This coming Sunday is the First Sunday in Lent. In yesterday’s post we took an in-depth look at the possible meanings of the two words translated as “tempting” (v.1 and v.7) – both their positive and negative connotations. Today we consider the focus of the temptation agenda.

It is helpful to consider this pericope as being “both-and:” Jesus is tested by his heavenly Father so that Jesus knows what is “in his heart” at the same time Jesus is tempted by Satan to be other than fully obedient to God.  We should note that Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted/tested (v. 1). This is a softening of Mark’s account where the Spirit “throws Jesus out” into the wilderness (Mk 1:12). Lest there be any concern, as Boring (163) notes: “… [Jesus’] submission to temptation is not an accident or a matter of being victimized by demonic power, but is part of his obedience to God.”

The focus of the “testing” agenda is indicated by the devil’s first two suggestions (vv.3,6) – “If you are the Son of God.”   There could not be a more clear connection to the last verse of the preceding chapter: “And a voice came from the heavens, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Mt 3:17). That very relationship is not under scrutiny. Rather the demonic suggestions explore, given that relationship, what ways are appropriate to act and how can the devil take advantage in order to drive a wedge into the relationship.   For example, there was an expectation that the Messiah would produce a lavish miracle of manna in messianic times.  Is this an appropriate response by Jesus? If Jesus does such a lavish miracle, the people’s expectations can be derailed from salvific to political power. If Jesus refuses, then how can he be the messiah as he does not meet our expectations.

What is the divine expectation? It is because of the filial relationship of love and obedience that God the Father will ultimately ask Jesus to give up his own life for the life of the world.  The real test is not here in the Galilean wilderness.  This is but a prelude to what occurs in the holy city of Jerusalem during Jesus’ Passion and Death.  There are echoes between the two locales: 

R.T. France suggests that the key to understanding this story is found in Jesus’ three responses – all from Deuteronomy 6-8 a part of Moses’ address to Israelites before their entry into the promised land. It is significant that this section begins with the great Shema, the daily prayer of all true Israelites: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Dt 6:4-5).

In Moses’ address, he reminds Israel of their 40 years of wilderness experience which was a time of preparation and of proving the faithfulness of their God. Among the things the Israelites, the children of God, should have learned is

• not to depend on bread alone but rather on God’s word (Dt 8:3),
• not to put God to the test (Dt 6:16), and
• to make God the exclusive object of their worship and obedience (Dt 6:13).

Now another “Son of God” is in the wilderness facing those same tests and learning so perfectly what Israel had so imperfectly grasped. At best Israel’s occupation of the promised land was a partial and flawed fulfillment of the hopes they carried to the banks of the River Jordan.  But this new “Son of God” will not fail and the new “Exodus” will succeed because this Son loves his Father with all his heart, his soul and his strength.  Jesus is the fulfillment of Israel and will become the one through whom God’s redemptive purpose for the world is fulfilled.

Image credit:The Temptation in the Wilderness, Briton Rivière (1898) | Public Domain

This coming Sunday is the First Sunday in Lent. In today’s post we consider the question posed in the title of the post: is this episode a test, a temptation or a trial – and does the answer make a difference when considered from the Biblical perspective?

All three synoptic gospels record an incident of Jesus confronting the devil in the wilderness immediately after his baptismal experience at the Jordan River. Where Matthew notes quite simply: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). Matthew and Luke record a three-part dialogue between Jesus and the devil that is recorded traditionally as a “tempting.” Mark simply offers the entire episode in one verse: “At once the Spirit drove him out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him” (Mark 1:12-13).

It is difficult to know how to translate peirazo (4:1) and the more intensive ekpeirazo (4:7) – “to test” or “to tempt”. (You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.) The word is often used in the LXX of God testing people, e.g., God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son (Gn 22:1).  When God rained bread from heaven, God asked that they gather only enough for that day. “Thus, I will test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not.” (Ex 16:4).

Why does God test people? One reason is given in Dt 13:4: “for the LORD, your God, is testing you to learn whether you really love him with all your heart and with all your soul.” A slightly different reason is given in Dt 8:16: “that he might afflict [humble] you and test you, but also make you prosperous in the end.”  God does not test his people so that He would know the answer, what is in our hearts – He already knows.  God tests his people so that we would know what is in our hearts (cf. Dt 8:2).

“Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (NRSV)

That is the positive side of peirazo and ekpeirazo. They can also have negative connotations: “to tempt” or “to try and cause someone to make a mistake” or “to try and cause someone to sin.” At the same time that God is “testing” so that one self-discovers the depths of one’s faithfulness, the “Tempter” may be “tempting” someone to sin. God’s purpose is to strengthen faith. Satan’s purpose is to weaken trust in God.

One should also be aware that this pericope of conflict with Satan is part of a recurring theme within Matthew of conflict between the kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of this world.  In Matthew’s theology, the devil though defeated (12:28-29) continues to tempt Jesus during his ministry (16:23), at the crucifixion and into the time of the Church (13:19,39).  This pericope also sets the stage for the post-Easter period when the disciples must still confront the devil-inspired resistance to the gospel message (5:37; 6:13; 13:19, 39)

Image credit:The Temptation in the Wilderness, Briton Rivière (1898) | Public Domain

This coming Sunday is the First Sunday in Lent for Lectionary Cycle A with the reading taken from Matthew 4:1-11. From the 4^th Sunday to the 9^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Sunday gospels include most of the “Sermon on the Mount” (Mt 5:1-7:29)  On the first Sunday in Lent, the traditional reading reverts to several chapters earlier – Mt 4 – to consider “the tempting of Christ in the dessert.”  This was preceded by the account of the baptism of Jesus which revealed him as the Son of God: “And a voice came from the heavens, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’ ” (Mt 3:17). Following the temptation, Jesus begins his public ministry in Galilee staring at Mt 4:12

The temptation setting is in continuity with the scene of Jesus’ baptism. The temptation is connected by the key words “Spirit,” “wilderness,” “Son of God.”  In addition, both settings have the motif of the voice of God, which in the wilderness setting is central to the Book of Deuteronomy, from which Jesus quotes. It is also connected, more subtly, by the resistance that both John the Baptist and Satan offer to the obedient response of the Son to the Father’s will.

Boring [162-163] offers that this one scene in the wilderness sets the plot for the whole of Matthew’s narrative and that this one encounter with Satan is only prelude to the resistance that Jesus will face in proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven:

Conflict with Satan is not limited to this pericope, but is the underlying aspect of the conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world, which is the plot of the whole Gospel of Matthew. The friction between Jesus and the Jewish leaders throughout the Gospel, already anticipated in the conflict with Herod, the high priests, and the scribes (and even the hesitation of John to baptize Jesus) is actually a clash of kingdoms. Jesus is the representative of the kingdom of God; Satan also represents a kingdom (12:26). Thus, elsewhere in the Gospel, “test” or “tempt” (peirazō) is used only of the Jewish leaders (16:1; 19:3; 22:18, 35), and Jesus always resists them by quoting Scripture, as he does here. The conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders is a surface dimension of the underlying discord between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. This is what Matthew is about. God is the hidden actor, and Satan is the hidden opponent, throughout the Gospel; but God is always offstage, and Satan appears only here as a character in the story. Satan is worked into the outline at strategic points, but the conflict between Jesus and Satan is not to be reduced to any one scene. In Matthew’s theology, Satan, though defeated (12:28–29) continues to tempt Jesus during his ministry (16:23), at the crucifixion, and into the time of the church (13:19, 39); Satan is finally abolished at the end time (25:41). The narrative of Jesus’ ministry, which now begins, is told at two levels. It not only portrays the past life of Jesus, but also looks ahead to the post-Easter time, when the disciples must still confront demonic resistance to the gospel message (5:37; 6:13; 13:19, 39)—and not only from outsiders, but from other disciples as well (16:23).

In parishes in which there is an active OICA program, the readings from Cycle A are always an option for Masses at which the catechumens (those not yet baptized) and candidates (those already baptized and seeking full communion with the Church) gather for one of the Rites.

Image credit:The Temptation in the Wilderness, Briton Rivière (1898) | Public Domain