Get outta here!

 Get outta here!

Reflection on Matthew 4:1-11

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%204%3A1-11&version=ESV

Be sure to attend a church this weekend. Perhaps, this reflection will apply to the reading of the day. Listen carefully for God's Word spoken through the pastor, priest, deacon, or minister, to apply in your walk with Jesus this week.

This passage is the Temptation of Jesus. Jesus having been baptized by John, in which the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove goes into the wilderness. The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to search his heart and to test him.

That seems funny to me that the Spirit would lead Jesus to testing. I can understand the searching of the heart. After something significant takes place in my life, many times, I pause to pray, reflect and think upon the change that is happening to me and in me. But, to be tested? Well, maybe that's what the searching is really about... a testing of sorts. 

Major life changes, like marriage, death of a loved on, a new birth in the family, addictions, a new joy, selling or buying a major purchase like a car or house, retirement or career changes; cause us to stop and think. I stop and think about how I will be tested in this new situation that I'm about to enter.

I think this may have been how the Spirit was moving Jesus to search and be tested. But by the devil? Seems rather extreme. But, consider what Jesus was about to do. Jesus was beginning a ministry led by his Father that would change the entire course of creation as was known at that time. Life would be given to all people through the ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus' stark mission of salvation was before him now. A searching and a testing, were perhaps just what Jesus needed at that time.

Did Jesus need this searching and testing? I think maybe you and I are the reason that this passage is before us, not so much for Jesus sake, but for our sake, to observe temptation and get an idea of how to respond. God overcomes temptation, but me? Temptation is a tough one for me. I don't overcome. I need God to help and guide me in the face of temptation. And I fail at temptation often. 

So, into the wilderness Jesus proceeds, to search his soul and to be tested. Sounds a little like how God led the Israelites from Egypt into the wilderness to be tested. God leads me into the wilderness to teach and show me my sin and to teach me how much I need God. I can't survive in the wilderness on my own. I need God to lead and guide me through the wilderness to cross the river through the grace of God's love and salvation to live forever with him. I need God in the wilderness, through the wilderness and on the other side of the river. My life depends on God. Not on my own actions of saving my own skin. I wouldn't even be able to provide water or food for myself, let alone eternal life!

This temptation was a fork in the road, so to speak. In each temptation, Jesus has a choice to make. And, in addition, Jesus' temptation didn't end in the desert. Jesus was tempted throughout his ministry, suffering and death.

There's a little bit of set up to this temptation passage. In temptation, like with Adam, Adam becomes aware of his nakedness. Adam had sinned before God. Adam wanted to be like God and to have that great communion with God, but Adam went about it all wrong. Adam can't have communion with God because he does something to be like God. That's not how it works. God wants communion with Adam, but Adam didn't need to do something to get this communion. God gave communion to Adam because God wanted to, and Adam buying into Satan's temptation that Adam could be like God by eating a forbidden fruit, turned that communion with God all around. By eating the fruit, Adam thought his action would bring communion with God and he would be like God. That's the decision here. Adam didn't need to eat fruit. God already had given Adam and Eve life in Paradise. And life in Paradise didn't take any action of Adam's part or Eve's part. It was a gift from God. So in falling to Satan's temptation, death came into this world. Death and separation from God. 

So in Adam we have death. In Satan's testing, Adam lost it all but in Jesus temptation, Jesus regained it all. Both Adam and Jesus were men or human, but Jesus was both human and God. So, through a human in Adam came death and through a human in Jesus came life. God forgives.

Jesus was tested three times in the wilderness in this account. 

The first test was Doubt. Jesus, are you really the Son of God? If so, make these stones into bread and eat. Here Jesus refused the bread, but later Jesus would use bread to feed thousands of people. God can sustain life without bread or anything else. Jesus would use bread once again at the Last Supper to be his body, given for you and me, for the forgiveness of sin. So, Jesus overcame this temptation and he really showed Satan and all the world, that he was, and has been and will always be both man, and the Son of God.

The second temptation was about trust. Jesus, do you trust God? Well, sure. Jesus trusted the mission that the Father had given him. Jesus knew that this mission of salvation and the gracious gift of life for all creation would not come easy. Jesus was about to bring life out of death. His own suffering and death. Another fork in the road of decision. Jesus trusted the Father and the mission to bring life out of death.

The third temptation was about power. Who, Jesus, do you worship? Do you, Jesus, like Adam, worship your own actions? Well, sort of, but for a totally different reason. Adam worshipped himself. Jesus worships the Lord God, in that all salvation and life comes through God, not man.

And with this... Get outta here Satan! 

Jesus mission and call from the Father with the guidance of the Holy Spirit are clear yet difficult for even the man of Jesus but easy for God. 

So as you and I walk through the temptations in the wilderness of life and sin and death; I will look to Jesus in the wilderness. I will search my soul and think on my temptation testing. I will follow Jesus and trust in his power and grace to lead me, feed me, fill me with God's Spirit. Straight out of the water of my baptism, into my daily repentance of my sin, to trust in what God has done for me through the ministry, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, in order that I may live forever with God in his Kingdom, in communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit... today... tomorrow... and forever.

Lord, not my will, but your will be done. 

Thanks be to God!