Not on the Devil's Terms--March 11, 2025

Not on the Devil's Terms--March 11, 2025

"The devil said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.' Jesus answered him, 'It is written, One does not live by bread alone'." (Luke 4:3-4)

This is what astounds me about Jesus: he knows he does not have to accept other people's terms or play by their rules.  He is so grounded in his identity--that is, he knows he is God's Beloved, God's Son, and God's Chosen--that he doesn't get drawn into the traps that others would set for him.  Because he knows he is beloved and that his worth comes from the One who has sent him, he doesn't have anything to prove to anybody else.  And strangely enough, I think that freedom--of not having to prove or measure up to anybody else's expectations--is exactly what allows Jesus to love even enemies, as well as to say a loud and clear NO to the Tempter.

And for us who are learning to live out our faith on the edge and to love beyond boundaries, there's something important for us to take away out of this short scene from the larger story that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship about Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.  And the starting point is just this: Jesus knows he doesn't have to take the bait or try to measure up on the Tempter's terms.  He is able to respond without being goaded into proving himself with power or force, because he just doesn't need to win the devil's approval.  When the devil prompts him, "If you are the Son of God, then prove it by turning these stones into bread," Jesus defuses the entire situation by rejecting the underlying premise.  Jesus responds as someone who doesn't need to prove who he is to anybody, much less the devil.  He is secure enough in his beloved-ness that he can see through the trap the Tempter has laid, and he doesn't have to fall for it.

Think about the power--not coercive power, but the power of confident resistance to evil--in Jesus' response.  What the devil wants is to get Jesus to feel insecure enough that he thinks he has to prove or show off his divine credentials.  If he can get Jesus to accept the implicit premise that he needs to demonstrate his divine sonship, then the devil's already got him on a leash and the contest is over before it's begun.  If the devil can bait Jesus into thinking he has to be tough... or powerful... or whatever enough, then the devil has the upper hand.  

And of course, the devil uses this tactic because it works so well on so many of us all the time.  Someone comes along and pokes at our insecurities or gets us to chase after their approval, and we give them exactly what they ask for--we get goaded into a fight, or we lose our tempers and say something we regret, or we turn everything into a childish contest of Who Looks Stronger. And once we even accept the terms of that kind of set-up, we have already sawn off the branch we were sitting on.  Once we let someone else persuade us that we have to prove our worthiness or importance, we are no longer acting from out of the solid foundation of God's love and instead we start reacting out of our insecurities.  And once we do that, we get petty... and mean... and stupid... and our old lizard-brain fight-or-flight response takes over.  

Jesus, however, doesn't get sucked into that downward spiral, not even when the one trying to push his buttons is Ol' Scratch himself. He knows that the devil's double-dog-dare about turning stones into bread isn't just about relieving his hunger but about needing to "look powerful" or "seem like a winner," and if Jesus does pull off some miraculous meal in the wilderness, it will be granting the devil exactly what he wants. It will be saying to Satan, "You're right--I need to prove myself to you. I can't just rely on knowing I am beloved of my Father.  I have to prove to YOU, Satan, that I'm worthy."  And Jesus can see the hook in that lure from a mile away.  Because he continues to trust utterly in God's love for him, he doesn't have a thing to prove to anybody, not even the Adversary.  That gives Jesus total freedom to respond on his own terms rather than the devil's.

And this, dear ones, is where I think we have something to learn from this scene, even though it's unlikely we'll ever go toe-to-toe with Satan in the literal wilderness after forty days of hunger.  What we can learn from this scene is that our strongest response to the voices of rottenness is not to accept their terms or play by their rules.  Instead, when we respond out of our deep trust that we are beloved of God, unchangeably and unconditionally, we don't have to take the bait.  Getting other people's approval is always a mirage--the moment you think you have done the thing that the other person dared you to do (make stones out of bread, take the fight outside, throw the first punch, return evil with more evil), they goad you again with something else like they are moving the goal-posts.  Once we give in to playing by someone else's rules, we're already sunk.  And we end up acting like jerks or bullies or blowhards in the name of defending our honor or looking strong when we've actually just revealed to the world how insecure we really are that we could let someone else get under our skin so easily. But Jesus shows us that we just don't have to get drawn into that drama in the first place. We do not have to accept the devil's terms--or anybody else's.

That brings to mind the other thing about this scene that I don't think I realized until the last few years: Jesus thwarts the Tempter without any special effects, divine miracles, or superpowers unavailable to us.  To be sure, there are other times when we see a story in the Gospels and think, "Well, sure, THAT's a great solution to the situation, but I don't have the ability to turn water into wine, to raise the dead, or to walk on the stormy sea!"  Fair point--we don't have those kinds of abilities.  But in this scene, the only thing Jesus needs is his grounding in God.  He answers back with a word from the Scriptures--"One does not live by bread alone"--which is a teaching that every other kid in his village growing up would have learned at synagogue.  Jesus doesn't rely on secret divine knowledge, messianic powers, or superhuman strength to resist the Tempter here--he just knows he is Beloved and acts like that is true. From there, the devil's clever trap falls apart like a house of cards, because it was always built on the premise of getting Jesus to doubt his beloved-ness.  That assurance is given to us freely, too.  We don't need any more firepower than our faith in God's promise that we are beloved.  We don't need any more ammunition to combat the devil, just the assurance from God that our worth is grounded in God's claim on us.  

That means that we are free, too, like Jesus, to respond to temptations, enemies, and adversaries with the utter freedom not to be provoked into a fight or dragged down to their level.  We just don't have to accept those terms.  We can believe what God says, and we are free.

How might we face the sources of hostility in our day differently in light of what Jesus shows us here?  How might we expose the tricks of the Tempter as just so much empty smoke and mirrors by letting ourselves be grounded in the assurance of God's love?  And how might we simply be freed today because of the way Jesus responded in the wilderness?

Let's go find out.

Lord Jesus, assure us of our belovedness so that we can respond to the world's meanness and the tempter's tricks as you did.