Words against the devil
Commentary
Object:
All three of the passages for this Sunday deal with the very basics of our faith: What do we believe about God? What can we say is at the heart of our faith? What do we owe to God? In Deuteronomy, we have a ritual that calls the faithful to thank God for what they have been able to produce, and the first formalized creed. In the reading from Romans, we have the early Christian faith statement: Jesus is Lord, and God raised him from the dead -- perhaps the shortest creed in Christendom. In the gospel lesson, however, Luke depicts a serious struggle going on between Jesus and the devil, which the Spirit is responsible for the confrontation. As we will see, as different as these three approaches are, they have a good deal in common.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
The meaning of Deuteronomy is literally "the second record of the Law." It tells the people of Israel how to live as a nation with one God, one law, and a responsibility to pass on the Law and their way of life to the next generation. This particular passage is the ritual of the presentation of the first fruits -- a harvest offering and a time of thanksgiving. The worshiper comes to "the place the LORD... will choose as a dwelling... and say[s] to the priest," that God is the true owner of the land given to the people; that what we offer to God is only what God has given to us. The ritual history of the people is recited as a creed, and the worshipers all bow to the ground to show respect to God and then rise up and celebrate the gifts of God.
The phrasing of this passage sounds as though it was written before the people were in the land, but it was not. The words "the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name" instead point to the time of the judges, when there were at least two major places of worship in the highlands, Bethel and Shechem. Notice that it is not that God dwells at the place but has designated each as a shrine to his name. The name of God is a highly sacred thing, and this sense of holiness contained in that name is what leads us to write it as LORD (all in capital letters). Let's explore those two places where the "name" dwelt.
The first of these, Bethel, was the first place Abraham worshiped when he came to the Promised Land. Later, his grandson Jacob, running away from his brother, Esau, fell asleep at this place. Here he dreams of a ladder that joins heaven and earth with angels ascending and descending. When he awakens he affirms the name of the place, Beth-el, "the house of God." Bethel is about ten miles north of Jerusalem.
Shechem also was a place of worship for Abraham as he came into the land; when Jacob was returning from his uncle's country of Padan-Aram, he also stopped at Shechem and bought a plot of ground where he pitched his tent. It is located near Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim, about twenty miles (as a bird flies -- nearly three days travel on foot) north of Bethel. So it is probable that both of these areas were acceptable places to worship at the time this passage was written. Certainly there was no one accepted central place, such as the Temple of David or Solomon's Temple, or it would certainly have been named.
The offering of the first fruits is a summer holy time, when those crops that grow over the winter and spring in this hot area of the earth ripen and are brought to the priests in a basket. There are no instructions on how this basket must appear, or how it must be made. Therefore, even though this is a formal ceremony, we do not have the splendor of the vessels and other trappings of the temple that are described in later times.
The formal creed has two purposes. First, it is a brief statement of the history of the people, from Abraham, the "wandering Aramean" (Syrian) in the text, to the move of the family to Egypt, where they prospered. But as Exodus famously says, "There arose a Pharaoh who did not remember Joseph, the favorite son of Israel (Jacob, renamed by God) and so the people were 'subjected to harsh work.' " Notice that in talking about their escape from slavery in Egypt there is no mention of the name of Moses. It is not the great and revered Moses who saved them, but "the LORD, the God of our ancestors." In the book of Exodus, when Moses asks God for a name to apply to God, God refuses to tell him. Moses persists, and God replies, "Tell them the God of Abraham and Isaac, the One Who Is, sent you."
This is a good time to discuss the meaning of the capitalization of "the LORD." Today, Christians try to use one of the possible pronunciations of the name, by using the four-letter representation of the name, now written as YHWH in English and often pronounced Yahweh in modern Christian churches. This is incorrect. Hebrew was originally written without vowels at all, which saw to it that the holy language could not be read by outsiders who might read it casually and without the proper reverence for the God of Abraham and Isaac. The scribes went one step further in protecting the name of God from misuse: the four letters used are simply unpronounceable as a word. Two of the letters used are glottal stops, representing a stoppage of air in the throat, with a guttural between and a breathy "h" at the end. The use of this construction was to assure that no one would misuse the name of God -- for example, to curse others -- and to prevent one from saying the name incorrectly or casually, which would offend God.
