No Kingdom Without the Cross
Matthew 4:1-11
When I moved to New York City in the summer of 1995 I remember seeing signs all over the city—on billboards, on the sides of buses, on telephone kiosks—that all asked the same question: “Who is Keyser Söze?” That was it. There was no other text, no accompanying image to indicate or even to hint about what was behind the mystery. It turns out the signs were part of a marketing campaign for the movie The Usual Suspects, which was released that August.
The Usual Suspects is a modern film noir about five criminals who are manipulated to work together for a mysterious criminal mastermind by the name of, yes, Keyser Söze. Söze is a terrifying figure with a reputation for ruthlessness that causes even hardened criminals to recoil at the mere mention of his name. At the same time, however, because he is only spoken of but never seen, the movie leaves open whether Söze truly exists or is just an urban legend, a ghost story that criminals tell to frighten each other. To that point, the most famous line from the film features one of the usual suspects telling his police interrogator, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
Whether or not the devil exists is not an issue for the author of the Gospel of Matthew. It’s a given. But at the same time, Matthew doesn’t concern himself with describing the antagonist of his story in any sort of detail. He says not a word about the appearance of the tempter. This has given filmmakers creative license to depict the scene of Jesus’ temptation by the devil in a number of different ways. In The Greatest Story Ever Told Donald Pleasance portrays the devil as a kindly old man, almost a father figure. In King of Kings the devil is never seen but manifests solely as a voice. In Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ the devil speaks through a pillar of fire.
The fact that Matthew offers no description of the devil (nor of Jesus, for that matter) is instructive because it leads us to focus on what’s most important, which is not the tempter but the temptation, or temptations plural. But as we’ll see in a moment, the three temptations that the devil presents to Jesus essentially boil down to the same temptation—to exploit his relationship to the Father in service to himself rather than emptying himself of power in service to mankind. Jesus can have all the bread, all the followers, all the earthly power that he wants, if only he will forego the cross.
Before we go there, however, let’s first look at how Jesus ended up here in the wilderness. At the end of, Matthew chapter 3, just before Jesus enters the wilderness, he’s baptized by John in the Jordan River. In the last verse of chapter 3, as Jesus emerges from the water the voice of God publicly pronounces, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Immediately after that, in the first verse of chapter 4, we’re told that Jesus was “led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil.”
In other words, Jesus doesn’t stumble into the wilderness. He doesn’t arrive by accident after taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque. He is led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. The same Holy spirit that descended upon Jesus in his baptism now leads him into a barren wasteland where he will spend forty days fasting and facing off against all the lies, deceits, and empty promises with which the devil can test him.
This is just another indication of what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God. It does not mean a life of privilege and ease, a princely life spent in royal palaces being attended to by servants. It means spending forty days in a barren wilderness fasting and praying, with his only company being his greatest enemy, someone whose sole aim is to ensure that he fails in his mission.
Why? Would Jesus need to be tested? Tested for what? Up to this point in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus has done nothing of note. He is unknown. He hasn’t yet called any disciples. There is no record of his having yet preached in the synagogues, taught in parables, or healed any sick bodies. He hasn’t yet stirred controversy by associating with scandalous women or by sharing a table with despised tax collectors. The only person thus far to have even an inkling that Jesus is in any way out of the ordinary, that he is set apart by God for a special purpose, other than Jesus himself, is John the Baptist.
John, a prophet of God if ever there was one, had his own expectations for the mission that Jesus was to fulfill. Not one for sweetness and light, nor subtlety, John envisioned Jesus as a Messiah who would administer God’s justice Old Testament style. “His winnowing fork is in his hand,” John warned of the one to come after him, “and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:12). As John understood it, Jesus had come to lay down the law.
Jumping ahead for a moment, not long after Jesus exits the wilderness he will call disciples…disciples who will have their own expectations of the role that he is to play. Their heads will be filled with visions of earthly glory, both for Jesus and for themselves. As they see it, Jesus has come to lead a righteous revolution against the foreign occupation of Rome. After dispatching the enemies of the Lord he will reign as king in Jerusalem, and they will be his princes.
And that brings us to the antagonist of today’s passage, which in Greek is diabolos, or the devil. The devil has his own expectations of what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God. “If you are the Son of God,” he says to Jesus, “command these stones to become loaves of bread.” We should not hear this “if” as an expression of doubt. The devil does not need to be convinced of Jesus’ special relationship to the Father, nor does Jesus. At his baptism, which took place just five minutes ago, Jesus heard the voice of God say of him, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” What the devil is tempting Jesus with is to use his special relationship to the Father to his own advantage.
