Vicarious Victories Part 2: Is The Lord Among Us or Not?

“And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” Exodus 17:7

In a previous blog entitled Already There, I told the story of a Pass it On card which, to this day, I believe God gave to me.  The message on the card was, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, God is already there”.  Last June I spoke at a women’s retreat in Pennsylvania and, since I was going to tell the story of that card, I decided to take it with me to show them.  When the retreat was over, I remember putting it in my purse so that I wouldn’t lose it, and after that I have a very hazy impression that I was afraid it might fall out of my purse, so I moved it; but, the fact of the matter was, when I got home I couldn’t find it.  I took everything out of my purse and wallet, twice.  I looked through my suitcase and my car. I looked through my Bible, which is full of old class notes, pictures and mementos, but to no avail.  I was just sick to think that it was gone!  I finally comforted myself with the thought that, if it had fallen out somewhere, maybe someone else who needed it had found it and the Pass it On card had actually been passed on; but every time I thought about it I had a pang of loss.

 I’ll get back to this story and what it has to do with Jesus’ second temptation in a minute, but first I want to talk about the temptation itself.  For the setting of the second temptation, Matthew says in chapter 4 verse 5, “Then the devil took him [Jesus] to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.”  What strikes me immediately are the words, “took him” and “had him stand”.  This was obviously not a situation where Satan asked Jesus whether he would be willing to go with him to the temple, he just took him and had him stand where he wanted him.  This was only the case because God allowed it to be so.  These temptations were an integral part of the plan for Jesus to “fulfill all righteousness” for us.  Jesus had been led into the desert initially for the express purpose of being tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1) and Jesus was obediently submitting to the test.  And so, we find the still hungry, weakened Jesus standing on the pinnacle of the temple awaiting Satan’s next attack. 

Satan begins with the word “If” once more.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, throw yourself down,” and then, with a new strategy, he justifies this request with scripture taken from Psalm 91: “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”  Initially this temptation confused me.  What would be the benefit to Jesus in jumping off the pinnacle of the temple, which would make this suggestion tempting to him at all?  Is it likely that he would be enticed by the thought of a circus-like spectacle literally jump-starting his messianic career? 

It wasn’t until I delved into Jesus’ response that the real temptation began to emerge.  “Jesus answered him, “It is also written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”” (Matthew 4:7) If we accept the premise that Jesus might actually have been tempted by the idea of a temple dive/angel rescue show, then his answer would simply mean that it is wrong to try to force God’s hand by intentionally putting yourself in danger and expecting God to rescue you; and, there is nothing wrong with that lesson!  However, the scripture Jesus was quoting from is found in Deuteronomy 6:16: “Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah.”  And the story of what happened at Massah, or Meribah, suggests a slightly different interpretation.

This story is found in Exodus 17.  It had not been long since God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt and rescued them from Pharaoh as he pursued them, by parting the Red Sea.  They were being led every step of their journey to the Promised Land by the Lord himself in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.  In chapter 16 we have the story of how God miraculously provided first quail and then manna for them to eat.  Never, since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, had there been such a tangible demonstration of God’s power and presence in the earth.  In chapter 17 we find that the Lord had been leading the Israelites from place to place, and they had just arrived at Rephidim, where we are told in verses 1-3, that “…there was no water for the people to drink.  So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?””

In the desert…no water to drink…The Israelites make a seemingly reasonable complaint and Moses calls it “quarreling” and asks why they are putting the Lord to the test.  What is really going on here?  The answer is, with all of the visible, tangible evidence of God’s presence and his ability and willingness to provide for them, the Israelites still didn’t trust God.  They looked at the outward circumstances and became fearful, and angry that God had put them in that position.  Rather than waiting to see how God would provide, they demanded their right to water!  They demanded that God prove himself, by giving them what they wanted. 