During the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the Jews were heavily persecuted. The scriptures had been handed down from generation to generation orally, and vowels had been indicated in print in some ways that still left the words open to mistranslation by those not taught by the rabbis. Fearful that the knowledge of how to read the Hebrew would be lost -- and with it, the scriptures -- the rabbis added in points and dashes to indicate the vowels as they had learned them. But when it came to the name, they put in the vowel points from the title Adonai, which means "lord" or "ruler." So where the name of God was used, it was put in all capital letters. Any attempts to pronounce that name are guesses and desecrate the holiness of it. Thus, we read "the LORD your God."
All of this was and is intended to instill a sense of reverence when speaking the name of God. Today we have a very casual attitude about such things. Many of us, even Christians, casually use what we consider to be the name of God today, saying, for example, "honest to God!" -- or worse -- when exasperated. Even the name of Jesus, considered by some to be God's name, is used casually or even profanely.
How shall we reinstill the sense of awe felt by those who came to Shechem or Bethel -- or later, the temple --contemporaneously? In the history of the Christian church, we have tried to do this in the way in which we have designed and decorated our churches, or dressed our worship leaders, especially in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox places of worship. But modern Christians feel less a sense of awe upon entering elaborate cathedrals than a sense that that the money formerly spent to evoke awe of God ought to be used to relieve the suffering of the poor, sick, and hungry of the world. We rarely kneel in any part of our worship, as these ancient Israelites are told to do, nor do we "dress up" for worship. Without judging negatively, we can still say that these things reveal a serious change in what we hope or expect to feel when we worship God. In reaction to that change, we hear it said more and more often that our relationship to God does not depend on our feelings, nor do our feelings say much about our relationship to God.
This is clearly not the case in this section of scripture. Here it is expected that we will understand that, for all our work and care, we are not in charge of what the earth produces. Here it is expected that we will bring the first of our production rather than the last, least, or left over. Moreover, it is expected we will remember that everything we have is a gift from God, from the job we have to our ability to do the work that God has put before us.
Romans 10:8-13
Romans is the last piece of writing we have from Paul. Here we see the fruit of his maturity both as a man and as an apostle. At this point, Paul believes that what we say reflects the state of our hearts. The heart, as Paul thinks of it, comes from the Jewish idea that the heart is the will of the individual, rather than a sentimental part of the person. "If you believe in your heart" means "if you insist on this belief." There is a tenacity here that is built into him by his Jewish faith, his Jewish education (remember, he was a student of Gamaliel, the best-known scholar of his time and place) and his overwhelming sense of having been saved by Jesus, the very man whose followers Paul had been persecuting.
What is this thing he insists on believing in the face of all that he has been through? His belief that Jesus was raised from the dead by the God of Abraham and Isaac.
We have a lot of conversation in the church today around social issues. This is a good and necessary part of the Christian life, but it misses the mark to say that this or that social issue is "the heart of our faith." Jesus was very concerned about children, women, and the poor and picked-on of his world. He was also concerned about the lawbreakers and the rich, those who were in charge of the temple and those who ruled his political world. But when he preached, he preached a radical approach to life and spirituality. When he was arrested for doing these things he did not resist, not even when he was being nailed to the cross. Death did not terrify him. And Paul is saying that it need not terrify us either, since we too will be resurrected.
Paul is addressing people who, like us, never knew Jesus -- who had not seen him crucified, and who took the resurrection on faith, just as we must today. Paul points to the crucifixion and resurrection and says we must believe that Jesus rose from the dead in order to be saved. And while we say with our mouths that we do believe, our lives will reflect whether that is true or not. The person who believes without a doubt that "God raised him from the dead" will be unafraid in the face of persecution, arrest, even the threat of death, knowing that s/he will "never be put to shame." Paul does not see the Christ event as metaphor, but as reality. He does not preach that the disciples somehow faked Jesus' death in order to steal him from the tomb to impress weak minds. Neither does he say that Jesus was so much God that he could not possibly suffer and die. None of our attempts to say we believe while not believing will suffice and set aside Paul's insistence that the dying and rising of Jesus, what theologians call "the Christ event" is the central reality of our faith.
