Our Wilderness Temptations

There is the story of Jesus, immediately after his baptism, being driven into the wilderness to be tested. It seems to me that we can discover a lot about the nature of the testings we will endure as people of faith in the Holy by looking at those temptations.

I think that there is great warning to us that the temptations come immediately after a dramatic and glorious event. Jesus was baptized and heavens opened, and birds flew and voices spoke. Our temptations are likely to come immediately after some wonderful and triumphant event. There is always talk about "let down" after big wins.

There is that period of forty days. Long, boring, dull, ordinary average days. There is nothing special, interesting or inspiring reported in those 40 days. It is the long, tedious, boring days when we are most vulnerable to temptations. As Jimmy Buffet sings about "A chance to brighten up a boring day." The temptations will come during the long, steady stream of average, daily obligations.

The temptations come as questions, "If you are the Son of God, or if you are a disciple of Christ, or if you are a faithful Hindu, or if you are a child of David, then why are you stuck here in this mess. Don't you deserve better? Would the Holy, would God really want you to be stuck here with dirty dishes and a screaming baby, tun your faithfulness into something good for you. Turn these stones into bread. Turn these friends into customers, Turn you devotion into a marketing campaign. The temptation if you are a good and righteous person, shoudn't it pay off? It is the temptation offered by the prosperity gospel of many of today's pulpits.

Well, if you are the Son of God, if you are a citizen of the Holy Kingdom, if you are going reign in glory, should you be able to get that done in an easier way? If you are the Son of God and going to rule the whole world, why not just get it done in worshipping what the world worship? Why have to suffer and go through all that sacrifice stuff? If you are a child of David, why do you have to keep kosher and do all that difficult stuff, there is bound to be an easier way. All the Kingdoms of this world, available just for doing it the way the world says. Who needs all that cross and crucifixion?

The long, tedious, daily, boring job of being faithful and living a discipline live of faith in the routine of life brings that last temptation to try to put a little hype into it, to make it a little more peppy, to attract the crowd by spectacular events. Throw yourself off the tower and let God catch you. Draw crowd by claiming you can raise the dead. Get on TV like Benny Hinn by claiming to heal people every night. The temptation comes to deny the importance of day in and day out faithfulness in the long ordinary average days and make it all about dramatic special event.

It was only after the long boring ordinary temptations came and were met by the words of Scripture that Jesus had learned in his childhood that the angels came. I am not sure why we think we will get more help more often than Jesus got.