The fourth and final in a series exploring the idol-toppling question, “What don’t you like about your faith?” Read the first installment in the series here.
I never imagined arguing with Jesus about his own temptations (Matthew 4:1-10). In a one-on-one contest between Jesus and Satan, it’s not like it’s hard to figure out which side you’re supposed to be on.
To be honest, they never even struck me as temptations that were very hard to resist. I mean, obviously going forty days without eating is hard. I can’t make it forty hours without being tempted to lick the crumbs out of the bottom of my purse. But the rest? Bowing to Satan to claim all the kingdoms? Cliff-jumping while calling for angels to catch you? It doesn’t take a moral genius to discern that these are bad ideas, am I right?
Then a friend helped me understand why Jesus was actually tempted.
In the final weeks of his life, Jesus comes to a choice. His people are oppressed under a foreign government, plagued by heavy taxes, a brutally violent penal system, and idolatrous impositions on their faith. And Jesus has now reached the zenith of his popularity. The masses are ready to back him if (read: when) he decides to seize the throne.
In defense of this course of action, Jesus is Lord and Messiah. All this means that he’s appointed by God to be the man in charge. He’s got a kingly bloodline and, more importantly, the legitimacy of a righteous cause. He’s also got power. The crowds will answer his commands, and so will heaven’s armies: “Come on, angel warriors, let’s go get this. We can bring peace on earth TONIGHT.” On the last night of his life, Jesus sweats blood resisting the temptation to sound the call.
Nobody does this. No one. When you have a chance to seize control, to defend yourself, to defend the weak, to make the world better, you take it. What kind of person resists?
Only a person who has heard this pitch before, coming from the mouth of Satan. Only someone who understands that to take up the sword to save the world would be to win battle and lose the war. Only one who sees that to use this sort of power to claim the kingdom for God would be to place it back into Satan’s hands.
For a long time I didn’t see it. Then I didn’t believe it. Then I didn’t want to believe it. I fought Jesus like a rabid badger in a bag. If good people won’t dirty their hands a bit, won’t use every tool, every weapon, to save lives and make justice, think how much worse the world will be! Think how much unnecessary loss will take place! I’m with the crowds on this one—the crowds who turn on Jesus in their anger and betrayal.
The way of the cross is hard. That’s why Jesus was tempted to refuse it. The way of force is quicker. Less messy. Less painful for the one that chooses it. Less painful for those standing beside you in the battle. Cross-shaped power is slower than sword-shaped power. It almost always looks like losing before it looks like winning. It means accepting suffering that you cannot faithfully prevent. It requires absorbing the cost of your enemy’s debt—an unfair proposition in the extreme.
Yet Jesus tells us what he knows—not just one truth among many, but a truth at the very heart of the divine mystery: self-sacrificial love wins in the end. Self-sacrificial love and its one real weapon—the piercing sword of truthful witness. This and no other power will God have. This and no other power will overcome evil. Satan will promise everything—the nations, the world of our dreams—if only we’ll take up his weapons and fight his way. But Satan is a stone-cold liar. Only cross-shaped power can heal what is broken. Only cross-shaped power, practiced by this Lord and yes, the people following him, can bring lasting peace and justice home.
Jesus believed this so deeply that he bet not just his own life but the entire cosmos on it.
I am trying to believe him.