This insistence on the resurrection is what has given Christians the courage to change the world. No czar, no Stalin, no system of caste or empire, slavery, or systematic removal of rights or even life has ever been able to beat down the Christian who believes in her or his heart that Jesus is Lord -- that is, that Jesus rules. Because if God raised Jesus from the dead, this heartfelt Christian knows -- not just "believes" -- that even if we die for what we are working for, God will raise us from the dead as well (refer to 1 Corinthians 15:3-28 for Paul's elaboration on this theme).
Gandhi, who was heavily influenced by Christian teaching, famously said that evil may rule for a time, but good will always triumph. He was quite willing to lay down his life, even going on a total fast to stop the fighting between Muslims and Hindus in his newly freed country. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged that he followed in the steps of Gandhi as well as Christ when he launched the civil rights movement in the United States, even knowing that he was making himself a target for an assassin. Other men and women down through the ages have had the courage to take a stand against whatever they saw as going against God's will for the people of this world, even under threat of torture and/or death.
Paul even holds out the firm belief that the God of the Jews is willing to be the God of the Gentiles. This belief got him nothing but trouble from the Jewish Christians of his day, including Peter and the council at Jerusalem. This belief caused a good deal of dissension in the early church, but because Paul was willing to hold onto his belief so firmly, we Gentiles get to be part of the family of the Jewish God Jesus referred to as his Father. We modern Christians owe a great deal to those who firmly believed that even if they died trying to make the world a better, more godly place, they would, like Christ, be resurrected.
Luke 4:1-13
Just before this chapter opens, Jesus had come to the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist, whom we understand in Luke 1 is Jesus' cousin. He has been baptized and the Spirit of God has descended on him, so he is filled with joy and the strength of God. The Spirit [of God] leads him to go into the wilderness, where he has nothing to eat for forty days.
Let us say at once that the number forty as used here is a mystical number. No one could survive in the desert for so long without eating anything at all. The number forty in the Bible is a number indicating that the human is being tested. In Genesis, Noah builds the ark to survive a rain that goes on for forty days and nights. Once it has quit raining, he and his family (and don't forget all those animals) are floating on the face of the waters for another forty days. When the people of the Hebrews escaped Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness, surviving on manna, for forty years. When they came to Mount Sinai, Moses went up and "entered the cloud [of smoke] to talk with God for forty days and forty nights" (where, by the way, he also went without eating or drinking anything). When Moses came back down the mountain and saw that the people had created a golden calf to worship, he went back up the mountain and prostrated himself before God for another forty days and nights so God would not just wipe out the people for what they had done. When they came to the Promised Land, the scouts they sent to spy out the land were gone for forty days. When they refused to go into the land because of the fear their spies had of the people of the land, God made them wander for forty years in the wilderness -- until all of those who were afraid to do as God told them would be dead. In the time of the Judges, Deborah led the people in war and the land had peace for forty years. In Samson's time, the Philistines ruled the land for forty years. There are other examples, but this list illustrates fully that the number forty is used to speak of times when the events of the day try people to the limit. It's probable that this is because forty days is about as long as a healthy person can live without food.
So Jesus was in the wilderness, and no matter how long he was there without food, Luke says he was not just "hungry" -- he was famished. As we may as well expect when we are at our lowest, here comes the devil, the father of lies. Luke understands just how sneaky the devil can be. He preys on our weaknesses, calls up our self-doubt, and asks "Did God really say...?" (as he did with Eve in the garden). So the devil sidles up to Jesus, there in the heat and dust, where stones are all that rise above the hard-pan soil. He leans over and whispers to Jesus, "So you're the Son of God, are you? Really? Well then, you need never be hungry. Tell this stone to become bread."
