Tempted for Us: A Meditation on Matthew 4 for the 1st Sunday in Lent

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

And when the tempter came to him, he said,

If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone,

but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down:

for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee:

and in their hands they shall bear thee up,

lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Jesus said unto him, It is written again,

Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain,

and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee,

if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written,

Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

 

The synopsis of Jesus’ Temptation which St. Matthew records teaches us much about not only the virtue of our Savior, but the methods of our adversary.  After having fasted 40 days, Jesus as both fully human and fully divine, was suffering greatly in His flesh.  The devil waited until this point to tempt Jesus into using His divine power for selfish purposes, to which our Lord rejoined that human sustenance is achieved by much more than bread, but by every Word which proceeds from the mouth of God.  Thwarted at inducing self-indulgence, the adversary took Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple and challenged Him to prove His messianic credentials.  Jesus scolded Lucifer that God is not to be tested by those who have no faith in Him to begin with.  Lastly, the devil appealed to Jesus for pride, wealth, and power, all of an earthly nature, which the devil declared he could offer through his dark machinations, if only Jesus would bow down and worship the devil as if he were the true God.  At this, Jesus finally cast the devil away, declaring the irrevocable truth that there is only one true God that all must serve. In the end, the angels came to minister to Jesus, and Jesus returned from the desert temptations to preach His Kingdom come on His way to Calvary.

 

While it is true that we can learn much from Jesus in how to rebut the devil’s temptation, what we cannot do is be Jesus.  What man among us could even survive severe fasting for 40 days in the Judean wilderness, let alone have the presence of mind after that to rebut an appeal to feed one’s self?  Truth be told, fallen man is so obsessed with self-gratification, that we need only miss a single day’s meals before many of us will descend into anger, viciousness, and mean-spiritedness… and that’s just in relation to food.  Think of how many other trivialities we indulge, that if they were taken away for even a short time, our disposition would turn dark—social media, smart phones, morning coffee, evening beer, sports and hobbies and cults of celebrity—and these don’t even touch upon our deeper reliance on general technology, electricity, sanitation systems, clean water and indoor plumbing, etc.  Jesus’ response to temptation was indeed perfect, but there’s not one of us who could have pulled that off the way Jesus did.

 

The same is true of our weakness in resisting putting God to the test, or in our lust for wealth, power, and prestige.  In the comfort of our current situations we might be able to deny such darkness in ourselves, but let a dear family member fall deathly ill, and watch our façade crack when we challenge God to do our will rather than His, or become angry at God for having failed to do as we demanded of Him, as if the creature could command their Creator.  Our own fallen will often seeks our own pleasure or gain for selfish purpose, and there’s no reason to think that we’d be any better at resisting such impulses after 40 days of self-denial.  Think for just a moment how you might respond, if starving in the desert for over a month, the devil came and offered you the job and lifestyle of your dreams, with all the earthly prestige and honors to attend it.  Imagine if you were given the choice to simply ignore the Word of God in just a place or two, follow the devil, and you’d have the family you always wanted, the spouse you think you deserve, the vacations to which you think you’re entitled, and the social standing you covet.  Oh, the appeal is so soft and enticing, costing you what seems like nothing, and giving you all your heart desires… until, of course, it crashes down around you and leads you to hell.  Jesus’ responses to the devil’s wiles were absolutely right, but our ability to do the same is woefully short of His divine, omnipotent power.

 

But then, the hope of Jesus’ Temptation is not that we will be perfect as He is, but that He has been perfect in our stead.  Jesus is our Champion, standing in for the whole human race when He suffers deprivation without self-indulgence, and resists our human inclination to tempt God, then abandon Him for earthly baubles.  What Jesus accomplished in His engagement with the devil was a precursor to what He would achieve on His Cross, turning down every other temptation to avoid the will of His Father and save the whole world.  Jesus endured temptation on our behalf, so that He might offer Himself as our perfect sacrifice on Calvary, and be for us our perfect Intercessor between God and fallen men.  Jesus’ victory over Satan becomes our victory over Satan, and His victory over temptation likewise becomes ours.  When the devil manages to break us down and get us to fall once more into sin, it is Jesus who lifts us back up again by His forgiveness and grace, so that the devil has nothing with which to charge the faithful people of God.  We become victors over temptation through Jesus who has done what we cannot do, so that we might live a life we could not muster alone, wrapped in His love and mercy forever.  Jesus is our Champion, the One who fights and wins our battles where we would only fall to the evil foe.

 

Take heart, dear Christian, for even as we are tempted by the vile deceits of the evil one, Jesus stands between you and him.  He gives you a shield of faith to quench all the devil’s assaults, a helmet of salvation He won for you on Calvary, a breastplate made of His own righteousness, a sword constructed by His own Word and Spirit, then covers your feet with the Gospel of peace.  And even with all this, if and when your fallen nature succumbs to temptation, your Savior stands between you and your enemy offering you forgiveness and grace through faith and repentance.  Your God and King has conquered temptation for you, that by trusting in Him, you might live in His victory forever. Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.