Luke 4:1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
One of the themes of the Scriptures is that God moves things from chaos to order. He is always making things more organized, ore in line with His purposes. And we as humans have been given that task here on Earth as His image bearers. We are to represent Him and do as He would do, bring order out of chaos.
Those who love to clean and organize have just shouted a great big “AMEN!” at my words. God created a place of order into which He placed humans, and humans would still be living in that place of order if they hadn’t chosen to reject God’s order. By rejecting God’s order for their lives, God allows them to have the consequences of that rejection. His presence in removed from their lives and they exit the Garden.
The theme of wilderness, darkness, emptiness, chaos are all synonyms for the place where God’s order has been rejected. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness when they rejected God’s rule over them. They wanted to do life their way, and God allowed them to do just that. That is the wilderness.
So here at the beginning of Jesus ministry, something happens, something very unexpected. From a human perspective, Jesus should be going to the seat of power and stepping up and taking over. But Jesus does something very different.
Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit to go into the wilderness. He is full of the Holy Spirit, Shouldn’t that lead Him to go to church? Shouldn’t He gather people and allow the Spirit to work through Him? Shouldn’t He go to prayer?
Jesus instead goes to the wilderness, the symbol of the place where chaos reigns, where the forces joined against God are pictured. He goes there and what happens. He fasts. He says “No!” to his bodily desires for a period of time.
And then the embodiment of chaos shows up. The Devil shows up and offers Jesus a shortcut to a kingdom dictated by the rules of earthly kingdoms. The Devil offers Jesus earthly power, the power to impose His will on others.
But Jesus rejects that version of power. Just as Israel had come to the Jordan River and crossed to enter the Promised Land, so Jesus leaves the Jordan. But instead of going into the Promised Land, Jesus goes to the wilderness to confront the embodiment of evil.
Just as Israel failed in their attempts to enter the land and occupy God’s good land, so Jesus goes to the cursed place and conquers it for God. Where Israel failed, Jesus succeeds. Jesus isn’t willing to do it the only way the world knows how to do anything, by exerting its own power and authority, Jesus instead yields to the will of the Father by saying “NO!” to the Devil’s offer of an easy way.
What would the wilderness look like for us today? If the wilderness is the rejection of God’s good order, then any time we impose our order on our part of the world we are subverting God’s world. This is especially true when we use the only tool the Devil has in his arsenal: power.
Jesus had all the power and yet He chose to not use it. Instead, He allowed the powers that be to arrest Him, mock Him, and crucify Him. And it is this upside-down use of power, i.e. surrender to the will of the Father, that brought us freedom.
And we are to express our submission to the will of God in the same way. We must learn to allow ourselves to be overpowered by the worldly powers when we surrender to His will. Now that is a tough thing to do, isn’t it!
The Arnold Journey 