First off, I just think it's cool that Jesus was "full of the Holy Spirit" and was "led by the Holy Spirit". He was so fully man that He needed to be lead by God's presence through the Holy Spirit. Just like us, He had to be filled with the Holy Spirit for God to work through Him. Just like us, Jesus had to commune with His Father, He had to make the conscious decision to love Him.
Also interesting that it was only AFTER 40 days of not eating that Jesus became hungry. Was it because He was so entranced with His Father that He didn't even notice His hunger pains? Did He not have any hunger pains at all? Either way, after those 40 days I bet those hunger pains were vicious.
Also interesting that it says the devil was with Him all those 40 days, tempting him. But it doesn't tell us what those temptations are, only the last 3 after the 40 days. It must have taken an extreme force of will for Jesus to stay focused on God for 40 days while the devil himself is there tempting Him. I guess that's why He didn't notice that He was hungry!
When the devil tells Jesus that because He's the Son of God, He can turn the stones all around them into bread and eat some I can't help but think "Duh." It seems like such a silly and useless temptation. I imagine Jesus saying "Oh well thank you for revealing to me the full scale of my power in God. I wasn't aware I could turn these stones into bread, and here I've been starving for 40 days for nothing." You know? It just seems so ridiculous. And all Christ says in return is "The Scriptures say we do not live on bread alone." Which is so much more "bad ass", if Christ is allowed to be "bad ass" that is. It's like a knife straight through to Satan's heart (does he have one btw?). Jesus is telling Satan that He doesn't even care about eating because communing with God is so much more fulfilling and satiating and desirable and freaking AWESOME that simply eating is so passe. It's like eating is a let down after 40 days of straight God time. Jesus is reminding Satan of what He experiences every day and what Satan gave up. I think Satan is torn up, I think he has this immense passion and desire for God that burns hotter than any desire we have ourselves and instead of embracing it and throwing himself straight into it to be burned up, he hates it. He despises it. He keeps it burning and he keeps the pain present because he wants to hate it. It is the fuel behind all his evil in the world. But at the same time, it is something he wants more than anything...to be fully and totally surrendered to God.
After the food temptation, Satan shows Jesus all the empires and kingdoms and rulers of the past and of the future and tells Him that He can have it all...if He worships Satan. Can anyone else picture Jesus as a Satanist? Sacrificing goats, painting blood all over the place, black lipstick, heavy eyeshadow, lip piercing? No? I didn't think so either. It's so utterly ludicrous, I have to wonder at Satan's powers of analyzing. He's effectively saying "Here Jesus, see all these kingdoms from way back then and for in the future? I will totally give you all the power that entails if you just get on your face before me." And Jesus goes "I knew about all these kingdoms before you even thought about falling from heaven. I am the deciding force behind all these kingdoms and am the one who gives them all their power. I created you from nothing and even now, in your rebellion and hatred of myself, even now I completely and totally control and own you. I have all the power of heaven and earth at my very fingertips and soon every knee will bow and every tongue confess that I am Lord and I will destroy this heaven and earth in favor of a new heaven and earth far greater than this one ever will be. And you want me to lay down before you?" After which I imagine Jesus laughing like its the best joke He's ever heard (Btw, does God laugh at jokes, since He created them all?) So that's how I would imagine Jesus answering...Or it's how I would answer for Him, if someone posed the question to me. But that's not how Jesus answers. He just simply says "Scriptures say to worship God alone." Maybe all the things I thought would have been good to say are all inherent in that little sentence.
Finally Satan takes Jesus up high and is getting tired of Jesus continually quoting Scripture at him, so he throws his own scriptures in there and says "Throw yourself down since the Scriptures say the angels will save you." Does Satan think Jesus is an adrenaline junkie or something? Go ahead, throw yourself off a cliff just to see what happens. You're God, the angels have to save you and it'll be awesome! Satan's argument doesn't even make sense to me...Scriptures say that the angels will save you...ok, that doesn't mean you go putting yourself in danger just to try it out! Which is effectively what Jesus tells him, "The Scriptures say do not test the Lord".
The best part? That last sentence...it says Satan retreats for a more "opportune time". Like he's hiding from God and laying in wait to pounce when God least expects it.
Luke 4:14Luke 4:16-30
"And Jesus returned in the power of the Holy Spirit to Galilee"
This next section is when Jesus goes back to his hometown of Nazareth. He has been on a teaching/preaching trip, going from town to town and entering their synagogue and preaching from the Scriptures. So He does the same thing in Nazareth and quotes "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then He tells all the people in the synagogue that He is the fulfillment of that scripture.
And everyone just kind of looks at him like "Are you crazy". How weird would it be to have someone you grew up with, went to school with, sat at lunch with for years and years tell you that they fulfill scripture? You played soccer with them and saw them pick their nose and eat glue and puke from eating too much birthday cake...and now you're saying you're the Son of God? Get out of here. It wouldn't make sense, it wouldn't compute. It makes me really wonder how Jesus was before He started His ministry. The gospels are very good at giving us a clear picture of Jesus during and after His ministry, but what about before? How did he go through puberty? How did He treat the boys and girls His age? How did He talk to His parents and other adults? How did He work at His school? What things interested Him, got Him excited? How did He deal with bullies and people who wanted to fight or argue or challenge Him? How did He treat the girls who had crushes on Him?
Jesus then tells the people gathered that prophets are never accepted in their hometown, pointing back to Elijah and Elisha and how they had to go far from their town or their people to be able to minister the hand of God.
And for whatever reason this pisses everyone off. To the point where they drove Jesus out of the synagogue and out of the town and to the edge of a cliff, where they were going to throw Him over the edge and kill him.
Goodness.
Humans are insane.
I've tried to picture what it would look like to drive Jesus out of a synagogue and a town. Did Jesus run? Did they push Him over and over and over until they got Him out? Did they grab Him by the arms and hustle Him out? Did they pick Him up and carry Him above their heads? Was He caught up in the crowd and forced along? Did they hit him?
And then when the whole crowd (probably the whole town) got to the edge of the cliff, Jesus just disappears.
"But passing through their midst, He went away."
Which begs the question...why not do that at the beginning? Why let the crowd run you out of the synagogue and town? Why endure the shoving and pushing and hitting?
Luke 4:41
Jesus has just healed Simon's mother and is in her home, enjoying her hospitality, and receiving all the sick and demon possessed people of the area. Why does Jesus tell all the demons that come out of these people to be quiet and not to proclaim who He is?
"But He rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that He was the Christ."
Is it a secret or something?
Luke4:42
"And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place."I like that Jesus life is such a model for ourselves. He did everything just like we have to. He didn't just commune continually with God because He can...He limited Himself, brought Himself to our level so that He would also have to work to experience the intimacy with God that He had naturally. And so, just like us, He had to withdraw to a place alone so that He can be refreshed and refilled by God.
