Scripture: 1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
Observation: It is striking that first thing after Jesus’ baptism the same Spirit that alighted on Him in the powerful penultimate moment before the Father’s declaration of blessing led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Jesus isn’t wandering off on His own. He’s not beckoned by the devil/tempter. He is led by the Spirit. Curious. At present, I want to hold onto this observation until I’ve had a chance to walk through the temptations this week. Sometimes that’s the best route. Just sit with an observation for a bit. If we’re in a rush to explain, we run the risk of smoothing out the scripture too quickly in order to make it more comfortable. In that vein, Jesus will shortly teach the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6), in which He will pray, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Perhaps Jesus was led into temptation so we could pray His prayer in light of a Savior who spared not Himself in that regard. Because He was led into temptation, He both conquered it and gave us a model for facing our own temptations. We’ll watch Him in the coming verses.
Next, verse 2 provides a bread crumb about Jesus’ humanity, noting that after such a long fast, He was hungry. We often give Jesus a pass, saying something like, “Well, He was divine after all,” implying that He only seemed to experience hardship and challenge. Matthew, along with the rest of the NT writers, will have nothing of this. Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and afterwards, He was hungry, just as you’d expect a normal human to be. Jesus really was, at the same time, both fully divine and fully human. No cheating. This is why the letter to the Hebrews declares, “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.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Application:
How does Jesus’ real experience of temptation help you lean on Him when you are tempted?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for leaving no human reality unexperienced, even the reality of temptation. Come to me when I am tempted and be my strength. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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How does Jesus’ real experience of temptation help you lean on Him when you are tempted?
Jesus was both human and divine. How else could He fully understand humanity and ultimately save us if He had not experienced living as a man, flesh and blood with all the wants, needs and yes, temptations we experience? He sets the ultimate example; He sets the standard albeit, a perfect standard. We learn from Him and we lean on Him. He is our salvation.