Things They Said to Jesus
Luke 4:1-13
David Collins
August 4, 2024
Today’s Thing They Said to Jesus was said by the devil. You know, Old Red Legs. Beelzebul. The Tempter. The Adversary. He Who Must Not Be Named…no wait, wrong story. We don’t talk much about the devil around here. We tend to see the devil and the forces of evil in more metaphorical terms, as tendencies within ourselves, rather than a personal being outside ourselves. Less the powerful angel gone astray, and more of the organized forces arrayed against the will of God for the world. But however you see it, you probably see that there is something in us and among us that is strongly opposed to love, health, wholeness, and peace,
That power spoke to Jesus before the world knew who he was. Right after he was baptized by John in the Jordan river, and he heard the voice of God from heaven say, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”, the Holy Spirit led him to get out of town and go into the wilderness. Like Moses did, and like the whole of Israel did.
Luke 4:1-13 says
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
Notice here that the temptation isn’t incidental to the time in the wilderness. It was the whole point. When Jesus was asked by his mom after about his time in the wilderness, he wouldn’t have said, “Oh the wilderness was a perfect getaway, or at least it would have been if it hadn’t been for the devil who showed up and ruined it.”
Jesus had to learn to live alongside of evil without being seduced by it, and so God not only allows but causes Jesus to be tempted. Today this would lead us into those thorny and unsolvable questions we love to chew on: Does God will evil? Does God merely allow evil? If so, is God not all-powerful? But Luke doesn’t seem to care about all that.
Right before this story, Luke inserts one of those genealogies that we love to skim over. He puts it right between the baptism and this account. But while Matthew takes the genealogy back to Abraham, Luke takes it back to Adam, with this little description of that first man: Luke 3:38, “son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.”
And the first thing that the devil is going to say to Jesus is Luke 4:3 The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God,
There’s a contrast between Adam and Jesus that runs through a lot of the New Testament. The first human vs the true human. Just as Adam was tempted, so must Jesus be tempted; but while Adam succumbed, Jesus won’t.
And while Adam could eat anything he wanted except for one special fruit. Jesus was starving.
He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
3 The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’
If/then statements are always tempting, aren’t they? They are so seductive. We want to prove the “if” so we don’t think very hard about the “then”. What kinds of if/then statements are we tempted by?
How about this one, “If I don't talk about bad things, then they won't happen.”?
“If I keep busy, then I won't have to face my fears.”
“If I avoid conflict, then I will have perfect relationships.”
“If I am always nice to everyone, then everyone will like me.”
“If I keep my feelings to myself, then I won't get hurt.”
And then there are the if/then’s that others use on you to try and control you.
“If you really loved me, then you would do this for me.”
“If you don't help me, then I will fail and it will be your fault.”
“If you were a good friend, then you would agree with me.”
There are some ideas, and some people, that once they get their foot in the door, you’ve already lost. Just engaging with them is enough to get sucked in, and eventually, you lose. Because they don’t care about being right, they just want to distract you.
That’s what the devil wanted from Jesus. He just wanted his attention. He wanted him to argue with him. He wanted to win decisively, sure. But he probably would have taken any win he could get. Argue with me about whether or not you’re the son of God! Tell me about your baptism and defend the whole thing! All I need is to get my foot in the door and I’ll win eventually.
If you take the bait, then you’ve already lost. But Jesus doesn’t. He doesn’t engage at all.
4 Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone.”’
Short, sweet and to the point. Jesus quotes scripture to the devil and to himself. It’s just a small quote from a much larger passage from Deuteronomy about the time that Israel was wandering in the wilderness, living off of manna, and being tempted every day…sometimes triumphing, but more often than not, giving in and giving up. Jesus is remaking that history too.
And he does it with a simple verse. He doesn’t explain it. It speaks for itself. It speaks for him.
Scripture can do that. But only if you know it.
So Jesus passed his first test. The devil drops the whole stone into bread thing and moves on to something more tempting. It’s the second thing he said to Jesus.
5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
6 And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’
Now that’s a good temptation. Especially when you bear in mind that what the devil is promising is Jesus’ destiny anyway. “Every knee will bow, on heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (11:00 As the hymn says, “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does it successive journeys run.”) The devil is offering Jesus what is already meant to be his, but without the dirty business of the cross and death and resurrection.
Plus the verb here for worship isn’t a continual one. It just means to kiss the ring. Once! That’s a bargain! The whole world for one genuflect. And Jesus could skip all the suffering, and the world could fast forward through all the birth pains.
What we do have to puzzle through though is whether the world is really the devil’s to give, or if he’s just lying as he tends to do.
But the overall view of Luke and the rest of the NT authors is that all the kingdoms of the world somehow do belong to the devil. That doesn’t mean they’re all bad. But it does mean that as a consequence of sin, the present world is out of order. It is fundamentally flawed. It is a world of injustice and oppression.
And this is not merely the result of the will of the oppressors, it’s because of the crack that runs through everything as a result of sin. The devil is in the details, and so has the power to grant kingdoms. And no one gets much power without kissing his ring.
Now, it’s tempting for us to make a false equivalence between the concessions made to special interest groups and the deals made on Epstein Island. They aren’t the same. But the point remains. It goes too far to claim that the devil rules all the rulers; but there is no doubt that there is a power of evil over all human power—an evil so great that human effort cannot undo it.
As we approach the upcoming election, we need to keep that in mind, even as we vote. As important as this election is, and I believe it’s incredibly important, it won’t be enough. even if all the right people win.
Real liberation doesn’t come from defeating the devil in the voting booth, but by defeating him at the most personal and intimate level.
Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that as long as we are pursuing the right things in our public life, what we do in private doesn’t matter so much. That lie is whispered by the same voice that Jesus heard in the desert.
