Beloved son, tried and tested son

(Mt 4:1-11)

Matthew recalls two strategically placed occasions in Jesus' public life, which began with the proclamation that the Kingdom of God was about to come (Mt 4:17). On these occasions Jesus has to struggle to keep on being the Son of God, first against the tempter (Mt 4:1-11) and later against himself, alone, in agony (Mt 26:36-46).

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus has to defend his circumstance as son three times, alone in the desert, alone in his need to face a tenacious attack from his tempter. At the end of his life, Jesus dedicates his prayer to asking his Father to defend him and free him from his will as a last attempt to save his life. He felt a temptation to defect from his Father, renouncing the sonship that had been proclaimed, when in the desert he could have chosen paths the Word had not pointed out to him or when he could have chosen, in Gethsemane, between continuing to live or losing everything, except being son of God. So, is it not symptomatic that Jesus overcame the first trial by having recourse in the Word (Mt 4:4.7.10) and the second, and definitive trial, by not abandoning prayer (Mt 26:36.39.42.44)?

Let us pause for a while with the first, the three temptations. The grace of sonship just granted him, immediately becomes a task for free acceptance, at great cost, embarrassment, renunciation.

1. The Gospel account

Matthew has developed the episode with his usual clarity. He begins with Jesus led out to where the devil was (Mt 4:1-3) and he ends when the devil gives his place over to the angels who come to serve (Mt 4:11). The entire scene presents us with Jesus confronting his tempter: no one else is present during the temptation…, or for the one tempted! The tempted one's isolation is absolute.

The temptation involves three attacks recounted clearly and symmetrically:

a)The tempter always takes the initiative (Mt 4:3.5.8). The temptation at no time takes place as a result of the situation Jesus is in: it is not caused by hunger or whatever he lacks. It is induced from outside, but it surprises him at a moment of clear weakness. Without it being the cause, his powerlessness is the ‘cultural medium’ of temptation, and this makes it real and dangerous.

b)Jesus invariably reacts by quoting God, drawing support from his written Word (Mt 4:4.6.10). It helps him discern, so he can win out in his trial, and as his guide for making a personal choice. By taking refuge in the familiar – written – voice of God, he succeeds in glimpsing the Father's hidden will. Giving ear to the Word saves him from listening to other voices.

c)the tempter constantly changes his offer. He repeats the temptation, but changes the motives: he offers ever greater more appetising goods (Mt 4:3.4.9). he does not tempt with evil things; or while in fact they are evil they present “in the guise of being good things”. We need to note a certain gradualness in the motives on which the diabolical proposals are based: from questioning his life, given his long fast, he shifts to discussing divine assistance at a moment of urgency, and concludes with rejecting God outright. Having overcome one temptation a worse one arrives and he has to tackle that. Only if they hang on to his express will can God's sons be victors.

2.Some highlights

The first thing Jesus had to do as the son of God was to confirm his sonship, by submitting to temptation. The trial immediately follows upon grace: this is its ratification. As an appropriate preparation for his evangelising mission, Jesus has to really take up the grace he was given, struggling to preserve it.

Temptation - trial by Spirit!

Jesus, already son of God but not yet preacher of the Kingdom, finds himself alone and weak after a lengthy fast. Jesus' hunger and loneliness faced with the devil would be an execrable situation had it not been brought on by the Spirit. It was the Spirit who left the son of God in the devil's hands (Mt 4:1)!

A lengthy fast had weakened him for the encounter with the tempter. The test happens to Jesus after having done good (!), but when he has less strength, and without anyone by his side to help him. It is a fact that the children of God find themselves in serious need so that they may have no other need than their God (Ex 16.17.32; 34:28). This is the divine pedagogy (Heb 12:5-8).

Even though repeated the temptation is really just one, just as the tempter is only one. The devil wants Jesus to renounce his sonship, publicly proclaimed in his baptism. Temptation for the Christian, independent of the circumstances which surround it concretely or the reasons that justify it, always questions our personal bond with God. Considering it well, it is an attack on God the Father through the son. The reasons for temptation can vary, but what never changes is, ultimately, what is mortgaged: divine sonship.

