Lent 1
Devotional
Water From the Well
Lectionary Devotional For Cycle A
Object:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
-- Matthew 4:1
It is striking that immediately after the high moment of Jesus' affirmation by God at his baptism, he faced temptation. God's Spirit led Jesus into this temptation. The blessing and power of God that enables us to do good and the temptation to do evil are not opposites but often are part of the same experience. Satan, the adversary of God, became God's servant to prepare Jesus for ministry. It is not the avoidance of evil but confronting it in faith that prepares us for ministry. The first two temptations derived from the very confirmation Jesus received at his baptism. Both begin with the phrase "If you are the Son of God...." In the Hebrew scriptures, Israel was called the Son of God (Exodus 4:22). Matthew saw Jesus' life as a reliving of the experience of Israel. Like Israel, Jesus, too, experienced hunger in the wilderness. As God's Son, he was tempted to manipulate the gift of divine favor into self-controlled security and display one's divinity by becoming the source of bread for the world. In the first temptation, he could win the world's favor by providing for their needs. In the second temptation, he was invited to win people's loyalty by demonstrating his access to divine power. He was taken to the holiest of cities, Jerusalem, and placed on the holiest of places, the temple, and quoted to from the holiest of books, scripture. If God was present anywhere, then God should be there.
The temptation of ministry is to claim God's protection as a right in return for one's faithfulness. The third temptation was a more naked temptation to power that exposed the subtle message behind the other two. This would be the obvious answer to the question, "If God is good, why does God allow evil to flourish?" God, in Christ, could simply exercise divine power and eradicate evil from the world. In resisting this temptation, Jesus set the pattern of a ministry of servanthood. In these temptations, Jesus recapitulated the wilderness journey of Israel who was called the Son of God, as well (Exodus 4:22-23), and Matthew prepared the church for facing similar temptations in her ministry as the children of God (John 1:12-13).
-- Matthew 4:1
It is striking that immediately after the high moment of Jesus' affirmation by God at his baptism, he faced temptation. God's Spirit led Jesus into this temptation. The blessing and power of God that enables us to do good and the temptation to do evil are not opposites but often are part of the same experience. Satan, the adversary of God, became God's servant to prepare Jesus for ministry. It is not the avoidance of evil but confronting it in faith that prepares us for ministry. The first two temptations derived from the very confirmation Jesus received at his baptism. Both begin with the phrase "If you are the Son of God...." In the Hebrew scriptures, Israel was called the Son of God (Exodus 4:22). Matthew saw Jesus' life as a reliving of the experience of Israel. Like Israel, Jesus, too, experienced hunger in the wilderness. As God's Son, he was tempted to manipulate the gift of divine favor into self-controlled security and display one's divinity by becoming the source of bread for the world. In the first temptation, he could win the world's favor by providing for their needs. In the second temptation, he was invited to win people's loyalty by demonstrating his access to divine power. He was taken to the holiest of cities, Jerusalem, and placed on the holiest of places, the temple, and quoted to from the holiest of books, scripture. If God was present anywhere, then God should be there.
The temptation of ministry is to claim God's protection as a right in return for one's faithfulness. The third temptation was a more naked temptation to power that exposed the subtle message behind the other two. This would be the obvious answer to the question, "If God is good, why does God allow evil to flourish?" God, in Christ, could simply exercise divine power and eradicate evil from the world. In resisting this temptation, Jesus set the pattern of a ministry of servanthood. In these temptations, Jesus recapitulated the wilderness journey of Israel who was called the Son of God, as well (Exodus 4:22-23), and Matthew prepared the church for facing similar temptations in her ministry as the children of God (John 1:12-13).