If God’s spirit is working through a person, that person’s whole life will be formed by that spirit, through testing at every level. Jesus had to win the victory there, or else there was little point carrying on. Again, Jesus responds to the devil, not by trying to argue (arguing with temptation is usually our way of playing with the idea until it becomes too attractive to resist), but by quoting scripture.
8 Jesus answered him, ‘It is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.”’
There will be no ring kissing for Jesus, and wouldn’t it be great if that was true for us too?
The devil isn’t done with Jesus yet. He still has one more thing to say to him.
9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple,
Notice the location of the third temptation. It’s a holy place. THE holy place.
saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,
And see how God won’t let you fall.
Here’s another one of those if/then statements again. This time it is aimed at Jesus’ own sense of identity and certainty about himself and his mission.
Now while we often think of this temptation of jumping off the pinnacle of the temple as the temptation of a great stunt, sponsored by Red Bull. In order to demand the attention and respect of all, there is no mention here of other witnesses beyond the devil and Jesus himself.
It’s like the devil is saying: “I don’t believe that you are the Son of God. In fact, I don’t think you are too sure either. So prove it to me and to yourself by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple and having angels come to protect you.”
How tempting this must have been for Jesus. We often forget that Jesus didn’t just know who he was, beyond the shadow of a doubt. He knew it by faith.
And just like our faith, like all faith, there are highs and lows. It waxes and wanes. And at those low points, when the feelings ebb, it can be nice to have some validation. Especially about who we are.
Sometimes we like Jesus are tempted to create scenarios to find some validation. At the extremes, some people literally do take a fall to see who will come to their aid, to see who really loves them.
But we all are tempted to look to external circumstances to shore up our sense of identity.
If I can earn X amount of money, then I’ll be content.
If only this person will be my friend, then I’ll really like myself.
If God answers this prayer, then I’ll know he is real.
But it doesn’t really work, does it?
You meet one goal, and it doesn’t fix you, so you automatically move the goal posts.
You make that friend, but still feel the same way about yourself, so you blame the friend.
God does answer the prayer, but in the way God usually answers prayers, without leaving any evidence, so it doesn’t move the needle. Or God doesn’t answer the prayer at all.
Jesus passes this test too. And he does so by clinging to a simple scripture about not putting God to the test. But I think it applies to every crisis of identity we face.
The fact is that we don’t get to know anything for certain, at least not in a way that will satisfy every doubt when we’re feeling insecure.
We just have to trust. We trust God. We trust our experience, even when it’s no longer immediate. And we accept that we aren’t supposed to feel full of hope and certainty all the time.
That’s the point of all these temptations. It’s why God sent Jesus out here into the wilderness before he began his ministry, not so Jesus could learn how to be God, but so he could learn how to be fully human.
Being fully human means doing the hard right thing even when you want to do something else. Anything short and f that is just being an animal. We are made to run on more than instinct, more than desire.
We are the ones who choose.
It’s not really a choice if you can’t help but make it. It’s a choice when you have real options and still choose the right one.
Jesus would have loved to have his identity validated I’m sure. But that memory would have faded because that’s what memories do. And the. He would have been right back where he started. And so will you.
So remember when you feel empty,94 when you feel doubt about who you are, you are in excellent company.
Now let’s look at the final thing the devil said to Jesus, because it’s a doozy.
10 for it is written,
“He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you”,
11 and “On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’
Yeah. He basically sang On Eagle’s Wings to Jesus.
Jesus experienced one of the most surprising sources of radical evil in the world: the perverse use of Scripture.The devil isn’t just waiting at the bar. He’s waiting for us right here in church.
There are a lot of words in the Bible! The word Bible basically means Library. And rather than just banning the parts in the library that might get misconstrued, Jesus shows us that we are supposed to use discernment, we have to know enough about the Bible to know that if we hear something that doesn’t sound right, or more likely, if we hear something that sounds too good to be true and we desperately want it to be so, we should keep reading.
One of the most important arts in the church is called “biblical criticism” and it’s not what your sourpuss aunt does all day every day. It’s what Jesus does here.
He doesn’t fight the evil one back by saying, "the Bible is wrong there," or "that text is inferior," or "even if the Bible does say that, the Holy Spirit, or reason, or experience, or tradition teaches this."
No Jesus' single great source of criticism, even with Scripture, is Scripture. So when the devil says, “it is written.” Jesus replies “it is also written”
12 Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’
Jesus doesn’t allow "it is written"to be taken from him as something worn out. He uses it three times here. He doesn’t say, “since the devil quotes scripture, it must be tainted now and I should move on to something else. Maybe to quotes from my favorite author? Memes?”
Jesus sticks with scripture. Scripture is to be interpreted and harmonized by Scripture. We’ve got to learn it by heart, because the literal devil is out there preaching sermons that scratch where we itch.
Lots of things sound good. Lots of things even have scripture to back them up. But those things might be trying to get you to leap to your death. And with Jesus, we should all know that scripture also says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” and like Jesus, we should believe that it’s telling the truth.
13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
It wasn’t over for Jesus, and temptation never ends for us either.
It changes and deepens. We’re temped to do the big wrong things when we’re younger (or maybe always) but then in middle age the devil tempts us to believe we’ve earned everything we’ve got, and then when we’re old, he tempts us to despair. In every season, our response should be the same as Jesus’. A simple scripture that speaks the truth to the attractive lies whispered in our ears.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
2 Corinthians 4:16
So we do not lose heart
Psalm 46:1: "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
Psalm 23:1 The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
There’s a whole lot more in there if you look. It’s what got Jesus through. May it do the same for us. Amen.
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