Jesus is well-versed in scripture. He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3: "People shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD," a lesson learned while they fed on manna for forty years. Thus, Jesus does what the people themselves could not do -- he relies on God completely, without complaint.
Well done. But the devil isn't finished with Jesus yet. He leads him (notice, there is no compulsion on the devil's part; he doesn't carry Jesus, he doesn't take him there; he leads, and Jesus follows) to "a high place" and offers him political power. All the kingdoms of the world and "all of their authority and splendor" are all his to give, he says, and "if you worship me, it will all be yours."
The writer of Revelation also believes that the kingdoms of the world belong to the devil. But is that the case? We must remember that the devil is the father of lies, as illustrated in Genesis 3.
He first asked Eve: "Is it true that you are not allowed to eat from any tree in the garden?"
"No," she says, "only the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is forbidden; if we were to eat from it, we would die."
"You won't die! God just doesn't want to share his power with you."
It worked with Eve, and having won with her he doesn't even need to approach Adam. Eve hands Adam the fruit, he eats, and suddenly they are no longer innocent.
But it doesn't work with Jesus. He knows that the devil's power is limited, while God's is not. He will not seek earthly power. He will worship only God, he says, quoting Deuteronomy 6:13.
Then the devil leads Jesus to Jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple. Now here is something to notice: the devil quotes scripture! Perhaps this is mostly because Jesus has been quoting the Holy Words to the devil. If that is what Jesus relies on, the devil can turn this to his own ends. But the devil puts a meaning into these words that the Psalmist never intended. After all, it's one thing to know that the angels will guard you and keep you from stumbling on a stone. It's quite another to throw yourself off the top of the temple, expecting the angels to catch you.
Either way, Jesus quotes back, again from Deuteronomy (6:16): "Do not put the LORD your God to the test." This ends this round of the devil's tempting of Jesus. Oh yes -- the devil left, but only "until an opportune time." Even Jesus, our Advocate, is not free from the machinations of the Opposer.
Application
The scriptures for this Sunday differ in the way they challenge us for this Lenten season. From the prescription of ritual and creed to remind us that the work we do and the things we produce thereby are given to us by the same God who gives us the strength to accomplish it in Deuteronomy, to the creed that Paul says is enough for our salvation, to the picture of Jesus leaning on the scripture to strengthen himself against the temptations of the devil, we too are reminded that our lives depend on our God alone. This makes a great beginning to Lent.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
The meaning of Deuteronomy is literally "the second record of the Law." It tells the people of Israel how to live as a nation with one God, one law, and a responsibility to pass on the Law and their way of life to the next generation. This particular passage is the ritual of the presentation of the first fruits -- a harvest offering and a time of thanksgiving. The worshiper comes to "the place the LORD... will choose as a dwelling... and say[s] to the priest," that God is the true owner of the land given to the people; that what we offer to God is only what God has given to us. The ritual history of the people is recited as a creed, and the worshipers all bow to the ground to show respect to God and then rise up and celebrate the gifts of God.
The phrasing of this passage sounds as though it was written before the people were in the land, but it was not. The words "the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name" instead point to the time of the judges, when there were at least two major places of worship in the highlands, Bethel and Shechem. Notice that it is not that God dwells at the place but has designated each as a shrine to his name. The name of God is a highly sacred thing, and this sense of holiness contained in that name is what leads us to write it as LORD (all in capital letters). Let's explore those two places where the "name" dwelt.
The first of these, Bethel, was the first place Abraham worshiped when he came to the Promised Land. Later, his grandson Jacob, running away from his brother, Esau, fell asleep at this place. Here he dreams of a ladder that joins heaven and earth with angels ascending and descending. When he awakens he affirms the name of the place, Beth-el, "the house of God." Bethel is about ten miles north of Jerusalem.
Shechem also was a place of worship for Abraham as he came into the land; when Jacob was returning from his uncle's country of Padan-Aram, he also stopped at Shechem and bought a plot of ground where he pitched his tent. It is located near Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim, about twenty miles (as a bird flies -- nearly three days travel on foot) north of Bethel. So it is probable that both of these areas were acceptable places to worship at the time this passage was written. Certainly there was no one accepted central place, such as the Temple of David or Solomon's Temple, or it would certainly have been named.
