On the first Sunday of this reflective 40 day journey that we call lent, we ran into Jesus in what might seem like a rather surprising place. This place is one with which we human creatures are quite familiar. It is a place of chaos and danger, of anxiety and hunger, of distrust and temptation. We begin this Lenten journey by meeting Jesus in the wilderness.
The wilderness brings to mind a number of biblical images. The patriarchs and matriarchs in Genesis spend some time there, some figuratively, some literally. Elijah fled for his life and asked to die in the wilderness. And, of course, the people Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years, a really long time to be there.
For some of us, the wilderness brings to mind our own life experiences. The death of a loved one, the loss of a job, even the call to serve God in any number of capacities, and you can name your own wilderness experience, these leave us wandering, famished, exhausted. And Jesus meets us here.
Now, I do not come from a very outdoorsy family. When we went “camping” every summer it was either to my grandparents’ condo on lake Okoboji or at a resort style Bible camp complete with air conditioning. So, I did not get to really start to understand wilderness in the literal sense until college when I spent four months in Tanzania, mostly deep in the bush amongst Maasai tribes.
My first worship experience in Tanzania was toward the end of an especially dry dry season. Service on the dusty open plain in this small Masaai village was interrupted a number of times by debris blown into our windowless worship space, dust in our eyes, and small wind whipped dust cyclones that would tear through in front of the altar. Here was chaos and some level of uncertainty in the wilderness, but it was also here in our wilderness community that we heard the word and received the Lord’s Supper. To my surprise, Jesus was in this wilderness!
“Great,” we might say to ourselves, “Jesus showed up in this dry and desolate place, he must be here to scoop us up and take us out of here or at least turn this wilderness into a bright sunny beach. After all, we just learned in Jesus’ baptism that occurs immediately before this in Matthew that Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of God is certainly powerful enough to get us out of here.” But, to our surprise, we encounter Jesus, this Son of God in the wilderness as one with us. We encounter Jesus as one who is feeling the weight of the wilderness himself, as one who is hungry, tempted, and yet faithful. Suddenly, we are forced to reconsider what Jesus’ being the Son of God must mean. Maybe it means more than supernatural ability and kingly power. Maybe being the Son of God means trusting faithfully in God’s promises, especially in the wilderness.
In our text today, Jesus shows us what being the Son of God looks like, as He allows only God to define that relational identity. The season of Lent that we have recently entered is a time to reflect on that very identity and it is a reminder to us Christians that who we are is intimately intertwined with who Christ is. In short, because of who Christ is, we are who we are.
As we reach our text in Matthew’s telling of the story of Jesus, God has just recently broken the news: “This is my Son,” God tells the world. Rather than throwing a parade or making up for twenty-some missed birthday parties, God’s Spirit brings Jesus TO BE tested in the wilderness. This is a time for Jesus to live into his newly revealed identity. Now, hungry from 40 days of fasting, the tester shows up and the exam begins.
“If you are the Son of God…” the devil immediately tells Jesus what the subject of the test will be. The subject is Jesus’ sonship. The temptations that the devil puts before Jesus are concerned with who Jesus is in relation to God. The devil, after all, has an idea about what should make someone God’s Son. This idea is what we might call common knowledge. The Son of God, common knowledge tells us, deserves and gets satisfaction, power, and authority. This Son of God should be glorious like a well-fed earthly king. The devil’s idea is that the Son of God has the power to fulfill his own immediate needs and that the Son of God has spiritual authority and autonomy and that the Son of God is entitled to imperial rule. Sounds right…doesn’t it?
These tests are temptations to live like common knowledge would tell us a Son of God should live. They are temptations of self-satisfaction, distrust, and the status-quo type power of empire and earthly rulers. Ultimately, all of these are temptations to be Son of God in a way that is defined by someone other than God. These are temptations to be someone other than who Jesus is, temptations not to live into his identity.
The amazing thing is that Jesus does not let the devil have the final word on the matter of who he is! God has the final word! Three times Jesus is tested and three times Jesus responds with God’s word. Trust in God’s provision, God’s faithfulness, and God’s way characterize Jesus as the Son of God and silence the voice that speaks against this identity.
Now, here is the beautiful thing, because of who Christ is in relation to God, we are freed to ever more fully be who we are…the Children of God! We are free, by virtue of Christ’s living into his identity as Son of God to live into our own identity as Children of God. What we hear in Matthew’s gospel is not that we can overcome temptation if we just try, but that out identity is finally not defined by the devil, that is, by the powers of selfishness, distrust, the might of the status quo, or anything we might worship other than God. No! As Children of God we are finally defined by God. God has the final word and says to all of us, “You are my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Because of who Christ is we are who we are. In the wilderness of this life and especially now in the wilderness of lent, we are freed to live more fully into this identity, to be who we are.
In this particular season, most of us in this room are in the risky and chaotic wilderness of waiting for internship placement. Others here today are in the wilderness of dealing with ornery students who are in the wilderness of waiting. Meeting Jesus in the wilderness at this particular time in this season comes pretty naturally, because, well, we are already there in this dry and desolate place of uncertainty and anxiety. This is our condition and Jesus meets us here.
In his commentary on the first temptation Jesus that faces in Matthew’s gospel, Tom Long tells us that Jesus is tempted to make the nature of his work too small, to satisfy himself (Long, Matthew, 35). Not to have in his mind and before his eyes the picture of his call. Now, this does not mean that it was bad for Jesus to be hungry or that it is bad to fulfill physical need. This isn’t some ethereal flesh loathing text that calls us to asceticism, to flee to the hills and master our desires. Jesus is not saying no to food per se or no to his body per se. Rather, Jesus says no to the minimizing of his identity, to self concern and self satisfaction as set against trust in God and God’s mission. Jesus gives the final word to God and reminds the devil that being the Son of God means trusting God in the wilderness and being concerned with God’s mission for the world, not just with himself.
My own temptation in this time of uncertainty and waiting, like Jesus’ in the wilderness, is to be drawn into self-satisfaction and self-concern over concern for God’s mission and my call to be in that mission. This inward turn of self-concern manifests in anxiety…and here we are…in the wilderness.
Meeting Jesus in this wilderness does not mean that the anxiety will magically disappear or that God’s call to us will make life nice, comfortable, or easy. But it does mean that the forces that cause such anxiety do not have the final word.
Our identity is intertwined with the identity of Christ, remember, we are the body of Christ, Christians, that is, little Christs. By virtue of his identity as the Son of God, we are brought into the family of God, we are brought into His story, and we are freed by Christ to live into this identity, trusting the promises of God even in the wilderness, following God’s way even when it leads to the cross, and living defined by God even when other definitions of who we are may seem very appealing. Because of who Christ is, we are who we are. As Christ is shown to be the Son of God in the wilderness, we are God’s beloved Children in the wilderness, in the city, and even in the classroom. Only God defines us. All other voices are silenced. God has the final word.
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