'It’s fanciful, perhaps, to imagine the encounter between Jesus and Satan as a heavyweight title fight, but truth be told, it’s not too bad of an analogy.'
If it had been a boxing
match,
Don King would have had
his head shaved
for the opportunity to
promote it.
He would have called it
‘The War in the
Wilderness,’
or, ‘The Duel in the
Desert.’
In one corner,
the challenger,
a decided underdog,
the up-and-comer from
Galilee.
He had been training
with John the Baptist
before striking out on
his own,
with all the confidence
of youth.
And yet he already had a
nickname,
‘The Anointed One.’
Jesus of Nazareth.
In the opposite corner,
the wily veteran of a
million battles,
the first of which had
been in the Garden so many years ago.
He could overwhelm his opponents
with brute force,
but he really preferred
the subtler approach,
taking his time, taunting
his adversary, getting under the skin.
And then, suddenly he
would strike,
and one-two-three, the
fight would be over
seemingly in the blink
of an eye.
Undefeated against human
beings,
the undisputed champion
of the world,
also known as ‘Lucifer,’
and ‘The Serpent,’
from the Nether Region,
Satan.
This one was slated for
fifteen rounds –
and ended up going for
forty days and forty nights.
I feel like we need the
theme from ‘Rocky’ now.
No, I promised I wasn’t
going to sing today.
It’s fanciful, perhaps,
to imagine the encounter
between Jesus and Satan
as a heavyweight title
fight,
but truth be told,
it’s not too bad of an
analogy.
After his baptism by John,
when he hears the word
of the Father,
‘You are my Son, the
Beloved; with you I am well-pleased;’
Jesus leaps into action,
impelled by the Holy Spirit,
in this case, a Warrior
Spirit of Anointing,
to challenge the one who
had reigned supreme
over humanity for all time.
For every fighter knows any
title, even if given, must also be won.
After forty days and forty nights of battle,
the evil one comes to
Jesus with three temptations.
Each invites Jesus to
sacrifice his relationship with the Father
in order to get for
himself what he needs.
He is invited to create what
he needs on his own
rather than wait upon
the Father’s provision,
to live as he wishes and
presume upon the Father’s favor and protection,
and to gain earthly
power to rule and command
without enduring the
cross prepared for him by the Father.
The devil had had many
first-round knockouts in his career.
But he had some tough
battles, too.
He had fought many
opponents who were fresh,
at the beginning of a
fight,
who could say ‘no’ to
temptation.
But he knew that at the
end of a pitched battle,
after standing
toe-to-toe for a seeming eternity with this irresistible force,
parched, sweating,
exhausted,
a human being would lose
focus, lose perspective, lose faith,
and it was then that the
evil one had always had his victories.
But this one
counter-punched.
He had a secret weapon -
the word of God.
And he stood up to every
blow and parried every assault
and in the end the devil
had to leave him standing.
It was not a knockout –
but notice had been served.
Jesus was not going to
go away quietly.
There would be a
rematch.
And the rematch would be
for all the marbles.
We might pause at this
point
and ask what Jesus’
battle against the devil
can teach us about our
own struggle with temptation.
The first thing we need
to consider
is that while Jesus
sought out the battle,
we ought to pray that we
are not led into temptation.
For the devil never
fights fair.
And yet we cannot always
avoid temptation.
Even those ancient monks
who fled the cities
for the desert,
thinking that in that
way they could escape temptation,
found that it followed
them wherever they went.
When we ourselves meet
with temptation,
we too have a weapon –
God’s word.
We are apt to see the
commandments of God
as a set of rules for
right living,
but what if we were to
view them as weapons?
What if when the tempter
was inciting us to anger,
we reminded him of God’s
good and gracious word
You
shall not kill?
What if, when we felt
jealousy over someone else’s good fortune,
we could remind both
ourselves and the one who incites jealousy,
You
shall not covet?
God’s word is given not
simply to keep us down,
but to lift us up out of
the mire of all-too-human living.
Imagine a life free from
the desire to dominate others and possess things.
This is the life God
desires for us,
and in which he
instructs us in the word.
It is not, indeed, that
God doesn’t want us to have anything.
It’s just that the most
important thing to have
is our relationship of
trust with God.
Inside of that
relationship, everything else finds its meaning
and outside of it,
things actually lose their vitality.
Isn’t it amazing that in
a world of plenty,
people can be so
unhappy,
and often those who have
little
can be content,
satisfied, at peace?
Food and drink, sex and
relationships,
possessions and
responsibilities, rest and recreation,
all of these are gifts
of God,
and yet the devil would
use these good things
to take us away from
relationship with God.
It was the relationship
with God that was at stake
when Eve and Adam took
the fruit of the tree in the garden.
In destroying their
trust in God,
the serpent destroyed their
trust in each other,
In this story we find
the explanation for our lack of trust,
our desire to dominate
others rather than live in relationship with them,
our desire to take
rather than to receive.
Because we are heirs of mistrustful
humanity,
and because the evil one
doesn’t fight fair,
when we go into the ring
one-on-one with the tempter,
we will certainly end up
biting the dust,
hitting the canvas
eventually.
And so we don’t want to
go in alone.
Instead, we rely on the
one who fights for us
and whose warrior Spirit
indwells us.
For there was indeed a
rematch.
It was fought many, many
years ago
on a stony hill outside
Jerusalem,
where three crosses had
been erected;
and it was there that
the evil one
threw everything he had
against Jesus;
including his last, best
weapon, death.
And yet Jesus took that
hit and rose up again,
and in the end it was
the devil who was counted out.
And so, in faith in what
Jesus has done for us,
and empowered by the
Spirit to face our temptations,
to ask for forgiveness
when we fall,
that we may stand again,
we go into battle
side-by-side with our Lord.
For the one who would
share in the king’s victory
must go with him into
combat.
