Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Oil and water don’t mix, at least not naturally. Modern chemistry, in the cloak of creating more profitable food stuffs, has created hydrogenated oils. If I understand the process, oils are pushed through an extremely fine sieve under high pressure water. The droplets of oil become so small that they lack the natural tendency to repel water.
This seems such a strange thing. How could the Spirit lead the Son to be tempted by their enemy? Shouldn’t it be the Spirit who would keep Jesus from encountering evil? After all Jesus is the Holy God dwelling among us. Holy and unholy just don’t mix, or at least they aren’t supposed to mix.
But Jesus follows the lead of the Spirit to an encounter that mirrors the encounter in the Garden between Adam, Eve and the serpent. And this parallel is not lost on Matthew or his readers. Jesus is standing in Adam’s place, only Jesus is successful at obedience where Adam failed at it.
The encounter that follows in our chapter shows the victory of Jesus over humanity’s enemy. The very points of weakness to which Eve succumb are the very points of strength that Jesus demonstrates. And all this is at the leading of the Holy Spirit.
We face these same temptations in our day and age. The fruit we face are “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen 2:6). As 1 John 2:16 states, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” we face these same areas. We might word these differently.
Our hungers in all its forms can dominate our lives. Food, pleasure, addictions and thrills all feed our modern world. These and many other things find a place in our lives that can overwhelm God’s place, pushing desire for God aside.
The things we see are at the heart of every advertising firm on the planet. Our eyes see so many things that pull us away. We see the big house, the shiny car, the bobble and we barely have the ability to say “No” to their pull. We click, swipe, tap and that object becomes ours. The desire of our eyes knows no bounds. Just look at the riches among us. They keep getting more and more, and they still are not satisfied.
And the third, gaining wisdom and pride of life, speak to our desire to rise above others. We want a name for ourselves, we want to make a difference in the world, we want to leave our mark. At least I have felt this pull myself. Should I go for that PhD. or not? I answered “No”, but there still is a tug.
What is your tug? What pulls at your body? What do you hunger for? What catches our eyes as we walk through life? What step up would seem to match your internal image of yourself?
The Arnold Journey 