Who is this man who went into the Wilderness?

Who is this man going into the Wilderness?

Meditations on the Forty Days #1

Written by Dan McDonald

 

Canyon in the Dead Sea region (the Wilderness)

Downloaded from Shutterstock.com Copyright Kavram

 

            Whether a Christian observes Lent or not, most every Christian I know loves the story found in Matthew 4:1-11 of Christ’s forty days in the Wilderness. For those observing Lent, we partake symbolically in the fast and prayerful struggling which Christ entered fully on our behalf. For those who do not observe Lent, St. Matthew’s description of Christ’s wilderness struggles contains rich food for meditative thought and Christ’s experience in the Wilderness leads us to consider a number of important themes concerning the spiritual life as well as the ministry of Christ.

            It would be tempting for me to imagine writing a number of meditations on St. Matthew’s text during this season of Lent. I imagined doing that and realized that while perhaps I might write some additional thoughts on this passage during this season of Lent, I also might not write anything more than this one piece.

            The passage as I have considered it this week has especially caused me to think of one question to be considered as we look at Jesus’s experience in the Wilderness. That one question is, “Who is this man who went forth into the Wilderness?”

            The early Church, in its struggle to understand the Gospel chiefly sought to understand and describe who Jesus Christ was. The Church’s leaders met for several councils that mostly sought to answer who they believed Jesus Christ was. It is interesting that in the last one hundred years, many Conservative Christians feared that the Church might lose the Gospel because segments of the Church were losing sight of Christ’s divinity. But in the early Church, the leaders came perhaps just as often to the conclusion that the Church in their day was in danger of losing the Gospel by minimizing the humanity of Christ. As I read Matthew 4:1-11, I am moved by how Jesus is described in the weakness of his humanity. Jesus’ humanity is not a super-humanity but a humanity of one who hungers and thirsts, and of one who must face temptation.

            The Apostles describe such weakness of humanity as an essential to the Gospel. St. Paul describes how through Adam sin and death came into the world. But in Christ, the second Adam, Christ died for our sins and resurrection came through Christ. St. Paul attributes the blessing of resurrection as coming to us, not by Christ’s power of divinity, but through the weakness of his humanity. St. Paul declares “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”. (I Corinthians 15:21-22) Paul’s understanding of the resurrection is that it came to us through Jesus’ manhood.

            This theme of Jesus’ identification with our weakness surprised those around him. John the Baptist had announced that he baptized those who came to him with a baptism of repentance, but that one was coming who would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. When Jesus came to him in the Jordan River, John wondered why Jesus would come to him to be baptized when it was Jesus who ought to be baptizing John. But Jesus explained that it was important for him to be baptized that together they could fulfill all righteousness. Jesus came in the weakness of human flesh to fulfill the obligations of repentance that none of us could fulfill with the completeness due unto the Living God. Jesus came to do this in the weakness of human flesh, though without sin.

            Following his baptism the Spirit of God, in the form of a dove, rested upon Jesus. We are told that the Spirit then led Jesus into the wilderness. Perhaps we don’t think enough about how this shows how Jesus came in human weakness. He does not direct himself to go into the Wilderness but instead he follows the lead of the Holy Spirit. He became, in his humanity, dependent upon the Spirit of God to lead him into the Wilderness. Once he was there he showed his dependence upon God as he committed himself to prayer and fasting. When he was tempted he showed his dependence upon the revealed Word of God found in Holy Scriptures, as he answered each temptation saying “It is written.” The weakness of his humanity is thus put on display in St. Matthew’s account.

            The early Church concluded that Christ was fully God and fully man. The meaning of this is that Jesus’ humanity was not a different sort of humanity from our humanity. He was not a man of steel or a God just masquerading as human. He wasn’t mimicking humanity but had fully entered and become human. This is the person we see who went out into the wilderness, and he did so on our behalf. He is like us in all ways, except he did not yield to the temptations that came upon him. The strength of God that would be needed to redeem us from sin and death was the strength that can only be set forth in the weakness of human flesh.

            Does this somehow diminish Jesus’ Deity? Never! For from the time God created man in his image, God set forth the possibility that God himself could and would fill that image with his very own Divine Presence. In the weakness of human flesh Jesus presented the fullness of Deity. We see this as we see Jesus overcome each of Satan’s temptations, and especially in answering to the third and final temptation. Jesus tells Satan to “Get thee hence” for it is written, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou worship.” As Jesus speaks these words to him, Satan leaves him and the angels come and minister to him. The weakness of Jesus is continued to be set forth in this passage as the angels come and minister to him. But look what happened. Jesus had said in the weakness of human flesh, “Get thee hence.” Satan had no recourse upon hearing Jesus’ word but to leave. The Divine presence had come into the earth and it was expressed within the weakness of human flesh.