The devil tempts Jesus in the wilderness with power. The question is what power are we tempted to claim for ourselves?
Power and True Potential
Lent 1C | Luke 4:1-13
The first thing Jesus does after his baptism—is to go hang out in the wilderness for forty days.
To say this is somewhat unexpected is a bit of an understatement.
We can imagine all the crowds following John the Baptizer, hearing a message of repentance, and longing to be changed by God. And we think of joy and exultation. Here it is! The big day! And then for Jesus, the sky opens up and a voice commends him:
‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
He hasn’t done anything yet, but God is already pleased.
Yes! Now, let’s head for the desert!
And I suppose it would be one thing if Jesus were just chilling in Cabo at some resort. Or if he were like many who follow up their commitment to faith with a mission trip. But instead, Jesus is going into isolation. He is going where time slows down, there’s no cell service, and he better really like trail mix.
Jesus is going into quarantine.
He’ll be living apart, separate from his family and friends.
On purpose.
This was common then, much like going “up north” is a kind of getting away from the life we’re living. Temporarily, of course. A specific kind of vacation: one full of quiet, intention, and solitude.
But certainly with greater intention. This is like a solitary retreat. Time to be alone. To not speak. Or commune. To let the sand of the desert rub the skin and the soul clean.
Of course, his time alone is drawn short from the very beginning. Because the devil joins him.
We call this The Temptation.
The Temptation of Jesus, the Temptation of Christ, the Temptation in the Wilderness; it goes by several names. But all of them name the temptation.
And what does the devil tempt Jesus with exactly? Well, we don’t fully know because it says the devil tempted him for forty days before we get to see it. But the final three things are these:
- The power to transform a stone into bread.
- Power over all the people of the world.
- Proof that God won’t let him die.
At the root of what the devil is offering Jesus is power. Power over his life, over the future, over people, over the way the world works. And even power over God.
This is all quite obvious to us, but it is also shrouded by the way we define power. Because on the one hand, we think the power to change a stone into bread would be pretty handy. And it could certainly solve world hunger. So we can easily see how defying the laws of nature can quickly become a good thing.
Similarly, gaining control over the world can allow us to make it better! So, with Jesus becoming a global emperor or king, would certainly mean people would have to do what Jesus wants. Which, we know, would be the same things God wants.
And then this brings us to what God wants. So obviously it would be no big deal to get God to save Jesus. He’s the center of it all, right? He’s going to do that on the third day, anyway. Like, what’s the problem?
The problem is power over.
As in wielding power over others. Which is actually most revealing in the last test. To force God to prove Jesus must be protected.
In forcing God to prove that God has the power, Jesus is exercising power over God. He is making God do what he wants. Which is also a concept lost in our own liberty debates.
But there is something about this Temptation in the Wilderness that I find quite striking.
Jesus doesn’t seem to be tempted.
Like, at all. It says that the devil spends forty days tempting him, but there is no evidence that Jesus is tempted in the slightest.
The devil is trying to exercise his power over Jesus. But it doesn’t work.
And more to the point, when we hear that someone is being tempted, the last thing we’re thinking is that they’re kind of “meh” about it. Nice try, Devil! You almost got me! Maybe you’ll get me next time!
Jesus isn’t tempted by power. At all. But we are.
We are tempted in the wilderness.
This story is about us.
We want that power. We want to manipulate the world to meet our needs. Manipulate our neighbors to serve our egos. And manipulate God to satisfy our cravings.
Power is a shortcut. But it is important to see it as more than potential. More than momentary. It is the manipulation of the world around us to make it the way we want it to be.
And in the days that follow, Jesus will exercise great power. Different power. Power to heal and save. He helps God change the world by restoring their humanity and hope.
But the only ones Jesus demonstrates power over are demons.
In the Pandemic, we have wrestled with that same sense of power.
Obviously with masking and rules. But also how to behave toward one another. Can we make someone do something? And can we make someone make us do something? Force them to make us comply.
I’ve felt from the beginning that we’re asking the wrong questions.
These, of course, are fine and necessary; but also endless and answerless. The paradox of freedom is that my liberty will always be limited by the boundaries of yours. We are fools to think liberty can be boundless!
The true question of the moment is Who are we to be?
And we can only answer that in discernment. Wrestling with the metaphorical devil in the metaphorical desert for a metaphorical forty days! And we have had two years of wrestling. Two years of collecting new information, rediscovering our tradition, and seeking out how people of faith have tackled much bigger inconveniences than this.
We’ve looked to our faith for guidance when it all seems so crazy and rage-inducing. When people we love died. Or when we’ve struggled with what we’re supposed to do. Trying to figure out who we are supposed to be. How to serve this community. How to protect family, friends, and strangers.
Even the Lenten Program.
A perfect symbol of the late Twentieth Century Church, the Lenten Program was built for a time when people had more disposable time, had fewer family obligations, and had more energy to give up two to three hours every week on a weeknight.
The pandemic didn’t kill the Lenten Program. Capitalism is killing it. That’s what Melissa Florer-Bixler, a Menonite pastor argues. Because we’re too stressed. We had no time and no bandwidth for it before the pandemic.
We’re all doing what we can to survive.
But our tradition has guidance. Not just for us individually, but for us as a church, as a people, as a global population.
Which is why I hope you wrestle along with me this Lent as we rediscover what our faith offers us for times such as these. As we draw on that wisdom and set aside the wisdom which no longer serves us. Wisdom from an earlier time, when we were different.
Take time with friends
At coffee hour, on Facebook, over the phone, or in your home. And take up the questions for this week. Wrestle with it yourself and listen to someone else. If you’re a talker, let them go first. If you’re not a talker, try going first and get them to listen!
We’re drawing our questions each week from the book We Shall Be Changed: Questions for the Post-Pandemic Church. You don’t have to read it, but I encourage you to if you want a deeper resonance with it.
So find someone after church and talk over Square Donuts or call them up and ask these two questions:
“How might we turn this time of distancing into a time of deeper spirituality—and how might we keep that deeper conversation with God in the regathered church?”
and
“How might the virtual inform—or be—the actual future of the church?”
And remember that these questions don’t have “right” answers. They have, at best, our responses. So their purpose isn’t to be answered in a particular way. Their purpose is to spark our conversation about things we’d rather not talk about. Because we want to take it for granted.
We have spent two years in the wilderness. What are we learning? I know it is lots of things! And I’m excited for all of us to get a taste of what is out there. And in here.