The First Temptation of Christ

Tissot: Jesus ministered to by angels.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 

But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.’” 

Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “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 don’t dash your foot against a stone.’” 

Jesus said to him, “Again, it is written, ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God.’” 

Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. He said to him, “I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me.” 

Then Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’” 

Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and served him.

The reading for the first Sunday of Lent is Jesus’s temptation in the desert, as told in the Book of Matthew.

This is the rite of passage found for males in most cultures at adolescence: Jesus’s Bar Mitzvah. North American Indians would go out to the woods alone and fast until they met their spirit animal. Xenophon tells of Herakles, as a young man, going off into the wilderness and encountering two women, Virtue and Vice.

The idea is that this spirit quest sets one’s life direction. What is your life going to be all about? It happens at about adolescence because this is when we reach the age of reason, and become fully independent moral agents, responsible for our own decisions.

One might think this unnecessary in Jesus’s case: his life course was pretty much already set. But, being fully human, he too must go through such a moment. He too must be genuinely tempted. At the same time, the temptations he encounters represent those encountered by every man.

The most interesting of the three is the second one: to throw himself down from the roof of the temple.

One can understand the temptation to bread; he has been fasting for forty days. One can understand wanting the kingdoms of the earth. But what does he get by jumping off a high building?

The obvious.

What does anyone get by jumping off a high building?

Not, by being borne up by angels, to reveal publicly that he is someone special and God is with him—because the quoted promise that God will save us from striking our heel against a stone is extended to all.

The angels referred to would be bearing him up to Abraham’s bosom.

Now let’s look at the three temptations. What are these three paths open to us at adolescence, as the guiding principles of our life?

If it is to turn the stones to bread, we have decided that life is all about satisfying basic urges: about enjoying food when we are hungry, and drink, and sex. Or drugs, and rock and roll. Maybe also sports and exercise and healthy foods; these are still a matter of satisfying the body. Many do take this path; the path, even if sometimes more upmarket, of Falstaff, of Pumbaa, of Baloo the Bear. It is not coincidental that the last two are animals.

The second temptation is to despair of this life and to snuffing it. Perhaps in hopes of a better hereafter—hence the reference to the temple. A lot of kids do. A lot of kids, even if they do not actually commit suicide, become deliberately self-destructive. If the first temptation is to hippiehood, this is the punk wave, with safety pins and razor blade jewelry. With playing chicken out on the local highway, or with anorexia. If we think here mostly of teenagers, not adults, it is because those who choose this path tend not to live to adulthood.

The third temptation is to live for what the world knows as “success.” Career, social status, power, and so forth.

This, it seems, is the worst of the temptations, for this requires explicitly worshiping Satan.

But all of these are presented as barren, dead ends. The proper path, the good fourth way, as Jesus advises, is to worship God, and to serve him only.