation. Hence, Mary can be said to be the Mother of God, the Theotokos because she gives birth to the divine-human natures grounded in the divine personhood of the Second relations in the Trinity.
If this is the case, then our understanding of the humanity of Jesus cannot be the same as we understand our own humanity. Which forces the question, what makes us human? Is it our capacity to choose? In other words, how is the exercise of human freedom constitutive of our human condition? The christological discourse on the humanity of Jesus has had different tangential moves since the beginning of Christianity. However, major attempts have been made to insist on the doctrinal truth that the humanity of Jesus is not conditioned by sin and all the vestiges of the fallenness of Adam.
If the humanity of Jesus is a sinless one, how then must we understand the temptation that Luke presents us with? First, Luke puts in the mouth of the devil, the declaration of the divinity of Jesus – Son of God (Luke 4:3, 9) – the same declaration is posited either by demons during the ministry of Jesus (4:3, 9, 41; 8:28) or in the form of a question by the Sanhedrin (22:70). Consequently, the focus is not about attributing sin or the capacity to choose evil in the humanity of Jesus Christ. However, the passage is not about the humanity of Jesus. Rather, it is more about our own humanity and how we ought to live our lives as fallen creatures who must learn to trust God in all that we do. In other words, Jesus serves as the North Star for all humans who live in the social world and who must make effort to be authentic in their lives even with the distracting temptations that present themselves to them on a daily basis.
Furthermore, there is a close link between our embodiment and a commitment for us to take seriously our vocations in life. The devil, through the temptations, recognizes not just the divine-human nature of Jesus, but chooses to distract this embodied divine being from his true vocation, hence he begins by using that recognition to serve as a distraction from what Jesus is called to become in the world. Also, it is not surprising then that Luke locates the pericope within the larger context of Jesus preparing for his ministry. Why would the devil choose to tempt Jesus? The simple response is because he wants to distract Jesus from his calling. Should he succeed, then the incarnation becomes a worthless event. The devil knows fully that the way we each live our lives in fidelity to God resides in the concreteness of our embodiment. The same is the case with Jesus. His ministry can only be realized through his embodied self within the social world of his time.
In a way, being filled with the Holy Spirit is symbolic of one being prepared to embrace one’s vocation in life, hence Luke locates the pericope right after the baptism of Jesus and the public confirmation of the ministry and identity of Jesus (3:21-22). Having been prepared for his ministry by the Holy Spirit, whom Luke cleverly calls attention to in a manner that shows that Jesus’ life and ministry are backed, validated, and sustained by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15, 35, 41, 67; 2:25, 26, 27); like anyone who is being taught to embrace their vocation, they will need to have the opportunity to test out their skills to allow for maturation and an awakening to themselves to allow for maturity and growth in their sense of purpose.
This becomes clearer when one sees how Luke links the story of Jesus’ temptation to the experiences of the biblical Israelites in the wilderness. A comparison is made to show that the formative experiences of the Israelites as they journeyed from Egypt where they experienced the power of the state that reduced them to slavery and from where God had to deliver them, allowed them to embrace a just and hospitable way of being a nation. If the biblical Israelites were to embody fidelity and trust in God, it then meant that they must resist the trappings of power, which instantiates idolatrous ways of being a social reality. In doing this, Israel was to constantly trust the guidance of God, whose word was a bond of care for Israel.
The three temptations speak to humans as social beings who must reflect carefully on their social commitments as they embrace their vocations. They must learn to trust God in whom total dependency is always rewarded. They must learn to reject the false glory inherent in power. In doing this, they orient themselves to an altruistic commitment of care for the other. And when they do these good works, by attempting to live virtuously through an embrace of their vocations, they should know that God’s grace will always be there to guide them. They should also become more aware of how the devil attempts to distract them from embodying the virtues that orient them to God through their embrace of their callings. Hence, one notices that Luke concludes the pericope with the following lines: “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). Vigilance, discernment, and resiliency are needed to remain steadfast in God even when the devil tries all its tricks to derail humans from their virtuous lives.
How can this text speak to us today? An embrace of one’s vocation or one’s gifts calls for opportunities to grow in the process. One cannot ask for patience without having experiences that test one’s patience. One cannot ask for peace unless one is thrown into a situation where peace must be cultivated. One cannot ask God for the capacity to love one’s neighbors without first having to learn how to love one’s enemies. With these in mind, I believe that the focus of the text from Luke is not simply about proving the divinity of Jesus. Rather, it is for us humans, and it speaks to the concreteness of our lives.
Permit me to embrace a speculative approach here by reflecting on what the wilderness can mean for our times. The wilderness reflects what George Huntston Williams describes as the constitutive markers of our collective human experiences. No matter how holy we may be, there will be moments in our lives when order will give way to chaos; when peace of mind will give way to depression; and when a sense of purpose will give way to confusion. Yet, while these are the realities we must all go through, what matters the most is that the wilderness itself is the locus for the reclaiming of the transformative grace that helps us to reflect on those negative experiences as we pull together our lives and trusting that the Holy Spirit will not abandon us. Again, if Jesus is the corrective way of living our lives even when failure defines our struggles to succeed, his resiliency and fidelity to God in the midst of the enduring temptation that the devil led him through is a reminder and a consolation for all who may feel defeated in their efforts to be authentic. This is particularly true for many in our world who are making the effort to be hospitable to their neighbors as the narratives of hate continue to win public support in our world. This pericope serves as a source of consolation for them. The defeat of the devil speaks to the fact that the enduring presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people cannot begin and end in holy places. Even in the wilderness of our lives, the saturated grace of God is most present.
The wilderness evokes in one who journeys into it an invitation to surrender. But to whom should one surrender? Jesus’ experiences in the wilderness are an invitation for all who go through hard times to turn to God and to offer it all to the God who is intimate and close by. In surrendering oneself to God and learning to trust God completely, one becomes aware of God as a God of solidarity. The figure Hagar comes to mind here. Faced with the stripping of her social status, her only recourse was to flee to the wilderness (Genesis 16:7-16). Yet, it was in the wilderness that she encountered the God of solidarity who chose to bestow on her the dignity that Sarah and Abraham could not give to her. Lest we think that the solidarity that I speak of here is only a vertical one between God and oneself, God’s solidarity is always a prophetic reminder to all to live in an altruistic manner. Hence, the Lukan account astutely reminds us that the same Jesus who was tested by the devil was also rejected by his own people. He chose not to end up despairing. Rather, he demonstrated for us how to be altruistic. He went to Capernaum and in the synagogue, he cast out demons from a man and also went about healing the sick. The devil may tempt him, but he will always defeat the devil and bring freedom to anyone who is held captive by the devil.
Finally, we all experience our own wildernesses in our lives. Such is the reality of the human condition. What we do with the experience is what matters. Do we use it as a foundation to be altruistic in how we live our lives, or do we end up embodying the same mindset of those who hurt us? Jesus chose to use his experience as a springboard for living altruistically. Our world is in need of altruism. Migrants and refugees in Donald Trump’s America are afraid and hope for their nightmare to be over. Do we look the other way, or do we stand up and say to them, you are our neighbors and you ought to be protected by our laws? As we read this Lukan account, it is my hope that a new conversation can begin to stir up in our hearts to allow for a more welcoming and understanding spirit to be the norm in our respective social contexts.