The offering of the first fruits is a summer holy time, when those crops that grow over the winter and spring in this hot area of the earth ripen and are brought to the priests in a basket. There are no instructions on how this basket must appear, or how it must be made. Therefore, even though this is a formal ceremony, we do not have the splendor of the vessels and other trappings of the temple that are described in later times.
The formal creed has two purposes. First, it is a brief statement of the history of the people, from Abraham, the "wandering Aramean" (Syrian) in the text, to the move of the family to Egypt, where they prospered. But as Exodus famously says, "There arose a Pharaoh who did not remember Joseph, the favorite son of Israel (Jacob, renamed by God) and so the people were 'subjected to harsh work.' " Notice that in talking about their escape from slavery in Egypt there is no mention of the name of Moses. It is not the great and revered Moses who saved them, but "the LORD, the God of our ancestors." In the book of Exodus, when Moses asks God for a name to apply to God, God refuses to tell him. Moses persists, and God replies, "Tell them the God of Abraham and Isaac, the One Who Is, sent you."
This is a good time to discuss the meaning of the capitalization of "the LORD." Today, Christians try to use one of the possible pronunciations of the name, by using the four-letter representation of the name, now written as YHWH in English and often pronounced Yahweh in modern Christian churches. This is incorrect. Hebrew was originally written without vowels at all, which saw to it that the holy language could not be read by outsiders who might read it casually and without the proper reverence for the God of Abraham and Isaac. The scribes went one step further in protecting the name of God from misuse: the four letters used are simply unpronounceable as a word. Two of the letters used are glottal stops, representing a stoppage of air in the throat, with a guttural between and a breathy "h" at the end. The use of this construction was to assure that no one would misuse the name of God -- for example, to curse others -- and to prevent one from saying the name incorrectly or casually, which would offend God.
During the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the Jews were heavily persecuted. The scriptures had been handed down from generation to generation orally, and vowels had been indicated in print in some ways that still left the words open to mistranslation by those not taught by the rabbis. Fearful that the knowledge of how to read the Hebrew would be lost -- and with it, the scriptures -- the rabbis added in points and dashes to indicate the vowels as they had learned them. But when it came to the name, they put in the vowel points from the title Adonai, which means "lord" or "ruler." So where the name of God was used, it was put in all capital letters. Any attempts to pronounce that name are guesses and desecrate the holiness of it. Thus, we read "the LORD your God."
All of this was and is intended to instill a sense of reverence when speaking the name of God. Today we have a very casual attitude about such things. Many of us, even Christians, casually use what we consider to be the name of God today, saying, for example, "honest to God!" -- or worse -- when exasperated. Even the name of Jesus, considered by some to be God's name, is used casually or even profanely.
How shall we reinstill the sense of awe felt by those who came to Shechem or Bethel -- or later, the temple --contemporaneously? In the history of the Christian church, we have tried to do this in the way in which we have designed and decorated our churches, or dressed our worship leaders, especially in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox places of worship. But modern Christians feel less a sense of awe upon entering elaborate cathedrals than a sense that that the money formerly spent to evoke awe of God ought to be used to relieve the suffering of the poor, sick, and hungry of the world. We rarely kneel in any part of our worship, as these ancient Israelites are told to do, nor do we "dress up" for worship. Without judging negatively, we can still say that these things reveal a serious change in what we hope or expect to feel when we worship God. In reaction to that change, we hear it said more and more often that our relationship to God does not depend on our feelings, nor do our feelings say much about our relationship to God.
This is clearly not the case in this section of scripture. Here it is expected that we will understand that, for all our work and care, we are not in charge of what the earth produces. Here it is expected that we will bring the first of our production rather than the last, least, or left over. Moreover, it is expected we will remember that everything we have is a gift from God, from the job we have to our ability to do the work that God has put before us.
