“Tempted” is a loaded word, and for us can have associations beyond what it may have meant for Biblical translators. When we read that Jesus was “in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan,” we may imagine him out there with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue or an all-you-can eat buffet. Since Mark, unlike Luke and Matthew, includes no details about the nature of these temptations, our imaginations have free rein.
The other Gospels explain that Jesus was being tempted not so much to garden variety sin as to misuse his divine nature, or to relinquish it in a grand bargain with Satan, an allure more cosmic than venial. A more useful word for what happened to Jesus in that wilderness is “tested.” His faith in the unseen power he had received was tested. His trust in the guidance of his heavenly Father was tested. His commitment to the mission for which he had come into human life in the first place was tested.
Thinking of Jesus in his humanity, imagine how bewildering the experiences related in the gospels must have been for him. Many of us have a sense of mission. But how does a human hold the mission we believe Jesus had – a mission we see perhaps more clearly in hindsight than he might have on any given day – and not be wracked regularly by questions and doubts?
Perhaps this is why the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, so that his conviction of his identity could be tested and tried until he could withstand those doubts, whether they came from within or from others. Jesus could not have exercised the ministry we read about in the gospels were he not able to return time and again to his solid center, his sure knowledge of his Father’s love and power flowing through him. Indeed, faith in Jesus could not have spread so far and endured for so long had he not been able to maintain that center to the grave and beyond.
What if we look at Lent as a forty-day period of testing rather than temptation? Do we really need to know we can resist wine or chocolate, or that we can sustain a spiritual discipline for six weeks? Wouldn’t we be more joyful followers, more effective apostles if we knew our faith and sense of mission to be bearers of Christ could withstand the arrows of scheduling, convenience, complacency, anxiety, embarrassment, priorities and their like?
We don’t have to go to the wilderness looking for testing. Life hands it to us – every time we are tempted to allow an item on our to-do list to replace the time we had planned to spend in quiet prayer (guilty!), every time a friend or family member tries to talk us out of investing in our spiritual life, every time we are tempted to look at an area of pain or disease and agree with the world that God has no power there. These are just a few of the tests that come our way.
How has your faith or your commitment to God in Christ been tested lately? Are you pleased with the way you responded? How might you respond differently? We may need to become more aware of the tests themselves, and then how to resist.
One thing we can always do is call on the power of Jesus to help us and re-center us. We claim he was “tempted in every way as we are, yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) That means he did not give in to other demands or to what the devil told him was “reality.” With his Spirit in us, we can withstand those attacks too, and remain centered in our identity as bearers of Christ.
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