Lord, Throughout These Forty Days...24

Jesus alone in the wilderness determines how He will live out the role of Messiah. The Spirit has just descended on Him at the Jordan baptism. He is the Anointed One. Satan has tempted Him to alleviate some of the suffering caused by sin in making stones into bread. The tempter teases out a scenario in which Jesus could reclaim Adam's abdicated authority...if He acknowledged Satan's authority to grant it.

Now comes a temptation to live as Messiah, the Marvelous.

Taking Him up to the highest point of the Temple, Satan reminds Jesus that the Word of God declares special care and protection on the Anointed One. The promise included angels holding up the Anointed One so that His foot would not strike a stone. The devil dared Jesus to jump and let those angels hold Him up from injury instead of crashing into the courtyard.

What a scene that would have been! A man comes hurtling out of the sky from the high point of the Temple. Some in the court of women would see Him falling and scream. Mothers would shield their children's eyes to avoid the carnage on the pavement. A crowd of men in the outer court would run to the landing sight. But instead of a dead man lying broken and mangled, they would find the Anointed One standing there completely unharmed. His clothes would hardly be rumpled or dusty, His hair hardly out of place.

This, this would start the work of Messiah off with a bang! The word of the miraculous Temple Diver would spread like wild-fire. No one would doubt His power and anointing then. God's people from all over the Mediterranian world would flock to Him. How easy it would have been to raise a liberating army to drive the Romans out of the Holy Land, just as the Maccabees had done with the Greeks. This would bring the kingdom of God and and give His people freedom.

Jesus responds, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

I have often wondered at the frustrated, disapproving comments of Jesus in response to demands for a "sign" to prove His authority. Jesus calls sign-seekers perverse, wicked and adulterous. He refused to provide any sign upon demand. In the narative of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus even teaches that people who won't believe based on Scripture will not "be convinced even if someone raises from the dead." (Luke 16.31) Marvels and wonders do not convince. Jesus does not employ this tactic.

Whenever Jesus did activate His power and authority to work miracles, He often commands the beneficiaries to keep it secret. He instructs cleansed lepers to tell only those who need to know -- the priests who must declare then clean and fit to return to society. He never does one miracle to impress or show off.

Jesus will renew the world. He will re-establish the rule of God in the world. He would do this through a new people of God. But He would not draw men to Him the way Satan suggests. He would draw all humanity to Himself by being lifted on Calvary's cross. In place of a marvelous display of a man unbroken and uninjured by a fall, He will demonstrate His power in the mangled and broken man on a cross. The empty tomb would serve as the rallying point for the subjects of this King and the reign of God's Messiah.