Romans 10:8-13
Romans is the last piece of writing we have from Paul. Here we see the fruit of his maturity both as a man and as an apostle. At this point, Paul believes that what we say reflects the state of our hearts. The heart, as Paul thinks of it, comes from the Jewish idea that the heart is the will of the individual, rather than a sentimental part of the person. "If you believe in your heart" means "if you insist on this belief." There is a tenacity here that is built into him by his Jewish faith, his Jewish education (remember, he was a student of Gamaliel, the best-known scholar of his time and place) and his overwhelming sense of having been saved by Jesus, the very man whose followers Paul had been persecuting.
What is this thing he insists on believing in the face of all that he has been through? His belief that Jesus was raised from the dead by the God of Abraham and Isaac.
We have a lot of conversation in the church today around social issues. This is a good and necessary part of the Christian life, but it misses the mark to say that this or that social issue is "the heart of our faith." Jesus was very concerned about children, women, and the poor and picked-on of his world. He was also concerned about the lawbreakers and the rich, those who were in charge of the temple and those who ruled his political world. But when he preached, he preached a radical approach to life and spirituality. When he was arrested for doing these things he did not resist, not even when he was being nailed to the cross. Death did not terrify him. And Paul is saying that it need not terrify us either, since we too will be resurrected.
Paul is addressing people who, like us, never knew Jesus -- who had not seen him crucified, and who took the resurrection on faith, just as we must today. Paul points to the crucifixion and resurrection and says we must believe that Jesus rose from the dead in order to be saved. And while we say with our mouths that we do believe, our lives will reflect whether that is true or not. The person who believes without a doubt that "God raised him from the dead" will be unafraid in the face of persecution, arrest, even the threat of death, knowing that s/he will "never be put to shame." Paul does not see the Christ event as metaphor, but as reality. He does not preach that the disciples somehow faked Jesus' death in order to steal him from the tomb to impress weak minds. Neither does he say that Jesus was so much God that he could not possibly suffer and die. None of our attempts to say we believe while not believing will suffice and set aside Paul's insistence that the dying and rising of Jesus, what theologians call "the Christ event" is the central reality of our faith.
This insistence on the resurrection is what has given Christians the courage to change the world. No czar, no Stalin, no system of caste or empire, slavery, or systematic removal of rights or even life has ever been able to beat down the Christian who believes in her or his heart that Jesus is Lord -- that is, that Jesus rules. Because if God raised Jesus from the dead, this heartfelt Christian knows -- not just "believes" -- that even if we die for what we are working for, God will raise us from the dead as well (refer to 1 Corinthians 15:3-28 for Paul's elaboration on this theme).
Gandhi, who was heavily influenced by Christian teaching, famously said that evil may rule for a time, but good will always triumph. He was quite willing to lay down his life, even going on a total fast to stop the fighting between Muslims and Hindus in his newly freed country. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged that he followed in the steps of Gandhi as well as Christ when he launched the civil rights movement in the United States, even knowing that he was making himself a target for an assassin. Other men and women down through the ages have had the courage to take a stand against whatever they saw as going against God's will for the people of this world, even under threat of torture and/or death.
Paul even holds out the firm belief that the God of the Jews is willing to be the God of the Gentiles. This belief got him nothing but trouble from the Jewish Christians of his day, including Peter and the council at Jerusalem. This belief caused a good deal of dissension in the early church, but because Paul was willing to hold onto his belief so firmly, we Gentiles get to be part of the family of the Jewish God Jesus referred to as his Father. We modern Christians owe a great deal to those who firmly believed that even if they died trying to make the world a better, more godly place, they would, like Christ, be resurrected.
Luke 4:1-13
Just before this chapter opens, Jesus had come to the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist, whom we understand in Luke 1 is Jesus' cousin. He has been baptized and the Spirit of God has descended on him, so he is filled with joy and the strength of God. The Spirit [of God] leads him to go into the wilderness, where he has nothing to eat for forty days.
