Rev. Michael Piazza in Liberating Word says of Luke 4:1-15 “Luke places the genealogy of Jesus between his baptism by John and his temptation in the wilderness. A casual reading of this passage might leave you with the impression that this story in Luke is just a repeat of the one in Matthew. However, there are some differences. Luke reverses the last two temptations, and the climax of Luke’s version ends with Jesus being tempted to cast himself off the pinnacle of the Temple, the place where Luke began his Gospel. Since there are no witnesses for these events, it might be tempting simply to dismiss them as fabrication of the early Church. That may well be; however, in light of Luke’s efforts to convince us that Jesus is the Son of God, describing him struggling alone in the wilderness seems counterintuitive. While I don’t know if this story actually happened, I do think it is true. Jesus is baptized and affirmed as one who is beloved by God. He then struggles alone in a wilderness to figure out just what that means and how it shapes the way he lives. Every one of us has that same struggle. The way the story is told we might believe that Jesus wrestled with this for 40 days and night, accepted that he was beloved of God, and went forth to do God’s will. At the end of the story, Matthew says that Satan departed from Jesus. Luke, however, says that “the devil departed until an opportune time.” No, if Jesus was truly a Human One, he would struggle again with believing he was beloved, and he would grapple with what that meant for how he lived. While Luke and Matthew each describe three temptations, I am increasingly convinced that humankind only struggles with ONE temptation. It is the same temptation for every human great and small, rich and poor, young and old. Like Jesus, we struggle with truly believing we are absolutely, relentlessly and unconditionally beloved by God. Every other decision or struggle of our lives is simply a matter of deciding how to experience or express what we decided.”
Rev. Michael Piazza in Liberating Word says of Luke 4:1-15 “Luke places the genealogy of Jesus between his baptism by John and his temptation in the wilderness. A casual reading of this passage might leave you with the impression that this story in Luke is just a repeat of the one in Matthew. However, there are some differences. Luke reverses the last two temptations, and the climax of Luke’s version ends with Jesus being tempted to cast himself off the pinnacle of the Temple, the place where Luke began his Gospel.
ReplyDeleteSince there are no witnesses for these events, it might be tempting simply to dismiss them as fabrication of the early Church. That may well be; however, in light of Luke’s efforts to convince us that Jesus is the Son of God, describing him struggling alone in the wilderness seems counterintuitive. While I don’t know if this story actually happened, I do think it is true.
Jesus is baptized and affirmed as one who is beloved by God. He then struggles alone in a wilderness to figure out just what that means and how it shapes the way he lives. Every one of us has that same struggle. The way the story is told we might believe that Jesus wrestled with this for 40 days and night, accepted that he was beloved of God, and went forth to do God’s will. At the end of the story, Matthew says that Satan departed from Jesus. Luke, however, says that “the devil departed until an opportune time.”
No, if Jesus was truly a Human One, he would struggle again with believing he was beloved, and he would grapple with what that meant for how he lived. While Luke and Matthew each describe three temptations, I am increasingly convinced that humankind only struggles with ONE temptation. It is the same temptation for every human great and small, rich and poor, young and old. Like Jesus, we struggle with truly believing we are absolutely, relentlessly and unconditionally beloved by God. Every other decision or struggle of our lives is simply a matter of deciding how to experience or express what we decided.”