Now, let’s go back to Jesus on top of the temple.  Both the scripture which Satan quoted and the story behind the scripture that Jesus quoted, deal with trusting God to provide.  With that as the key, I see Satan saying to Jesus,” If you really are who you say you are, God’s Son, then surely God would save you if you jumped from here.  If you aren’t willing to jump, it is either because you are a fraud, and therefore you know God wouldn’t rescue you, or, you don’t really believe that God can be trusted.”

And, I see Jesus’ response as saying, “I know who I am, and I have complete faith in God. He has promised to give me whatever I need, and he is faithful.  I would never demand that he prove himself.”

And, finally, back to my Pass it On card.  As I was preparing to write this blog, I was flipping back and forth through the scripture passages in my Bible when suddenly the pages fell open and there tucked snugly in the crease of the binding, was my precious card! I gasped and stared in dumbfounded amazement at the familiar picture of a rainbow, and the words, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, God is already there.” My first response was overwhelming gratitude!   But, can you guess what my second response was?   Fear.  Why is God giving this message to me now?  Is something about to happen?  Of course, I immediately saw how incongruous those two responses were, and yet how typically human.

When I read stories about the Israelites’ lack of trust in God after all that he did for them to demonstrate his love, it is easy for me to take a haughty attitude and wonder how they could be so outrageously stupid; and yet, we are the same.  How grateful I am that, on that temple pinnacle, Jesus won the victory for all of us who have repeatedly forgotten all that God has done for us, and have been afraid and doubted him, and demanded that he prove himself once more.   

Sabbatum Sanctum

For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.  Matthew 12:8

The church I grew up in believed in keeping the Seventh day Sabbath, or Saturday, holy.  I have many treasured Sabbath memories, but there was also a great deal of legalism associated with the day.  Recently I have spent time examining the concept of Sabbath in scripture, in the light of Grace, and because this is Easter Week, I thought it might be an appropriate time to share my thoughts with you.

When God finished the creation process, his relationship with Adam and Eve was perfect. They were in total harmony. There were no unmet expectations on either side. They had nothing to prove to God, and felt no need for him to prove anything to them. They didn’t know good, and they didn’t know evil, they just experienced the perfect rest that was their existence. All the work had been done for them, and everything was there for them to enjoy. I believe that, at the conclusion of creation, on the 7th day, they entered that “rest”, and it continued for them until Adam and Eve left that place of perfect rest by doing the one thing which broke the harmony, which was, of course, eating the fruit. At that point the curses given to them had to do with laboring, for both male and female; but, the promise was given that one day a savior would come to restore what was lost.

When the Law was given, the heart of the law was the Sabbath. The Sabbath in the law wasn’t so much “a memorial of creation”, as I was taught, it was a memorial of that blessed rest that had once existed, and a promise that it would one day be restored. All of the other commandments were true laws, but, to me, the Sabbath commandment was the only one that was pure grace. “In it thou shalt not do any work...” instead of being a suffocating rule, it was meant to be a promise of the true rest that can only be found in accepting Jesus’ completed work for us in his death and resurrection.

When Jesus was on earth, the only commandment he made a point of “breaking” was the Sabbath. He didn’t go around taking God’s name in vain, or stealing, killing or committing adultery, and then saying it was because he was above the law; but, he did go around doing what was forbidden on the Sabbath and saying he was Lord of the Sabbath. That is because he was the one and only Lord who, through his death and resurrection, could reinstate the original rest that existed at the completion of creation. He was the fulfillment of the Sabbath. In his death, he rested on the Sabbath, fulfilling once and for all the Sabbath commandment, and when he rose on Easter Sunday, He was the Sabbath rest.

Hebrews 4 speaks of the story where the Israelites were right on the border of the Promised Land, but looked to themselves and assessed their own abilities to conquor the land and found themselves lacking; so, based on their own inadequacies, they talked themselves out of entering God’s rest, even though God had told them he would do all the work for them. In Hebrews, the writer asks his readers not to make the same mistake. In other words, he warns them, us, against looking to ourselves and our own inadequacies and unworthiness to enter “the promised land”, but urges us to look to the One who has already done for us all that is necessary to enter, and asks us to enter, by faith in him.