Let us say at once that the number forty as used here is a mystical number. No one could survive in the desert for so long without eating anything at all. The number forty in the Bible is a number indicating that the human is being tested. In Genesis, Noah builds the ark to survive a rain that goes on for forty days and nights. Once it has quit raining, he and his family (and don't forget all those animals) are floating on the face of the waters for another forty days. When the people of the Hebrews escaped Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness, surviving on manna, for forty years. When they came to Mount Sinai, Moses went up and "entered the cloud [of smoke] to talk with God for forty days and forty nights" (where, by the way, he also went without eating or drinking anything). When Moses came back down the mountain and saw that the people had created a golden calf to worship, he went back up the mountain and prostrated himself before God for another forty days and nights so God would not just wipe out the people for what they had done. When they came to the Promised Land, the scouts they sent to spy out the land were gone for forty days. When they refused to go into the land because of the fear their spies had of the people of the land, God made them wander for forty years in the wilderness -- until all of those who were afraid to do as God told them would be dead. In the time of the Judges, Deborah led the people in war and the land had peace for forty years. In Samson's time, the Philistines ruled the land for forty years. There are other examples, but this list illustrates fully that the number forty is used to speak of times when the events of the day try people to the limit. It's probable that this is because forty days is about as long as a healthy person can live without food.
So Jesus was in the wilderness, and no matter how long he was there without food, Luke says he was not just "hungry" -- he was famished. As we may as well expect when we are at our lowest, here comes the devil, the father of lies. Luke understands just how sneaky the devil can be. He preys on our weaknesses, calls up our self-doubt, and asks "Did God really say...?" (as he did with Eve in the garden). So the devil sidles up to Jesus, there in the heat and dust, where stones are all that rise above the hard-pan soil. He leans over and whispers to Jesus, "So you're the Son of God, are you? Really? Well then, you need never be hungry. Tell this stone to become bread."
Jesus is well-versed in scripture. He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3: "People shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD," a lesson learned while they fed on manna for forty years. Thus, Jesus does what the people themselves could not do -- he relies on God completely, without complaint.
Well done. But the devil isn't finished with Jesus yet. He leads him (notice, there is no compulsion on the devil's part; he doesn't carry Jesus, he doesn't take him there; he leads, and Jesus follows) to "a high place" and offers him political power. All the kingdoms of the world and "all of their authority and splendor" are all his to give, he says, and "if you worship me, it will all be yours."
The writer of Revelation also believes that the kingdoms of the world belong to the devil. But is that the case? We must remember that the devil is the father of lies, as illustrated in Genesis 3.
He first asked Eve: "Is it true that you are not allowed to eat from any tree in the garden?"
"No," she says, "only the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is forbidden; if we were to eat from it, we would die."
"You won't die! God just doesn't want to share his power with you."
It worked with Eve, and having won with her he doesn't even need to approach Adam. Eve hands Adam the fruit, he eats, and suddenly they are no longer innocent.
But it doesn't work with Jesus. He knows that the devil's power is limited, while God's is not. He will not seek earthly power. He will worship only God, he says, quoting Deuteronomy 6:13.
Then the devil leads Jesus to Jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple. Now here is something to notice: the devil quotes scripture! Perhaps this is mostly because Jesus has been quoting the Holy Words to the devil. If that is what Jesus relies on, the devil can turn this to his own ends. But the devil puts a meaning into these words that the Psalmist never intended. After all, it's one thing to know that the angels will guard you and keep you from stumbling on a stone. It's quite another to throw yourself off the top of the temple, expecting the angels to catch you.
Either way, Jesus quotes back, again from Deuteronomy (6:16): "Do not put the LORD your God to the test." This ends this round of the devil's tempting of Jesus. Oh yes -- the devil left, but only "until an opportune time." Even Jesus, our Advocate, is not free from the machinations of the Opposer.
Application
The scriptures for this Sunday differ in the way they challenge us for this Lenten season. From the prescription of ritual and creed to remind us that the work we do and the things we produce thereby are given to us by the same God who gives us the strength to accomplish it in Deuteronomy, to the creed that Paul says is enough for our salvation, to the picture of Jesus leaning on the scripture to strengthen himself against the temptations of the devil, we too are reminded that our lives depend on our God alone. This makes a great beginning to Lent.
