“Then the Evil One said to him, ‘All this I will give you, if you fall down, worship me'” (Matthew 4.9).
“From then on, Jesus began proclaiming and said, ‘Change your ways, for the basileia of Heaven has come near'” (Matthew 4.17).
All you have to do is bow down, worship me.
That’s such an odd thing for the Evil One to say in that moment. Not that he wouldn’t desire God in the flesh prostrating himself before him. That makes all sorts of sense. Evil wants all our devotion.
But to say that in the temptation. The Evil One had to know that would very likely trigger Jesus into refusing all the kingdoms of the world. That’s absurd. This is the Incarnate One who was, is, and will be. There’s no way that would happen.
Unless, the temptation to do so much good, to transform the world and rescue it from greed and hate and poverty and fear outweighed it. I mean, you don’t have to mean it. Anyone can bend the knee to someone while despising them in their heart. You can say the words without meaning them. Wouldn’t it be worth it?
In my own imagination, I picture this scene as a moment out of time. Jesus, from this vantage, sees not only the vast territory under the Roman Emperor but the decline that will follow, and Constantine’s co-opting of the movement, and the Hundred-Years War, the preachers that will encourage their congregations to attack Jews, the Native Americans who would die on the long march away from their homes, the boats full of African men and women.
What kind of temptation is it to offer up the world to the One who created it out of the primal soup of the early solar system? Surely the Evil One didn’t think that Jesus would toss aside his mission just to reign and rule over the world. Not unless he could also show him what was coming, so much of it covered in blood and pain. And done in his name.
Jesus was wise enough to know that the Evil One was full of lies and not against presenting a less-than-accurate vision of what was to come. He also knew that the future was never set. Humans can and do make choices that move people toward peace and away from war, toward love and away from hate.
But he had to also know, having created and been in relationship with us for thousands of years, that we humans can do some awful things in the name of religion.
Of the three, I think this temptation was the one it took the longest for Jesus to refuse. Maybe it only took a nanosecond extra, but I can’t help seeing Jesus—Love Incarnate—considering if there was another way. What if he were to take the power into his hands and turn Creation into the paradise it can be? Would it be worth it to give lip service to worshipping this devil so that the whole world might be saved from itself?
And, as I’ve said with the other temptations, maybe he should have. As our economy grows increasingly top-heavy, leaving those not in the smallest percentile poorer and poorer. As we see our country create camps for people who don’t look like us—however that is defined at the moment. As the earth’s wounds bleed from deeper cuts, taking the weather to new and destructive extremes. It’s hard not to ask the question if Jesus shouldn’t have given in this time.
It shouldn’t be lost that right after this, when Jesus’ time in the wild place was over and his ministry began that he declared this new Reality, this basileia of Heaven was near. After looking at the horrors that could and would come in the centuries ahead, Jesus went to people with the message that a whole other world was not just possible but was already here, alongside this one.
Yes, Jesus could have seized control of the whole world. He could have imposed a rule and law of love upon all humanity and put an end to all those things that have brought so much misery. It was within the Evil One’s power to give it to him, which tells us much about our world.
But Jesus chose not to. He chose to have faith in us, knowing that we might not live up to it. He refused to give over to the lie that the ends justify the means and began to teach that it’s not just where you end up, it’s how you get there.
It’s possible we as human beings, as a whole, might not ever make the choice to live into the Reality Jesus saw. But make it or not, the choice is and always will be our own. And that man from Nazareth who refused to turn stones to bread, make a scene by descending from on high, worship evil in an attempt to make everything good was also the man who, though it was in his power, chose not to come down off the cross.
Because he had and has faith in us that we will one day all choose love.
Jesus you were tempted and refused to give in to choices that did express the vulnerable love you showed in life and word. Teach us. Lead us. And let us see the way it can be, for all of us, when we choose love.