If you were at church last week, you probably have noticed the stark contrast we have between the Gospel we have heard then and the passage we have today: From the mountaintop and the glory of the Transfiguration to the wilderness, where we encounter a famished and exhausted Jesus. But we’re actually reading backwards: If the Transfiguration marks the climax and also the middle of Luke’s Gospel, splitting the book in two parts, the episode known as “The temptation in the wilderness” traditionally read on the first Sunday in Lent, happens near the beginning of the book, at least near the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, very shortly after Jesus’s baptism and right before his inaugural sermon. And it’s kind of important to have that in mind, that this story does not exactly stands on itself, but rather is meant to be a bridge between the baptism and the first sermon.
We talked a few weeks ago about Jesus’s baptism and especially about the way Luke chooses to tell the story: Jesus is baptized by John after everybody else have been baptized, and then, later on, while Jesus is praying, Luke says “The Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove and a voice came from heaven: You are my Son the Beloved, with you I am well pleased” (3:22). And we noticed that it was kind of interesting that in Luke’s, it looks like the voice of God is meant just for Jesus: Rather than a public display of divine approval for everybody to hear, those words are a revelation that comes to Jesus only, for his own information if you will. In this, Luke could have answered the question of why Jesus came to be baptized, he who was pure and without sin. Maybe to be an example, maybe out of humility but maybe, also, because he genuinely didn’t know whether he was God’s elected. And so, I am telling you all of this because I think our passage today, as a bridge between two stories, builds on that. You would think that after Jesus had heard the voice of God, he would be rescued from all questioning, good to go and ready for ministry. It’s already been four chapters in Luke and Jesus hasn’t started yet. But not so: Instead of getting on with the teaching, the healing, the miracles, Jesus heads to the wilderness for forty days. And so it’s amazing how long it takes in Luke’s for Jesus to get ready: Jesus, again, seems to doubt, questions, almost as if he were not so sure about what he should be doing.
The thing is, in this case, Luke is very clear that it is the Spirit that is sending Jesus to be on his own, fasting in a deserted place. It reminds us of the importance Luke puts upon prayer in his Gospel and also that God’s revelations cannot be taken for granted. It can surprise us but if it ever happened to us to experience God very closely, whether by NDE or a vision, or heard a voice, if it’s genuine, we don’t run to tell everybody. Actually, like the disciples after the Transfiguration, we tell no one because we need to ponder the meaning of it. In Jesus’s case today, we can only imagine that he spent time in prayer pondering what it would mean to be God’s chosen, to be God’s beloved, to be the one. And these are Lenten questions too, and hopefully life long questions for us as well: Who am I, what is God calling me to do, how am I suppose to do God’s will or answer God’s call? We spend time pondering those things, and we question. The world is full of people who don’t doubt themselves, isn’t it? And a lot of them are convinced to be called by God and to do God’s will, except that they never question what’s God’s will. In this sense, we need to cultivate self doubt, and Jesus didn’t consider himself an exception.
Here is the pit though, and that’s what we learn about today, like a biblical “Miranda warning”: Everything– even the good – can and will be used against you. It’s like the devil notices that Jesus questions, as he should, his identity and his mission and the devil is going to turn it against him. Two of his temptations starts with the very thing Jesus is figuring out: If you are the Son of God…But are you sure? And maybe I have a better way for you that waiting for God to provide bread, power and glory. Maybe I can do that for you right here and right now. And here is the part we shouldn’t miss: That’s when doubting is becoming dangerous, that’s when questioning as we should our own motivations turns into questioning God’s motivations and deeper than that, questioning God’s goodness. And I would even say that in my opinion, that’s the root of all temptations. In Genesis 3, the devil tempts Adam and Eve in the same way: They should eat of the fruit to gain the knowledge God wants to withhold from them to keep them subordinated. A few days ago, I came across this psalm that summarizes it very well:
Lord how many are my adversaries
many are they who rise up against me
Many are they who say to my soul
there is no help for you in your God (Psalm 3:1-2)
On the other way around though, it’s interesting in the passage we have just heard from the book of Deuteronomy how the Israelites are asked to remind themselves of what God has done for them, how God has kept God’s promise to save the people, to deliver them and bring them to safety. And it’s actually the case with a lot of Jewish festivals: they are made so people would remind how God has provided for them. And of course we could read that in a simplistic way: Remember you owe God and don’t forget to say thanks and obey. But it means much more than that, it’s about reminding the people of God’s provision and reminding them they can rely on God whatever the circumstances. The thing the Jewish festivals wants to make sure about is that people don’t forget about is God’s goodness. And maybe indeed forgetting about that is the root of all temptations and of all evil. Maybe we behave badly not because we are bad people to start with, but because we start doubting God’s presence and goodness, and we start believing we are on our own in a hostile environment, that we have to solve our own problems and make our own way and we believe there is not enough for everybody and we have to survive, often at the expense of others, and certainly forty days in the wilderness without eating will make you feel like that, or whatever the wilderness is. The devil will always try to make us doubt God’s goodness, reminding us of our own wounds and hurts or even personal tragedies, or even pointing at the tragedies of others, and make us feel that God is indifferent or punishing. Nothing new under the sun. We will never behave more badly than when we are powerless, defensive and afraid, even if on the outside it can look like entitlement. Most of our greed is mainly compensation for the emptiness and vulnerability we feel inside, and so we want more stuff, more power, more recognition to make sure we’re safe or that God is on our side, and it just sounds exactly like how the devil tempted Jesus.
So how do we find remedy?
We talked last week about Lent as this time where we should learn how to defeat evil because this is what Jesus expected from his disciples. Well, here is lesson number one: Maybe you can doubt everything about the world and about yourself but never forget that God is good and that you are God’s beloved. I love it in the passage how Jesus, who until now seemed so gentle and cautious and even hesitant just stonewalls the devil not doubting God’s goodness and God’s provision and that God is enough. That’s where the temptation always starts, and that’s where doubt needs to stop indeed. So how do we do that? We cling to him, we really do, especially in times of difficulties. We just cling to him, not so sure about ourselves or about anything but convinced of his goodness, his provision and his salvation. Convinced we also are beloved. I really like the passage of the Letter to the Romans we have just heard about the power of the name of Jesus: The same Lord is Lord of all and in generous to all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”. It makes me sad though that we use the same passage to exclude non Christians, because I don’t think this is what it’s about. I heard this story about a young man who led not such a good life and didn’t believe in anything at all, and then one day he had an accident and saw himself dying, being taken to a very bad place and he became very scared. And he said that suddenly he remembered what he learned as a child about Jesus and how Jesus seemed to him like a superhero who could do anything. And he said he called Jesus, and Jesus showed up and took him out of wherever he was heading to and brought him back. Well, I hope it’s a true story because it speaks very well of the power of the name of Jesus, to just trust in God’s goodness and God’s power to save, even when we’re not a good Christian.
So maybe that’s what we are called to do in Lent as a first step to fight evil inside of us and around us: Reminding us of God’s goodness and how much God loves us, and then reminding others, in words and acts. Then we know what it means to be God’s chosen, and that would be the center of Jesus’s inaugural sermon, who said, quoting Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4: 18-19)
The devil had it all wrong. Being God’s beloved, God’s elected, God’s sent one, it’s not about stuff or power or recognition, it’s about sharing this love we have received, being witnesses of God’s goodness and God’s justice to the ones who are the more in need of goodness and mercy.