A Close Call In the Wilderness

There are several cliff-hanger moments in the life of Jesus on planet earth - moments when His mission and our eternal well-being, from a human perspective, hung in the balance. Sometimes our eagerness to defend the truth of God's sovereignty makes us forget that He has presented that truth in the context of events which were witnessed from a human perspective. I think that might be important in light of the fact that we have to struggle to remember His sovereignty as we experience His providence from a human perspective in our own lives. Therefore, I would suggest we seem to have biblical permission to understand some events as "close calls" ... humanly speaking. 

One such event has to do with the time when God's Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for the express purpose of being tempted by the devil. If you think it worthwhile to move away from an oh-hum scan of that story, put yourself behind a rock and watch the scene from the perspective of extreme personal vulnerability.

I have reason to suspect the wilderness to which Jesus was driven was the wilderness of Sinai. If that is the case, the depth of that awful forty days and the seriousness of the temptations comes into especially sharp relief. Two other men, Moses and Elijah, also experiencing forty-day fasts and made their way to that region. Jesus, following in their footsteps, would meet with them later to discuss His upcoming death.  

What might you have witnessed had you watched Jesus during those days? Although I would not build a doctrinal statement on it, it is reasonable to think the Holy Spirit brought to His memory the time before time when He and His Father devised the plan for redeeming rebels and bringing them into the household of faith. It may well have been in that mountain where Moses was given the Law that Jesus felt the weight of the Law bear down on his shoulders as a human being. Even worse, it may also have been in that mountain to which Elijah fled as a clinically depressed prophet that Jesus felt not the depression but the same intense sadness at the spiritual condition of his people. It certainly was in that wilderness where He stood at a fork in the road where the serpent, against whom he had warned of coming judgment in Eden, now tempted him to turn away from the fulfillment of that very warning.

It is unlikely many of us are really aware of the crisis we faced in the ragged terrain of that wasteland. Had we understood what was at stake, and had we felt the tremendous mental pressure which Jesus experienced, I think we would have held our breath as each temptation unfolded. I think, as well, we would have collapsed with exhaustion at the awareness of how close we came to losing our one and only hope. Had he, like we so often do, succumbed to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life, the melt down would have been like Nietzsche's imagery of loosing the planet from the sun. Ahead of us would have loomed the black hole of a relentless hell.

Some will want to raise the question of whether or not He could have chosen wrongly. That question highlights the importance of the irony of Jesus as perfect man and true God; but it is a diversion here. It can lead us to dismiss Him as merely performing a role on stage. The emphasis of the text is on what we would have seen and how we would have understood it had we been there. In so doing it presents a pattern for us in our own wilderness experiences.

The Holy Spirit is all about servant-hood, not role playing. Jesus at the other end of the wilderness trauma stepped forth as Jesus the servant king. As with Him, so with us: when the Holy Spirit leads, the path will sometimes take us into dark places. He does that in order to bring us to the highlands where He will anoint our heads for ministry and put in our hands an overflowing cup of grace which would not have been there without the valley.

Take some quality time to do two things. First, re-read the wilderness accounts, and read them with the eyes of not knowing how the drama will turn out until you get to the last sentence. Grapple with how close you came to not having the option of a Redeemer who could give you forgiveness and life. Second, review God's will for your life in terms of saving faith in Jesus' finished work on the cross,  and yieldedness to the Holy Spirit's energizing ministry for servant-hood. To those who had trusted Jesus, the Holy Spirit directed Paul to write: "you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."