Jesus in the Wilderness

Right after his baptism, Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. We read about this in Luke 4:1-13. Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days and near the end of that time, the devil tempts him. Today I’m looking at one aspect of this journey—the commitment to a complete incarnation.

One aspect of the incarnation is the act of God experiencing our lived reality. When the spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days of fasting, this is another way in which Jesus walks a mile in the shoes of his ancestors. I have written about how the work of Jesus is a kind of grand Exodus story. Here we see Jesus wandering in the wilderness for 40 days, and that echoes the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. 

^“The Israelites ate manna forty years until they came to a habitable land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.” —Ex. 16:35

Hunger in the Wilderness

While he’s there, Jesus fasts from eating, and at the end of the 40 days, he’s very hungry. His ancestors were also hungry when they were in the wilderness. Each morning they relied on God for their bread. Jesus empathizes, he symbolically aligns himself with his people, and he experiences the kind of temptations they experienced.

When the people of Israel left Egypt and entered the wilderness, the first major crisis revolved around what they would eat. Some grumbled and wished they were still in Egypt because they believed they would die from starvation. Moses brought their concerns to God and God met their needs with manna. This manna appeared every morning and there was just enough for each family. They had to rely on God daily for their food. Here we see Jesus hungry in the wilderness and he has the power to fulfill his own food needs. Instead of making bread for himself, he sets aside that power and he states his intention to rely on God. He’s walking in the footsteps of his ancestors and trusting God to sustain him. 

Worship in the Wilderness

In the second temptation, the tempter offers the whole world if Jesus will just worship him. If true, this offer suggests there’s an easy shortcut to redemption. Whether the tempter had the power to offer that kind of dominion or not, it would destroy the integrity of God’s very place in the order of the universe. Jesus as a human knows this but also is experiencing the lived reality of human frailty, emotions, and untangling the wordsmith temptations of the devil.

The Israelites also dealt with temptations around worship. When Moses went up the mountain to receive the law, he was gone longer than they expected. Assuming their leader was dead, the people panicked and turned to the gods they were raised with. It may not seem logical to us, but the golden calf probably brought comfort and a feeling of stability during that time of confusion. Jesus placed himself in a state of weakness and allowed himself to be tempted when he was susceptible to confusion. In that way, he walked the hard path of physically empathizing with his people. 

Faith in the Wilderness

This third temptation at first doesn’t seem to correspond with anything from the people of Israel wandering in the wilderness. The key here is in the response Jesus gives, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” This is a quote from Deuteronomy where Joshua is instructing the Israelites before they enter Canaan. In this instruction, he’s saying not to put the Lord your God to the test as your forefathers did at Massah. What happened at Massah?

This is where the people rose up against Moses because they wanted water. In this uprising, the people accuse Moses of bringing them out of Egypt simply to let them die. This seems reasonable since we all need water to survive, but this was considered a test of God’s power and provision. God had already provided water miraculously, and at this point, manna had also been provided miraculously. Not to mention the Exodus itself. This reversion to accusing Moses of letting them die is a way of expressing a lack of belief and demanding miracle after miracle to prove God’s provision.

This is where the temptation of Jesus ties in. The tempter is telling Jesus to demand proof of God’s love and protection by throwing himself off the cliff. It’s a different scenario, but Jesus is being tempted to trust God only after receiving a miraculous sign. He’s being challenged to “test” God’s faithfulness and Jesus resists that temptation to have his faith confirmed with miracles. 

Empathy in the Wilderness

Jesus walks a mile in the footsteps of his ancestors and in so doing, he empathizes with them. He also gains an understanding of what they experienced in their humanity, in their hunger and thirst, in their frailty. This time in the wilderness was at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It added the kind of compassion that is only learned through experience. 

God’s love is thorough. Jesus not only offered grace and mercy, he made it his business to personally understand what we deal with. In this text, we see one specific example of this, and this intentionality shows us these temptations weren’t incidental, but exercises in trustworthiness. 

Jesus knows the difficult seasons you’ve experienced as well. Bring those to him in prayer, knowing he doesn’t just love you in the mountaintop experiences, but also in the wilderness.

Photo credit: by Deniz Altindas on Unsplash