FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
21 February 2010

Luke's account of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness is framed by two important verses:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

And, at the end,

When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

The first of these has parallels in both Matthew and Mark. All three of the synoptic Gospels emphasise the role of the Spirit (which Jesus has just received at his baptism) in leading Jesus – driving him, even, as Mark puts it – into the wilderness. There is an urgency, an element of compulsion to it; Jesus' experience in the desert is not simply a distraction, no more than an incident on the way, it is an essential part of his formation.

The wilderness, though, was not necessarily what we think of it as. We tend to assume it is simply a synonym for “desert”, but while the wilderness could be a desert, what it really means is something akin to the Old English idea of “the Marches”, an area beyond civilization and control, the the rule of law is weak. It might even be pasture-land, but it was also the abode of brigands and thieves; a place of danger. Hence the Welsh Marches, dotted by enormous solidly-built castles, from which the King's authority was tenuously exerted.

So it wasn't somewhere you went willingly to be alone or safe, free from the distractions of the world (which I suspect is what we sometimes think Jesus was doing); it was somewhere you went at your peril, not knowing what you might find when you got there. Perhaps that is why Jesus had to be urged into the wilderness by the Spirit.

The people of Israel, of course, knew all about the wilderness. Abraham set off into the wilderness when he was called by God in his old age. Moses fled into the wilderness after he murdered the Egyptian foreman at the beginning of his ministry, and received his call from God there. Elijah escaped into the wilderness from the wrath of Jezebel after the slaughter of the priests of Baal, on his way to Mount Horeb, where he too received a special call from God, in the still small voice. And most importantly of all, Israel itself spent forty years in the wilderness, fighting off various threats, as they journeyed from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land.

What is certain, therefore, is that Jesus was treading a well-worn path, something the Jews of his day have recognised. They knew that the wilderness experience was part of what had shaped the patriarchs and prophets; more than that, it had shaped their own identity as God's people. And if Jesus was heir to the patriarchs and prophets as he claimed, and the fulfilment of all that God's people expected and that God himself had promised, then Jesus had to conform to that pattern.

So just as Abraham, Moses, Elijah had faced their demons – so to speak – in the wilderness, Jesus did the same. As the people of Israel themselves had wrestled with enemies both spiritual and physical … with hunger and thirst, with the lure of idolatry on the one hand and doubt on the other, and with enemy tribes such as the Amalakites and Midianites, so Jesus as the embodiment of his people did likewise.

Command this stone to become a loaf of bread: hunger. If you will worship me, it will all be yours: idolatry. If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here: Satan seeks to sow doubt in Jesus' mind about God's care for him. Each of Jesus' temptations can be under-stood in the light of the people of Israel's own historic experience, with Satan as the arch-enemy; and each of his answers is taken from the Law God gave them while they were on their wilderness journey.

But the similarity doesn't end there: Just as Patriarchs, Prophets, and People had all come through their experience with a clearer vision of what they were called to do and be, and a new mandate to be a sign of God's presence in his world, so it was for Jesus. He comes out strengthened, and still filled with the Spirit, goes into the synagogue in Nazareth and begins his work in earnest, declaring: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me … to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

But Luke sets all of this within an even larger framework, as if to emphasise the point. When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. What is that “opportune time”? For Luke it is clearly the cross, when Jesus once again faces temptation in its most acute form.

If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread, demands the devil in the wilderness; and again, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. And at Calvary we hear the taunting of the crowds: If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself, and of the first criminal, Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!

Jesus could no doubt have done both, just as he could have done any of the things demanded of him by the devil – and to be credible as temptations we have to assume they were options Jesus might have found attractive; a way out of the hard road he had to follow – but at the beginning and end of his ministry he rejected the easy option in favour of obedience to the pattern he knew he had to follow, as Luke emphasises with a deliberate symmetry.

And that is the point of the two verses with which today's Gospel are framed: to link Jesus' temptation in the wilderness – the opening act of the drama, if you like – with its climax. Here at the beginning of Lent we see a pointer to what is to come, when Satan returns with a vengeance. And we see too a Jesus conscious of his identity, filled with the Spirit, obediently fulfilling all that he is called to do.

All of which leaves one question: Where is the Spirit leading us, that maybe we do not want to go, in order that we may be more conscious of our calling, and more willing to fulfil all that God has called us to do?