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“Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” (Mt 4:8-10)
The Gospel-reading in some of our churches today is Mt 4:1-11, about the Lord being “ led up by the Spirit” into the wilderness for 40 days right after His baptism, “ to be tempted by the devil” three times: 1. To make bread out of stones, “ If You are the Son of God”; 2. To throw Himself down from the temple and be preserved by angels, “ If You are the Son of God”; and 3. The one quoted above, which I’m thinking aboutthis morning. Does it mean that the world and its ‘kingdoms’ belong to the devil? If not, why is the world something of a mess? Wouldn’t all of us, and our world, be ‘fixed,’ if Christ were in charge, or at least if a Christian leader were? And is this temptation only relevant to the empire-builders of our world, or can each of us relate to it, somehow?
The Lord is showing us here, actually, that He is the One to Whom belongs all ‘the kingdom, the power, and the glory.’ But howHe exercises His authority, free from the corruption of self-service, is not the way the devil or his servants would want. The devil would want Christ (and Christians) to act in self-serving ways, specifically because these lead to human enslavement (to him) and ultimately self-destruction. Christ remains free of the devil’s ambitions and sticks to the will of His Father, filled with the Holy Spirit who led Him into the wilderness for this ‘test.’ Just like He leads us out into the wilderness of our lives after our baptism.
God manifests to us in His Son the way of exercising His power, in sync with His will and His word. “ If you are the Son of God,” if you are so special, as a ‘chosen’ child of God, – the devil sometimes whispers to each of us, or sometimes to an entire church or entire nation, – then go ahead and flex your muscles, and ‘fix’ what is lacking in your life (turn stones to bread), and show everyone else how special you are (by doing something reckless, like throwing yourself off the roof of the temple or invading another nation, yet remaining unharmed), and take charge “ of all the kingdoms of the world,” because you can! But at this point, you’ll be enslaved to, nay, even worshipping, me, is what the devil is saying. Because the devil is not about freedom, the freedom that God offers via His unifying Spirit; he is about his own will, which is just one of many wills outside of God. Subjection to any will outside of God’s, including our own (if it is not in sync with God’s will), invariably leads to bondage. It’s ultimately self-destructive, because God’s grace is the source of Life and Light, without which we eventually wither and die.
So, the devil tries to offer to Christ shortcuts, suggesting He ‘fix’ certain things by asserting Himself, His own power outside His Father’s. But that’s not how our Triune God works. He works in tri- unity, based on an obedience that is based on love. Not self-serving power. In our world, that kind of freedom, which God extends to all of us, who can choose to be the good guys or the bad guys, looks like quite the mess. It doesn’t look like our ‘success’ in securing unity and harmony everywhere. Maybe some or many people in North Korea think that unity and harmony has successfully been achieved, by the subjection of everyone to one will in that country. It’s simple, and the country seems to be at peace. But I prefer the ‘mess’ we have, to that kind of ‘fix,’ is what I’m thinking this Saturday morning. Happy weekend, dear friends!
