Reflection: What on Earth is Happening - the Rev's notes

Reflection - What on Earth is Happening?

We are using the weeks of Lent to help re centre our life and faith upon the person of Jesus.

Lent is a time of reflection, repentance and, as we travel through into Easter, restoration.

Today, we are starting by putting life and faith into context.

'No man is an island; entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.' John Donne

We are not islands, independent and isolated; rather we are connected, joined to the whole.

This idea of connection runs central to the message of the Bible. We are connected to:

 Creator
 Creation
 Community

It is around this central theme of connection, that the message of Bible unfolds.

There are two main thoughts in scripture - God's desire to unite and Satan's aim to separate. God is involved in bringing things together; Satan is involved in tearing them apart.

What happens on earth is Satan' attempt to frustrate the unity that God creates, Jesus enters the battle to win back the lost dream of paradise.

‘For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.’ 1 John 3:8

Our season of Lent begins, unsurprisingly in the wilderness, the place of testing and temptation. And it begins not with our temptations, but Jesus'. And the reason Jesus temptations mater is because he was human too - his body carried the same pains as your own.

The wilderness establishes Jesus' humanity and also his victory.

Matthew 4:1-11 'After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.'

The humanity of Jesus is established in all four gospels:

John 4 Jesus is tired
Mark 3:5 Jesus is angry and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts over his healing
Luke 22:44 Jesus is in anguish in the garden. He prayed more earnestly and sweat drops of blood
Matthew 26 My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.

Jesus enters our world in humanity in order to save that humanity.

The Son of God becomes the Son of man in order that the sons of men might become of the sons of God.

So the wilderness becomes Jesus' place of testing in the same way that is was for that other son, Israel, but where they failed he succeeds.

Every good Jew knows that this story is about another story. The 40 days speaks to them of 40 years. There is identification with God's purpose but now that purpose is found in Christ.

There are 3 temptations that Jesus faces to do with: identity, trust, and purpose.

'Many have observed that Satan followed the same pattern of temptation with Jesus that he had used with Eve (Gen. 3). First, he appealed to the lust of the flesh, the desire to do something apart from God's will. Second, he appealed to the lust of the eyes, the desire to have something apart from God's will. Third, he appealed to the pride of life, the desire to be something apart from God's will (cf. 1 John 2:16)'.

We all face these temptations - to live apart from he who made us. To go it alone.

Jesus' genealogy and virgin birth prove His legal human qualification as Israel's King. His baptism was the occasion of His divine approval. His temptation demonstrated His moral fitness to reign.

During this fast Jesus ate nothing but presumably drank water (cf. Luke 4:2). Moses and Elijah, two of God's most significant servants in the Old Testament, likewise fasted for 40 days and nights (Exod. 34:28; Deut. 9:9; 1 Kings 19:. Jesus' fast would have connected Him with these servants of the Lord in the minds of Matthew's Jewish readers, as it does in ours.

Temptation 1 - Identity

'If you are the son of God tell these stones to become bread.'

Immediately Satan brings the identity of Jesus into question. 'If you are the Son of God.'

In this first temptation Satan's aim was to seduce Jesus into using His God-given power and authority independently of His Father's will. Jesus had subjected Himself to His Father's will because of His mission (cf. Phil. 2:. It was uniquely a personal temptation; it tested Jesus' person.

Note the passage before when the Father affirms the son and immediately this is bought into question. How often does the devil work this way in our lives?

In the wilderness the limestone rocks would have looked very much like loaves of bread. Satan plays on both the visual and the hunger and brings the temptation to him.

Our temptations begin with doubting who we are. When we begin to doubt who we are, we become much more vulnerable to attack.

Notice how Jesus responds. Jesus re-enacts the history of the Israelites. He quotes from Deuteronomy and says that man does not live by bread alone.

The issue has to do with hunger. God has let you down, he lets you be hungry. He allows you to suffer. How can somebody be loved by God and suffer?
There is no way you can be who God says you are and be hungry and suffer. The temptation is to doubt that God is good.

Jesus response is that there is something more to life than simply suffering, it has to do with God's provision, can he be trusted.

Ok then, says Satan if God can be trusted, then throw yourself down.

Temptation 2 - Trust

'Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, throw yourself down.'

"Jerusalem was considered the 'centre of the nations, with lands around her,' the 'centre of the world,' whose inhabitants 'dwell at the centre of the earth' (Ezek. 5:5;
38:12; . . .). Thus when Jesus stood on the pinnacle of the temple, He was, theologically speaking, at the centre of the world."

From that position, would he break the Torah that forbade testing God thus demanding him to show his faithfulness?

Jesus refused Satan's suggestion (v. 7) because the Scriptures forbade putting God to a test, not because He questioned God's faithfulness to His promise. Satan tempted Jesus to test God. Israel had faced the same test and had failed (Exod. 17:2-7; cf. Num. 20:1-13). It is wrong to demand that God prove Himself faithful to His promises by giving us what He has promised on our terms. The proper procedure is simply to trust and obey God (Deut. 6:16-17).

God can be trusted - he doesn't need to get God to prove this to him.

Temptation 3 - Purpose

The temptation is to take Jesus to he place of authority - this authority would come to Jesus but the path to it was sacrifice not power.

The high mountain to which Satan took Jesus next is traditionally near Jericho, but its exact location is not important. It simply provided a vantage point from which Satan could point out other kingdoms that surrounded Israel. "The placement of Jesus on the mountain of temptation, where He refused to acknowledge the devil's 'authority,' is deliberately opposite to the mountain (Matt. 28:16) of 'the great commission,' on which He later affirmed that all 'authority' in heaven and on earth had been granted to Him (28:18)."

Luke's wording suggests that Satan presented all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus in a vision (Luke 4:5). This temptation would have universal significance, not just personal and national significance as the first and second temptations did.

Jesus purpose would not be thwarted by following the devil's tempting offer.

The purpose of Satan was to separate Jesus from his:

 identity, we are made in his image
 trust, we are made to walk with God
 purpose, we are here to do the will of God

Where do you find your self in Jesus' temptations? Are you struggling to see yourself in the image of God and to walk as his child? Are you falling in areas of trust, stepping in to assert your own authority over the rule of God? Or are you giving into to the temptations of other things, settling for second best rather than God's best for your life?