The Word as our shield and sustenance

The first diabolical assault (Mt 4:3-4) presupposes a situation of want, and works on it. A son of God worthy of respect, suggests the tempter, could well draw sustenance from the stones in order not to be found in need. If he is truly a son, why not try?

Deep down the temptation is based on an idea of the divine which we are very much used to: God and whoever belongs to him, should not suffer want nor have serious need. What's the use of having God is we lack what we need? What can we expect of a God who cannot free us from hunger? Isn't it suicidal to trust in a God who seems indifferent to our survival?

Jesus, quoting a text where Israel is reminded that hunger, in the desert, was a test given as part of fatherly pedagogy (Dt 8:2-6), answers that one does not need bread to live, despite it always being needed at a time of hunger, but everything that God wants. dire. The son of God is not someone who does not suffer need, but someone who is sustained by the Word of God. Satisfying hunger is not a priority for the children of God, who remain certain even while hungry but whose real hunger is for the Father's will.

The Father's sympathy is being questioned

The second assault (Mt 4:5-6) is located at the temple in Jerusalem, the favoured place for God's presence amidst his people. This scene renders the temptation a more likely one. Even though alone there, Jesus can feel more protected by God. But precisely because of this the doubt becomes more logical: what use is God's sympathy or closeness if his sons cannot survive?

The tempter's strategy is subtle, terrible. Dismissed (the first temptation) by the power of the Word (Mt 4:4), the tempter this time uses God's Word to tempt the son of God (Mt 4:6): what God has said can be used as a reason for abandoning God! The Word can be turned on its head to go against God: Scripture can be used as a means for resisting doing his will. This is supreme evil: evil hiding behind God to tempt the son.

Jesus replies by quoting a text that imposes exclusive service of God (Dt 6:16), as if it were not he who was being tempted… The son is being tested by questioning the Father. When someone who is faithful overcomes temptation does that not perhaps makes his God victorious? Defending God's rights is the way the the sons have to go to flee temptation. One is freed from it not by being freed of God, but by choosing, as did Jesus, God alone.

For the son, only his Father is adorable

The third assault is the definitive one (Mt 4:8-10). The tempter, far from being beaten, becomes even more arrogant after his repeated failure. This is a fact we should not overlook. He comes back to the job at hand; brutally, without prevarication. He shows Jesus the world and its glory and offers it to him…, if he will worship it. Only the devil, with all his boldness, could go this far: he masquerades as God, presents himself as divine, the seducer, before the son of God! Not being able to trick him into choosing against God through the Word of God, he reveals his most intimate intention: he pretends to be served as only God deserves to be. This time he bases himself on his own word alone; there is no word of God here he can base himself on.

For the first time, and with unusual authority, Jesus commands the tempter to retire. This is a close up one-on-one struggle, without intermediaries. Two wills are opposed, the Father's (Mt 3:17: “This is my Son”), and the anti-father's (Mt 4:10: “if you fall at my feet and worship me”). Both are claiming total obedience from the son. But, in hindsight, while the will of the Father affirms that Jesus is his beloved son, what the devil is proposing is that he becomes a slave. God loves his son for what he is; the enemy though, for himself. Always. Thus the nature, the evil of every temptation is revealed. Falling into temptation means becoming a slave. Is our experience any different?

The text Jesus quotes then (Dt 5:9; cf. 6:13), is an integral part of the 10 commandments (cf. Dt 5:6-21), and makes further temptations useless. There is no trial he cannot overcome if one maintains that God alone is worthy of adoration: worshipping the only God who draws us to himself, frees one from nurturing other little gods, as amusing as they might be. Only someone who feels the unique and exclusive passion for God is freed from other great passions and little diversions. Only he will become like the Son of God.

[A reminder of the spiritual work that has already been indicated, cf. Day one. Presentation, p. 2].

The Gospels do not say whether Mary ever suffered temptation. However we do know that she lost her teenage son in the temple. Let us ask her to be with us during our prayer. May she help us to face up to our temptations with the strength of the Word which she welcomed and if we give ourselves up to this we can recover God, as she succeeded in doing in the Temple.