Verse 10 of Hebrews 4 says, “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.” In other words, by accepting Jesus’ work on our behalf, by faith alone we enter His rest, and we rest from all of our vain efforts to earn our salvation by our behavior. Verse 3 says God finished his works at the foundation of the world, so “His rest” that we are entering, is the original rest which began on the 7th day. The journey from the original rest and back is completed in Christ. That rest is ours to enjoy, beginning here and now.

Vicarious Victories

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.  Hebrews 4:15-16

Have you ever come off of a spiritual high only to crash and burn in an ugly way?  Have you ever been in a weak and vulnerable place and given in to a temptation that you might normally have been able to resist?  Have you ever been challenged in a negative way to “prove yourself”, and come back with a nasty, defensive or prideful response? Have you ever used the good gifts God gave you for your own glory, rather than his?  If you answered yes to any (or, in my case, all) of these questions, take heart! 

I have read and heard the story of the first temptation of Jesus, found in Matthew 4:1-4, many times, and the typical interpretation usually focused on how Jesus responded to Satan’s initial attack by quoting scripture, thus leaving us an example of how we, too, can combat the enemy with the word of God.

Recently, however, I have looked at this story another way.  For me it really begins with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.  When Jesus approached John, John objected at first, saying that he was the one who should be asking Jesus to baptize him; but, Jesus explained to John that he needed to do this “to fulfill all righteousness.”  (Matthew 3:15)  So, as Jesus began his public life, he stated its purpose, the fulfilling of every righteous requirement of God.  And why was Jesus setting out to do this?  So that he could be the perfect sacrifice, without spot or wrinkle, and be able to credit to us his own life of perfect obedience in exchange for our lives full of failure and shame.

As Jesus came up out of the baptismal water, the heavens opened and God spoke, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”  What an amazing moment that must have been for Jesus!  The Eternal God, affirming him publicly at the beginning of his ministry; stating that he loved him and was pleased with him; calling him his Son! (Matthew 3:17)

The very next verse, says that “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.”  (Matthew 4:1) Notice who led him – The Spirit; and the purpose – to be tempted by the devil.  Jesus’ first step of fulfilling all righteousness was baptism; his second step was to be tempted by the devil.  In preparation for this second step, Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights; serious preparation for this most serious encounter!  In a masterful example of understatement, Matthew says “He was hungry.”

It was then that “The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”” (Matthew 4:3)  At first glance, it seems to be a rather harmless temptation.  As a matter of fact, it almost seems like more of a logical suggestion, than a temptation.  But upon closer examination we notice the word, “if”, and the darker picture begins to emerge.  Here was Jesus, coming off the great high where the heavens opened, and the Spirit of God descended on him like a dove, and God called him his Son, and said he loved him and was pleased with him; and here was Satan, when Jesus was vulnerable after a forty day fast, challenging him to “prove it” – to prove that he was the Son of God – by urging him to fall prey to his current vulnerability, his hunger, and to use his power, his gifts, for his own gratification, rather than to the glory of God; the same things I listed in the opening paragraph.

And, what did Jesus do?  He met the challenge with the Word of God.  He succeeded where you and I have failed.  He fulfilled righteousness for us in that temptation.  He was victorious in our place, and he credits to us that victory in every instance of our failure!  Because of Jesus’ victories in fulfilling all righteousness for us, and nothing of our own, God now speaks to us as well, calling us His sons and daughters, telling us he loves us and that he is as pleased with us as he is with his Son!  Grace never ceases to amaze me!

My list of the vicarious victories contained in the first temptation is by no means exhaustive.  If you see more and would like to share them, I’d be delighted.  This new perspective on the temptations has made me want to delve more deeply into each one, and to all of Jesus’ life, to discover new facets of what Jesus did for me in his life, death and resurrection.  I hope that you will be inspired to do the same.