Melissa Bills

Beyond the Wilderness

by MELISSA BILLS, Campus Pastor and Director of College Ministries

Luke 4:1-21

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The Christian church has just crossed into the season of Lent, which is a season where we are encouraged to engage in the spiritual postures of self-reflection, humility, and penitence. Similar to our readings for Ash Wednesday, which ask us to be honest with ourselves about our mortality, today’s reading, which is the reading for the first Sunday in Lent, asks us to face openly the very human temptations toward greed and power that divide us from God and from one another. The devil offers Jesus three temptations in the wilderness: exploitation of food, or basic needs; exploitation of power; exploitation of God’s favor. “Fill your own belly with good things, no matter the hungry bellies on the other side of the desert,” the tempter suggests. “Make the nations bow down to you, even if you have to sell your soul to do it,” the tempter offers. “Call down God’s favor for your own whims, and exploit your divinity for your own gains,” the tempter encourages. Dear ones, we are living in a world right now that is showing us very clearly what happens when those with power exploit their power to seek to fill their own MARCH 4, 2022

Melissa Bills

bellies; when they exploit and trample the vulnerable as a show of power; when they exploit narratives of faith and divine will to justify themselves and their actions. A war is unfolding before our eyes that is a maneuver of flexing power for power’s sake. A pandemic is still plaguing us, in part because we are tempted to feed our own desires for “normal life” ahead of the needs of those who are most vulnerable. Our national politics are in shambles because we keep equating one political party or another as doing God’s divine will, and because winning power has become more important than just about anything else. I don’t know whether Jesus was actually tempted or swayed by any of the devil’s offerings, but I do know that Jesus, in the wilderness, was faced with the very things that he urges us, with his very life, to guard against. Jesus draws us beyond wilderness temptations to give us an alternative vision for the world.

When Jesus returns from the desert, he goes to the synagogue. He seeks out words of scripture—not the ones he used to go toe-to-toe with the tempter, but words of promise from the prophet Isaiah. He proclaims: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Over and against a world tempted toward exploitation, greed, and power, Jesus lives out words of comfort, hope, and justice for the vulnerable. Over and against claiming the favor of God for selfish purposes, Jesus proclaims God’s favor for all, and especially for those who have been trampled, exiled, marginalized. Over and against a narrative of “mightmakes-right,” Jesus gives his life for liberation and healing out of concern for others, beyond concern for self.

Jesus—in his teachings, his leadings, and in his very body—rejects the wilderness idea that we will find satisfaction and peace in life through serving ourselves.

Instead, Jesus tells us, over and over again, that peace and joy come into the world through seeking the good of others. This is the theme of Jesus’s life and teaching: urging us to turn from selfishness and arrogance and greed, that we might instead serve one another. Not because it gains us spiritual brownie points, but because it makes our world a closer version of what God intended it to be. Jesus knows, and our world knows, that temptations and exploitations of power always end poorly. They always do damage. They always leave our world broken. They always leave death counts. And so Jesus says, “blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are the persecuted.” And what he means is “remember the poor, remember the hungry, remember the persecuted and the refugee and the immigrant, the children in poverty and the ones with preexisting conditions; remember the ones in detention centers, the ones drowning in debt, the ones without an advocate.” When we follow Jesus in bringing good news and hope to these neighbors, we will find that our world will become more and more a place of hope and of joy, a place of peace and of kindness. We are the ones who are called to be the counter-narrative to exploitation and greed. We are the ones who are called to live out a better plot-line, where all are satisfied, secure, safe. I invite you this season, and beyond, to open your heart to the ways that God is calling you beyond yourself; the ways that God is filling your heart to the brim with love and grace and mercy so that these things might spill over and bless the world; the ways that you are a vessel for the Spirit; the way that you are being led beyond the temptations of this world to a promised land of peace, joy, and provision for all God’s children and all God’s creation. May you overflow with compassion, and may you go forth to bear hope into this wilderness world.

Jesus draws us beyond wilderness temptations to give us an alternative vision for the world.