At this point, Jesus has been fasting for forty days. Forty days! That’s an entire Lent. At the risk of oversharing, on Wednesday I go for a colonoscopy. I’m overdue. It’s been seven years. I am not looking forward to it for a whole host of reasons, but among them is the fact that I will have to fast for twenty-four hours. I can only imagine the weakened state that Jesus is in after not having eaten for more than a month. It is when Jesus is at his weakest physically that the devil pounces.
Jesus, you’ve been fasting for forty days. Wow! That’s amazing! Well done! Surely your Father in heaven must be proud of you. By the way, where is he? I don’t see any sign of him. Doesn’t he know how hungry you are? I would think the least he could do would be to send you some bread. After all, that’s what he did for Elijah when he was alone in the wilderness. You know the passage from 1 Kings: Elijah woke from sleep and found there at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.
Why, your Father gave bread even to those ungrateful Israelites! When they wandered through the wilderness for forty years, day after day he gave them manna from heaven to sustain them.
But what about you, Jesus? Look around you. There’s nothing here but sand and stone. But if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.
“If you are the Son of God” is the devil’s way of saying, “Use that unique relationship to satisfy your needs. Why wait for God to provide what you can have by your own power?” From our perspective, we might think, “Jesus is hungry. It’s just a little bread. What’s the harm?” But if Jesus were to do as the devil suggests, he would place his own will over that of the Father’s.
In fact, this temptation is a foreshadowing of the temptation that Jesus will face in the Garden of Gethsemane, shortly before he is arrested. What does he pray alone in the garden while his disciples sleep beside him? “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want” (Matt. 26:39). By resisting the temptation to satisfy his immediate desires, Jesus remains committed to the cross.
Having failed in his first attempt, the devil tries again, this time leading Jesus to the holy city of Jerusalem, to the pinnacle of the temple. From that height Jesus can look down upon the many people gathered there. They are a ready audience for a grand gesture. And so the devil proposes, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash you foot against a stone.’” That’s from Psalm 91, which shows that even the devil can quote scripture.
Jesus, if you want people to follow you, you must give them a reason to follow you. Use your relationship to the Father to show people that you are his Son. Create a spectacle! Throw yourself from the top of the temple and allow God’s angels to catch you. Anyone who sees that will surely want to become your follower. You will have disciples lined up from Jerusalem all the way to Nazareth!
Here again for the second time the devil tempts Jesus to use his relationship with the Father to serve himself. If you are the Son of God. The devil invites Jesus to make an ostentatious display of his status as the Son of God. Show them who you are, Jesus! The devil knows that we want a spectacle. We want to be dazzled. But Jesus has not come to put on a show. He has come to show the world God’s mercy by forgiving sins. And forgiveness is not flashy. Forgiveness won’t sell many tickets. Forgiveness won’t draw high ratings. As much as we want flash, what we need is forgiveness.
Having failed to lead Jesus astray with bread and with spectacle, the devil tries a third time, this time with power. “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’”
Jesus, if you are the Son of God, then take what’s rightfully yours. If you are the King of Kings, then rule like a king. Establish your throne in Jerusalem. Think no more of this cross nonsense. What good is a crucified king? How will being crucified feed the hungry, heal the sick, uplift the poor, or remove the boot of the oppressor from the neck of the oppressed? Think of all the good that you could do as king! You could eliminate hunger, sickness, and poverty. You will be celebrated as a hero, greater even than King David! Wouldn’t you rather be crowned as king than crucified as a criminal? Because, you know, Jesus, if you refuse the power that I give, then all that’s left for you is the cross.
Note that with all three temptations evil is presented not as pure evil but as a good that can be easily rationalized. Evil appears sensible, even attractive.
Eat so that you don’t go hungry.
Win followers by creating a spectacle.
Assert power in order to do good.
The devil offers Jesus unbridled power as something with which he could do good, but really what he’s offering is a way to avoid the cross. That has been the goal with each of these temptations. They’re all designed to divert Jesus from the cross by getting him to exercise power rather than doing what he came to do, which is to empty himself of power by going to the cross.
This past Tuesday the Tea-ology Book Club began our discussion of The Seven Last Words from the Cross. In chapter 1 the author underscored in unflinching detail how crucifixion was designed to show the utter powerlessness of the victim. Victims were scourged, stripped naked, their limbs nailed to wooden beams. Unlike modern executions, crucifixion did not take place in private. The crucified were left to publicly hang, exposed to the elements and to public ridicule. “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40). Show us your power!
To answer the question that I asked earlier, why would Jesus need to be tempted? The answer, I believe, was to learn that there would be no kingdom without the cross. No salvation for us without suffering and sacrifice for him. The Son of God did not come in glory and power, however much his disciples wanted it, however much the crowd beneath the cross demanded it, however much we in the church still long for it. Oh, how we long for power! But the Son of God did not come to revel in power but rather to reveal the power of God’s reconciling love.