I’m ploughing my way through The Bible Society’s Lent course Ploughing not because it isn’t great but because I’m not great at having to do things daily. But I love the way things get highlighted for me.
Yesterday was Jesus in the wilderness and what struck me, especially as a storyteller, and having read something about a new book about some Christian movement being accused of exaggerated over the top retelling of tales, is how do we know these things really happened???
Now Jesus doesn’t strike me as someone who would have boasted about his 40 days in the wilderness, or boasted about how he dissed the devil. So how did the writers of the three gospels it is featured in know?
It is a bit like the angel talking to Mary or Mary’s song to Elizabeth or many other things that happen with just the person concerned and a godly presence or in the Temptations a not-godly presence. We don’t know. Or we know because they probably told someone else.
I’m hoping that maybe when Jesus was walking all those many miles with his disciples, all those miles we are never told what goes on, and all those nights they spent sleeping under the stars, that it came out in bits and pieces, which the storytellers then put into something coherent.
I think in my God journey I am reaching that point where I agree with this quote
The Bible is a true story but not always factual. The truth of the Bible doesn’t come from the facts of the stories, but rather from the spiritual meaning of those stories. The true ideas the Bible teaches have little to do with history, geology, or any matters of the natural world, but have everything to do with the spiritual world and the things that really matter in our lives.
Amos Glenn, MINemergent: A Daily Communique (March 27, 2012)
Does it really matter how long Jesus was in the wilderness? Or whether the conversation between him and the devil was recorded verbatim? I don’t think so. I think instead of trying to decide if this really happened like this, whether it is the Temptation story or any of the other stories is that we need to ask God what the spiritual truth is behind this.
I do like the idea of Jesus’ follower one evening over supper saying “Go on tell us what really happened after you were baptised. Where did you? What happened?” And Jesus giving what he recalls of that time.
I would love it if he said things like “I was so hungry and knew what I could do but I knew it would be better if I carried on being hungry so I could hear God clearer.” “I know how this story pans out and I know I could make it easier but I know that if I go as the Father and I have planned then it will be better for you.”
I think Jesus responded to those temptations that are so common to us all in the way that is recorded to show he put humankind first and wanted what is best of for us all.
I binged watched “Zero Day”, a latest Netflix series, over the last two days because I was home alone. It is a great US conspiracy series but the bit that struck me, that I think is the truth of all that Jesus did, was when the President says something along the lines of “we were voted in not for what we wanted but for the good of the American people” [I’m not even going to go down the ‘is this happening now?’ route]
These temptations of Jesus, I believe, may or may not have happened, but the story is told to say that often we can do things easier, we can take short cuts, we can find a way that means we don’t get hurt, but in the long run would that really help those people we are called to serve, to be with, to witness to?
I’ll finish with another quote that says so succinctly what I’m saying here, I think,
“You prayed “use me Lord” and thought God was going to put you on a platform to speak or sing. What you didn’t know was that He was going to have you navigating through a bunch of trials so you could bless people with your testimony of resilience and not just your gifts.” -Nate Evans Jr.
Jesus was willing to go through those trials for each one of us and, I think, that is what the story of the Temptations is telling us. And is what we are meant to emulate.
Aspirational Adventures 