MYTHOS
The story of Jesus in the wilderness is recorded only in the Synoptic Gospels: Mark 1:9-13, Luke 4:1-13, and Matthew 4:1-11. The Gospel of John does not record this story as Jesus is presented in John's Gospel as more divine than human and above the human frailty of succumbing to temptation. In John, Jesus doesn't fall for anything.
There are two ways to look at the story of Jesus being led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. The first is to treat it as a metaphor of Jesus' struggle with being told he is God's Son in a vision after being baptized by John the Baptizer, which I have written about in a post that can be viewed here.
The second way is to treat this story as a myth. Buddha, Mohammed, and others identified as founders of a religious movement throughout history have mythic stories about being tempted before becoming a leader of religious movement. It is the mythic version of Jesus temptation in the wilderness that is the topic of this post. The mythic elements of this story is both its setting in the wilderness and its cast of characters: the Spirit of God, Jesus, the tempted; Satan, the tempter who is God's appointed adversary; and the angels who comfort Jesus following his being tested.
The first consideration is why the Spirit would lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. There is no biblical or prophetic reference; much less, a biblical precedent regarding why God would test Jesus. This is not God's usual modus operandi.
An omniscient God has no need to test anyone or anything. As such, there is something Jobian about this story that makes one question whether Jesus' test is a challenge to Satan; as in, God's challenge to Satan in Job, "Have you considered my servant Job" or in this case "my Son, Jesus?" The Jobian similarity is the wager-like motif that is implied between two immortal beings over the capability of a mortal to remain faithful to his calling.
The divine testing the quality or worth of a mortal to fulfill a divine task is as old as theism itself. That this concept finds its way into the Gospel narrative supports the idea of the Pagan Continuation Hypotheses forwarded by Brian Muraresku, the author of Immorality Key. That early Christians thought it necessary to include a test to prove that Jesus was worthy to be declared God's Son is understandable, given the time and place in which nascent Christianity emerged, but it leaves something to be desired in the twenty-first century.
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The Gospel of Mark simply records that Jesus was sent into wilderness for forty days and forty nights to be tempted by the Devil and attended to by angels. It does not elaborate on the type of testing that occurred. On the other hand, both Luke and Matthew give us some detail what was involved. The temptation of Jesus involves three tests to challenge his faithfulness in God. The first test is to turn stones into bread. After forty days and night of fasting, Jesus' body was craving something substantial, like carbs, to satisfy his hunger, but Jesus reminds Satan that humans do not live by bread along but by every word that comes out of God's mouth.
The second test depends on whether one is reading Matthew or Luke. For the sake brevity I am using Matthew's test in which case, Satan takes Jesus to the highest pinnacle of the Temple and challenges Jesus to jump, citing Psalm 91 which states that angels will rush to his aide to avoid him dashing his foot against a stone, to which Jesus retorts, "You should not tempt the Lord." In an odd twist, one can't be sure if Jesus is talking about himself or whether he is accusing Satan of tempting God to act. Either interpretation is valid. If that is the case, Jesus knows or at least believes that as God's Son no harm can come to him as long as he is doing the will of his Father. The catch here is that Jesus knows he is being tested and he doesn't need to prove anything to Satan. What would be the point? If, on the other hand, Satan is trying to get Jesus to test God, to see if God would respond to him as the Psalmist said God would, then Jesus would prove himself faithless and defeated by Satan before he would even begin his ministry. There is a sense that if Jesus had succumbed to that temptation, the story of Jesus would have ended and we would not be talking about him, mythically speaking. This brings us to the final temptation in Matthew.
Satan takes Jesus to the highest mountain peak from which he shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and appeals to his human nature and the lust for wealth and power. Satan offers Jesus all of them to him if he would simply bow down and worship Satan. It would appear that if Jesus would be attracted to such a proposition, Jesus' divine nature would be questionable, but Jesus doesn't. Jesus' response is to tell Satan to go to Hell, that as God's Son he must worship God and only serve him. It is at this point that Satan leaves and Jesus is attended to by angels, which confirms that Jesus has passed the test by averting Satan's temptations.
I have preferred using the term Satan as opposed to the Devil, simply because Satan in Jewish mythology performs a special function, as God's appointed adversary in God's court. Satan is the ultimate prosecutor who ferrets out the unfaithful as a reminder to God that God's perfect creation is anything but perfect; that the creation of humans was a mistake God should regret having made. In the Old Testament, it was the righteous and faithful that was put to the test by Satan and again we see God leading Jesus into the wilderness to be tested which in a mythical way for God to poke a divine finger in Satan's eye to remind him that the creation of humans was no mistake that, in spite of their many failing, humans have an innate capacity for faithfulness.
MEANING
The original meaning of this myth is to prove Jesus to be the Son of God who can withstand the temptations of Satan on his way to being the perfect sacrifice needed to redeem the world. Its theological importance to Christians is that Jesus can be relied on to be faithful in meeting our needs just as he was faithful to his heavenly Father. As our exemplar, we are prompted to resist the temptation to chose expedience over thoughtful consideration in the choices we make; to understand that immediate wants are not consistent with what we truly need. To discern the will of God is not a quick process. It requires patient introspection. There is an element of patience in the story's premise that Jesus took a long time (metaphorically 40 day and 40 nights) to discern what it was that God wanted from him as God's Son.
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In the twenty-first century, this myth can be problematic. One has to question why God would have had a need to test Jesus. In my earlier post on this subject, I used this myth as a metaphor for the inner conflict Jesus faced following the vision in which God called him God's son in whom God was well-pleased. That particular interpretation of the story seems reasonable to the modern ear, but it would not have resonated with an ancient ear; especially, if the purpose of this myth is demonstrate Jesus' worthiness in being chosen as God's Son.
The problem with this myth is that God sent Jesus into the wilderness.to be tempted by God's appointed adversary. As a metaphor for those of us who struggle with the challenges that life throws at us from time to time, this story makes some sense, but as a mythical story designed to prove the faithfulness of Jesus to God or to Satan it leaves me unimpressed as it implies, like the story of Job, that God has a capricious streak. While I doubt the writers of the Gospels in which this myth is recorded intended that to be the message the reader would get from this story, it is the message that comes glaringly comes through some two thousand years after writing it down.
As a mythic event, its meaning is found in its being treated as a metaphor as described in my earlier post. The story is emblematic of those who struggle with an identity that at some point in their life was revealed to them. Ultimately, the meaning of this myth is to seek understanding who one truly is regardless of how that identity is seen as inconsistent with one's beliefs about who one should be or with what others think a child of God should be or act like. As I mention in earlier posts, God's ways are rarely our ways. We grow up with the opinions of others as to who we should be and how we should act, never giving thought to who we are in the sight of God, a beloved child in whom God is pleased.
Self realization can take a long time to come to fruition. Forty days and forty nights is a metaphor for doing something a long time. It can take forty plus years to know who one truly is. I think the meaning of this myth today guides us to recognize the questions and challenges each of us have faced as shaping self-understanding through examining how we answered or addressed them without entertaining guilt in the process. The answers and the responses we gave set us on a course to who and where we are today. In that sense to be faithful to our calling as children of God is to embrace those experiences with grace in the knowledge that we are God's, for God has made us who we are.
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Until next time, stay faithful,
Norm
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