Lent 1 - Temptation in the Wilderness

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Luke 4:1-13 – Temptations in the WIlderness

This past week my brother sent me a meme over Whats app…. It was an old medieval painting with an image of a devil or demon sitting on a man’s shoulders whispering into his ear: And the caption that accompanied the image were the words: 

“Good! Good! … Now use your wife’s fabric scissors to open that card-bard box. She’ll never know.” 

Today is the first Sunday of Lent.  Lent is a season of reflection, of turning inward to examine our own lives and our spiritual journey. The Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent is traditionally the account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, a story filled with rich symbolism I believe that speaks not only to temptations in Jesus’ life but also to the deeper spiritual struggles that each of us faces. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus enters the wilderness for forty days, fasting and wrestling with the forces that seek to divert him from his path. It is a passage rich in symbolic meaning and my own sense is that it would be a mistake to treat the story at a purely literal level.

As we consider the context of the passage within the narrative of Luke’s Gospel, we find that the passage comes immediately after Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, where the Spirit descends upon him, and a voice proclaims, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you, I am well pleased." In Luke’s telling, Jesus, described by Luke as "full of the Holy Spirit," is then led into the wilderness. This transition is important. Baptism represents an affirmation of identity, an identity that is then tested in the wilderness. Like Jesus, we are all God’s beloved… but that is something we all need to discover, and in discovering it, it also needs to be tested. 

In Matthew, Mark and Luke’s Gospels, this story deliberately echoes the journey of Israel through the desert after their liberation from Egypt. Just as Israel was tested for forty years, Jesus is tested for forty days. Yet unlike Israel, which often faltered in its trust in God, Jesus remains steadfast.

Comparing Luke’s and Matthew’s versions of the temptations of Jesus we find that both Luke and Matthew present three temptations (which Mark’s Gospel doesn’t do), but Luke and Matthew  arrange them differently. In Matthew’s account, Jesus is firstly tempted to turn stones into bread, then to throw himself from the temple, and finally to worship the devil in exchange for worldly power. Matthew ends with Jesus standing atop a high mountain, rejecting dominion over all the kingdoms of the world.

Luke, however, reverses the last two temptations, concluding instead with the temptation at the temple in Jerusalem. This is significant because Luke’s Gospel gives special importance to Jerusalem as the place where Jesus’ mission will culminate. The shift also suggests that Luke sees the spiritual temptation of the ego as the heart of the matter – the seeking after the self-glorification of the ego. Temptation to political power is just another symptom of this for Luke. 

This passage I believe needs to be read not a literal history, but rather as a symbolic journey of the soul, a universal story of testing and transformation. Indeed there are many who would suggest that the temptations as we read them in Luke and Matthew were always meant to be read symbolically (not as literal history), in which the writers of Luke and Matthew were seeking to express in story form the deeper values of Jesus and the kinds of temptations that all people will ultimately face in the journey of life in this world.  And perhaps at this point a note on the devil in this passage is important. Here again we don’t need to treat the devil as a literal figure.  The devil in the story can be read as representing the temptations of our lower nature that resists and often undermines the call of our higher spiritual nature.  Bryant Magill writes that “The worst bullies you will encounter are your own thoughts”.  We have enough bad thoughts coming from our own lower nature without having to interpret the devil in this passage literally – although some might debate this.  

Getting back to the three temptations in the passage, we find that they correspond to fundamental, archetypal struggles we all face:

Firstly, the Temptation of Bread corresponds to the struggle with material needs -  Jesus is hungry, and the devil tempts him to turn stones into bread.  

This speaks to the basic human longing for security, comfort, and survival. But Jesus replies, "One does not live by bread alone." This suggests that while material needs are real, they are not the whole of life. A deeper hunger, the hunger for meaning, purpose, and connection must also be fed. In the western world, where we are obsessed above all things with profit margins and financial security and where people are financially wealthier than at any other time in history we are also seeing a plague or a pandemic of meaninglessness, depression and other mental ill-health. Jesus words speak deeply into this crisis in western societies – “One does not live in bread alone”.  A deeper hunger, the hunger for meaning, purpose, and connection must also be fed.

Wends and I have been catching up in recent weeks on Ben Fogle’s New adventures into the wild – showcasing people who have given up the comforts of modern living and finding a much deeper sense of meaning and joy living a life of greater simplicity – not always living easy lives, but living deeper, more joyful lives. Living examples that one does not live on bread alone. 

Secondly, the Temptation of Power speaks of the struggle with control and influence - The devil character in the story offers Jesus dominion over the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship. This is the temptation of power, of bending the world to our will. Thinking that if only the world did things our way, we would all be happy. It is a temptation that nations, institutions, and individuals face constantly. Jesus’ refusal reminds us that true authority is not found in domination, and the desperate effort to control life and others, forcing others to do what we want, but in integrity and service.

Thirdly, the Temptation of Spectacle, the struggle for recognition and ego -  The final temptation in Luke’s account takes place in Jerusalem, where the devil urges Jesus to throw himself from the temple and prove his divine status. This speaks to the temptation of self-importance, the desire to be seen, validated, and admired. Jesus resists this temptation, refusing to manipulate or demand recognition. His path will not be about spectacle and the assertion of his own self-importance and desire for glory but about humility and faithfulness.

What is fascinating about these archetypal temptations as described by Luke and Matthew is that they don’t focus on the sins that Christians have traditionally focused on:  Sex and riotous living. That is not to say that those can’t be potential problems in people’s lives. What Luke and Matthew are suggesting however is that there are deeper sins of the spirit that even respectable people in society can engage in that are more insidious. In fact in Luke’s Gospel, the traditional sinners of society found great solace in the presence of Jesus. They found in Jesus a new beginning and a love that drew them out of their dysfunctional lives and dysfunctional behaviour.  By contrast, those who had a real struggle with Jesus were those clinging onto economic, political and religious power and authority , respectable people for whom religion had strengthened their egos rather than diminished their ego’s, and high ranking political figures like Herod and Pilate for whom the love of power had undermined the deeper values of the heart and the spirit. And thirdly, those for whom the fear of insecurity had led them to hoard money.  Luke’s Gospel highlights the dangers of religious, political and economic sin far more than the dangers for example of sexual sin and substance abuse, as destructive as these can sometimes be when abused and misused.  

For Christians today, I believe that this passage invites us to deep reflection not on supernatural battles between good and evil but on the inner conflicts we all face. Lent can be seen as a time to explore our own wilderness, the places of struggle within us where we are most especially tempted by security, power, and ego, but also any other lesser temptation that has the potential to undermine the wholeness of life for ourselves and others.  What hungers drive us? What powers do we seek to control? Where does our ego demand recognition? And how might we, like Jesus, respond with humility, wisdom and integrity?  
Amen.