After Jesus’ enlightening moment he felt the need, or more accurately the Spirit prompted/drove/compelled Jesus, to go into a time of reflection. Jesus went into the eremos, the desert. The desert has a rich history in the biblical tradition as well as in our last two thousand years of church history. The desert/wilderness for Israel was her place of testing and identity formation. And it is quite clear theologically that Jesus, as a representative for Israel is undergoing a personal identity formation moment as he heads to the desert. A sort of culmination in his person of all Israel wanted to be but couldn’t be. Of course whether he knew he was doing that as the climax of Israelite history IN him and his life is what we have said is totally unknown.
The question that Jesus is apparently wrestling with is whether or not he will live from the deepest sense of calling he has been given, something that as of this is moment at least he realizes is special and maybe historic.
If you and I think we are special, if we are given high accolades, if are given high praise, we are faced with how much of that will “go to our heads” so to speak. That same is true of criticism we receive. How much of this “storying” will land within us and be restoried over and over again; one of the stories potentially leading to egocentricity the other toward a personal self deprecating outlook. I wonder if in the midst of Jesus’ experience at his baptism he isn’t facing something like this.
Before getting to the three temptations, it is interesting to think of the mode of temptation. How exactly did these happen? Was there a person dialoguing with Jesus in physical form? Was it a dream/trance/vision that Jesus was having? Was it a voice in his head wrestling with his “specialness?” I raise the question simply to get us in touch with assumptions we make, often formed when we were children from Sunday school, about how we picture biblical stories. The fact is we all have points of view and those views determine how we read and then extract from the narrative what we think the story was about.
As for me I have come to a place where this story seems to be one of those critical moments in the life of Jesus where he has an internal wrestling going on. The “enemy” (however YOU happen to define that) is giving Jesus three temptations, temptations to move him from his deepest sense of self and purpose and to create an identity around other centers.
What do you think? Before looking at the temptations themselves, how do you view the narrative?
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The person of Jesus taught to me in “Sunday School” was much more supernatural than human. As a boy growing up in America the idea of a “super” person was fascinating. My boyhood idols were Batman, Spiderman, and of course Superman. For me the story of Jesus fit into these categories.
I love the perspective that perhaps there was no “devil” with a pitchfork standing in Jesus’ face heckling him (as the story goes from my upbringing). It is much easier to relate to Jesus having tempting thoughts to re-create his identity through an others’ centered lens. I certainly deal with thoughts to put myself at the center of my universe much more often than I actually hear anyone tempt me to do something outwardly to “prove” my specialness. The internal struggle for me far outweighs any external temptations. I am eager to explore this more.