Why Would the Spirit Do This?

Matthew 4:1-11

Then the Spirit led Jesus up into the wilderness so that the devil might tempt him.  After Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights, he was starving.  The tempter came to him and said, “Since you are God’s Son, command these stones to become bread.”

Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread, but by every word spoken by God.”

After that the devil brought him into the holy city and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down; for it is written, I will command my angels concerning you, and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.”

Jesus replied, “Again it’s written, Don’t test the Lord your God.”

 Then the devil brought him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  He said, “I’ll give you all these if you bow down and worship me.”

Jesus responded, “Go away, Satan, because it’s written,You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”  The devil left him, and angels came and took care of him.

Today we talk about the temptation (or testing, as some translations render it) of Jesus.  An attention-grabbing detail in this passage is this sentence; “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”  The Spirit led Jesus to encounter the Devil to be tempted.  Why would the Spirit do that?  To be clear, we are not given a definitive answer in this passage or any other passages in the Bible.  That is sometimes hard to live with for someone like me who likes clear answers to questions like these.  But part of faith in God is looking for insight and direction from God anyway when shining “here it is” answers are not supplied.  In fact, faith grows in such times, a truth we can verify in dozens of scripture passages.

And in this story, there is plenty of insight for us to see.  First, Matthew’s telling of the Jesus story is masterful and purposeful in the way it is arranged.  In Matthew’s gospel, this temptation story occurs right after Jesus’s baptism.  As we talked about previously, the baptism is where Jesus’s true identity as the Son of God is revealed.  It is the moment when Jesus’s ministry/calling becomes public.  It is immediately followed by a time of testing and preparation in the wilderness.  The mention of “wilderness” recalls many other preparation times recounted in the Bible.    There is the Israel’s forty years in the wilderness before moving into the holy land (don’t miss the 40 years/40 days parallel with this passage – I believe it is intentional).  Moses also spent 40 years in the desert/wilderness before leading God’s people out of slavery.  Times of being set apart and refining one’s call are common in the Bible and among people who go on to do great things for God.  Martin Luther, John Wesley, Billy Graham, and many others describe such times.  The wilderness is an opportunity to be prepared for what is next.  Jesus was no exception to this.

Another insight in plain sight in this passage is one that has always deeply connected with me.  Jesus knows what it is like to be tormented by temptation.   When I am struggling with temptation, I am somehow both comforted and strengthened by the knowledge that Jesus knows my struggle and then some.  He also provides an excellent strategy for temptation management – scripture.  Every temptation the Devil throws His way, Jesus comes back with a quotation from Hebrew scripture.  I have imitated this strategy effectively a number of times in my own times of temptation.  Here’s the takeaway; you can’t recall a helpful scripture in times of trouble if you haven’t habitually meditated on scripture BEFORE that time of trouble.  Jesus could recall those scriptures from memory because they had been written on His heart before this pivotal moment.  Writing these devotionals each day is a way for me to do just that and I pray reading them might be a way for you to do the same.  However that meditation happens, we can be sure that it is preparing us for a moment coming in our future.

When we face difficult times of temptation, we can gain strength from Christ who knows our struggles and can help those very struggles become the preparation we need for what is next.  Further, we can imitate Christ and look to scripture as a go-to resource when we don’t know how to respond.  While we don’t completely understand why the Spirit led Christ into the wilderness to be tempted, we are helped by the fact that it happened.   Come to think of it, that may just be part of the reason Jesus was led the Spirit in that way. 

Questions:  What are your temptation management strategies?  How do they compare to those of Jesus?

Prayer:  Lord, we pray as you taught us, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”  Amen.

Prayer Focus:  Pray for those caught in the cycle of addiction.

Song:  An epic song about temptations of the Devil

Sympathy for a Devil – Rolling Stones