Luke 4:1-13
In C. S. Lewis’s book The Screwtape Letters, Lewis imagines what the correspondence between two demons might look like. They discuss humanity with contempt, all the while obsessing over the actions, choices, and beliefs of the individual humans they are charged with leading away from God, or as they call him, the Enemy. These demons are in the employ of their Father Below, Satan, and they have received training and been deployed to turn human souls toward their master by any and every means. Lewis masterfully explores how extremes of all kinds can lead a human being away from God, how intellectualizing and trivializing faith can diminish it into something easily tamable and advantageous to the tempter. A veteran of World War I and a very active public figure during World War II, Lewis depicts the devils as gleefully exploiting the anxiety, fear, and chaos of war and political strife. Screwtape and Wormwood, the demons whose correspondence makes up the book, refer to God as their enemy and God’s love for humanity as grotesque and abhorrent. The subject of Wormwood’s temptation is an Englishman who has recently experienced a conversion and become a practicing Christian in adulthood. Screwtape alternates between criticism of Wormwood’s methods and waxing poetic about his own expertise in the field of fallen souls. As we join Jesus in the wilderness and encounter the devil alongside him, and given the wilderness we find ourselves in, you might see why this particular book has been on my mind lately.
As we consider the efforts of devils and temptors, the timing of Jesus’s temptation matters. Jesus has just been baptized, sinless yet washed alongside sinners in the river under the hand of John, and in that moment God the Father spoke over him from the heavens and named him Son, Beloved. He is filled with the Holy Spirit, enflamed with righteous purpose, preparing to begin his ministry when he is led into the wild place where the devil meets him. Jesus is saturated in the love of his Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, alight in the divine union of the Trinity. He is on a high, so to speak, and it is from this high that the tempter seeks to topple him just to watch him fall. Jesus’s belovedness has been affirmed, and the devil does what he always does- challenges and attempts to strip that belovedness.
Without any of the subtlety of Screwtape or the enthusiasm of Wormwood, the devil says the quiet part out loud. “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Basically, if you are who you think you are, prove it. When Jesus declines to break his fast, the tempter moves on to progressively grander gestures. But that first one, the seemingly tactless and obvious temptation to satisfy his bodily needs through divine power, might be the most universal temptation of all, the one that speaks most plainly to the humanity of Christ.
Jesus is in the wilderness, far from the creature comforts of food and shelter. He has chosen not to go the way of his cousin and munch on locusts and wild honey, instead choosing to fast. Fasting can look many different ways, as the Christian tradition and our Jewish and Muslim cousins can attest, but for Jesus in the wilderness it means no food at all. Luke specifically names that Jesus is famished, having gone without food for a shocking 40 days. So the devil’s temptation to manifest a loaf of warm fresh bread is possibly a greater temptation than all the glory and authority of the kingdoms of the world. If I had the power to make bread appear instantaneously, I think the simple convenience of a snack would be enough to make me fall, let alone breaking a multiweek fast.
Screwtape tells his nephew Wormwood of a time when a human in his clutches had veered dangerously close to a conversion experience while reading quietly in a museum. Screwtape acknowledges that any attempt to argue the human out of this train of thought would have been futile and indeed could have backfired. Instead, he “struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch.” It is a funny line, but oh how devastatingly true it is. How often do we find ourselves moments from an epiphany, or contemplating a mystery, or coming close in empathy with another person, only to be diverted by distraction? The light turns green, or it’s our turn to order, or a notification pops up on our phone. We take a principled stance, but a small matter of convenience knocks us off balance. We promise ourselves we will remain calm, we will be kind, we will keep an open mind, only to be overcome by our temper or our sense of self-righteousness. We lash out when we might have listened, we shut down when we might have asked a crucial question. We get loud or we go silent, and either way Screwtape wins.
There is a reason the devil begins by appealing to Jesus’s hunger, to his appetite. Very often it is our appetites that get between us and the holy work God calls us to. Not our appetites for food, but our hunger for control, power, convenience. We click that yellow “Buy Now” button without regard for the impact our purchase will have on the planet, on our neighbors, on the people on the other side of the world or the other side of the border who are constructing the item we will throw away or forget we have within a year. We skip the prayer service or the Bible study or the therapy session we know we need and turn on the TV or scroll on our phones instead. We write our Facebook posts and neglect our prayer life. We RSVP yes and then fail to show up because being part of a community requires time and energy we’d rather not spend.
Lent is a traditional season of fasting because we need opportunities to become aware of our appetites and how they are affecting us spiritually. People give things up or take things on for these forty days because every part of our lives belongs to God, and every part of our lives is subject to the temptation to deny our belovedness. Every part of our lives is subject to the temptation to look away from God, to turn our back on our neighbor, to abdicate our responsibility to be stewards of all that God has made, including ourselves. Take some time this season to examine your appetites. What are the parts of your life that have become easy distractions from the hope of the Gospel? What are the temptations and indulgences that prevent you from dwelling in the Word of God? What do you encounter each day that makes it hard to believe that God loves you and calls you his own, and how can you interrupt that cycle? What do you need more of in your life, and what do you need less of? The answers will look different for everyone, but I encourage you not to enter this wilderness alone. We are not Jesus, after all. We need one another, we need reminders that we are beloved, chosen, baptized in the waters of forgiveness and adoption. The devil loves to find us alone, so don’t be. Find a companion on the way, a trusted friend in Christ, and enter the wilderness together. That way lies resurrection.
Mother A Writes 