I have been asked to give the message during the worship services at Zion Mennonite in Birdsboro, Pa on February 4th as part of a series the pastor is doing on Matthew. I will be using Matthew 4 as my sermon text. I decided to compose my thoughts here and publish them for those who read my blog.
Today’s passage picks up immediately after Jesus had Himself baptized by John. This is important context because it tells us that Jesus was preparing Himself for His ministry. Like many men, Jesus hoped to transform the world. Unlike most, He was going to do so beyond what anyone else could imagine (and well beyond what anyone else had done before, or has done since).
I need to make a slight aside here. I believe that Jesus was fully God, but I also believe that He was fully human. And, as a human, His brain was limited. As a result, Jesus did not possess full omniscience, full knowledge of everything, while He went about His earthly ministry, because the human brain is finite and just cannot contain all of that knowledge.
So, once He was baptized Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and commune with His Spirit, the Spirit of God, about how He should execute His ministry. Or, perhaps I should say that His Spirit led Him into the wilderness to commune with Him. Into this situation comes the devil to test and tempt Jesus (the Greek word which is most commonly translated as “tempt” can also mean “test”. And I think both meanings apply here.). Jesus faced three tests, three temptations, about a way to a “shortcut” to His ministry. They represent three pitfalls that every spiritual leader can fall into. And they represent three pitfalls that those seeking a spiritual leader to follow can fall for.
So, the first one:
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
With the hunger which Jesus was experiencing after fasting for forty days and forty nights, the devil saw an opportunity to offer Him a shortcut which would derail His ministry
Which brings me to one of those rabbit holes I warned you I tend to go down the last time I gave the morning message. “40 days and 40 nights” represents throughout Scripture a period of preparation. When the flood happened, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. When Moses went up on Mt. Sinai, he was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights (this actually happened twice: once before Aaron made the golden calf and then again afterwards). After his contest with the prophets of Baal, Elijah fled into the wilderness having given up. God provided him with food and he traveled an additional 40 days and 40 nights to Mt. Horeb, where God restored his faith. Then there are all of the periods of 40 years. There is actually a separate message right there.
The devil suggested to Jesus that He could satisfy His hunger by turning stones into bread. And if He could satisfy His hunger that way, He could satisfy that of the poor the same way. We don’t really understand the power represented by this, because hunger is not a daily reality for most of us. We fail to understand the degree to which for most of human history most people went through periods of time where they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, or even when it might come. The temptation here was for Jesus to build a following by regularly meeting the physical needs of people. They wouldn’t really listen to what He said, but they would fight in support of whatever it was they thought He had said.
There is another side to this as well. We are tempted to follow those who promise us that following them and doing as they instruct us is the way in which all of our physical needs (and perhaps even our physical wants). Jesus’ answer to the tempter tells us why that doesn’t get us where He wants us to go: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
Jesus rejected the “prosperity gospel” and the “social justice” answer here. I don’t like using “social justice” here because it oversimplifies what many of those who espouse it believe they are working for, but I needed something which encapsulates the fact that there are those on both the left and the right who think that the answer is just meeting people’s physical needs. We need to listen to what God is speaking to us and act upon it.
Which brings me to the second test:
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Here, Jesus faces the temptation of a “celebrity” ministry. Go to Jerusalem and put on a big show. Everyone will follow you because they want to be close to the celebrity. Harness the power of the opinion leaders to get everyone on your side. If Jesus had put on this show, He would have had the priests and the religious leaders on His side, promoting His ministry (after that big miraculous show, they would have had to back Him, or lose their position). The problem is, those leaders would not have followed Him because they understood how what they had been doing was wrong. They would have just transferred those same one size fits all rules to supporting Him. This is the test I have the hardest time summarizing. It’s the bigger is better philosophy. Getting caught up in the glitz and glamour and thinking that because it makes us feel good it means we are worshiping God. Ultimately, it is expecting God to do the hard work and we can just go along for the ride.
I wish I could explain it better, but let’s move on to the third test:
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’
This represents the temptation to take the political route to fixing the world’s problems. If Jesus was just the Emperor, He could change things. He could stop all of the injustices of the system. From our perspective, the temptation is thinking that if we can just get the right person in charge, if we can just get the right laws in place, we can fix everything. Jesus sees the problem with this. In fact, it is built right into the offer. In order to take this path, you have to compromise with evil to gain the power to act.
All of these are shortcuts to gain a mass following to change things and bring justice to the world. The tempter told Jesus, “Do these things and you will quickly have a following which will allow you to transform the world.” Jesus rejected each of these. Fortunately, Matthew shows us how Jesus chose to build His ministry in the next few verses:
As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.
Rather than seeking to change the world wholesale, Jesus chose to change the world retail. Instead of trying to change systems and institutions, Jesus sought to change individual hearts. He chose a small group of followers and taught them how to act and how to treat others, one at a time. He didn’t go for a one-size-fits-all method of fixing what was wrong with the world, because He knew that the problem was not the systems. The problem that needed fixing was the desire in each of us to have mastery over our fellow man. In order to change that, He chose to teach a few people the power of being a servant.
