The Devil Went Down to Jordan

3-5-17 (Lent 1A)

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11

The Devil Went Down to Jordan

Do you ever stop and wonder just how much of your theology and biblical understanding is shaped by Charlie Daniels?  It sounds like a weird question, I know… but take a second and think about it again.

When you hear the familiar story told that serves as the entire foundation for this season of Lent, what do you envision?  Do you hear the jangle of guitar strings as the opening chords play and old Charlie starts singing “The Devil went down to Jordan, he was looking for a soul to steal?”  OK so maybe not quite that on the money… but when you think about the ways this has been dramatized over the years, the art that has come out, the ways we have let this scen play out in our imaginations over the generations, it’s easy to see this scene as an epic showdown between good and evil, Satan doing everything in his power to trip up Jesus, Jesus staying stoic and stalwart, refusing to allow himself to be swayed…

And to some extent, there’s definitely an element of that - it’s a grandiose story with a certain flair for the dramatic the likes of which we see in only a few other places in the Bible - Satan coming before God in the book of Job and God bragging to the devil about how faithful his servant Job is, for example.  But if we simplify this to little more than a spitting contest between cosmic figures, we miss the deeper purpose and complexity that shape this passage and make it such a fitting start for our Lenten journey together.

The lectionary doesn’t help on this matter, unfortunately - while the liturgical calendar takes the lengthy Epiphany season and allows us to explore God’s becoming flesh, it also does us the disservice of taking the narrative out of order.  If we go back all the way back to January, you may remember us hearing the scene that is set just before we start Lent.  This passage comes immediately following Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan river.  His hair is still wet and the voice of God is still ringing out over around us in the words we heard repeated on the mountaintop last week during the Transfiguration: “This is my son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased.”  And then Jesus is led by the Spirit out into the wilderness.  It’s not random chance that these two sequences happen right next to one another - in the baptism, the announcement is made to all the world “This is my son.”  In the wilderness, we’re prepared to hear just what, exactly, that sonship means for Jesus.  Jesus is tempted, but perhaps not in the ways that we typically think of him as being tempted.

There’s an interesting thing that happens in this passage if you look at the Greek itself and, more interestingly, the way in which certain words can be interpreted in translation.  In the NRSV translation that we heard read just moments ago, the translating committee chose to use the phrase “If you are the Son of God.”  However, some translators actually suggest that the phrase should be read “since you are the Son of God.”  Greek is complex in that way, and while it doesn’t make a huge difference in the reading, it’s nevertheless an important distinction to make in that it can change how we understand that Jesus is being tempted in the first place.  On the one hand, we hear the temptation in the way we’ve typically heard it over all these years:  Jesus is hungry, he’s tired, he’s thirsty after forty days in the wilderness fasting.  The Devil is trying to make Jesus doubt himself, trying to make Jesus prove that he’s who he thinks he is: If you’re the Son of God, then better put your money where your mouth is - turn these stones into bread.  Jump off the pinnacle and let the angels catch you.  But Jesus is too wiley to let something as simple as his own hunger and needs keep him from staying faithful to God’s plan.

But what happens to the scene when you change it from “if” to “since?”  How does our understanding shift if we hear Satan affirming from the start that Jesus is the Son of God?  What would it mean if Jesus wasn’t being challenged to prove who he is, but is instead being tempted because of who he is?  Since Jesus is the Son of God, there’s no reason for him to be in the wilderness starving to death - since he has the power of God, he has the ability to speak to the rocks and turn them into bread.  Since he has the authority of God, he can leap off of the tallest tower and know that the angels will prevent him from falling and hurting even his heel.  He is the Son of God, and because of this reality, he has the ability, the authority, and even the expectation to be the conquering hero, the king who comes to upend the old ways, defeat the oppressors, and establish a new rule with an iron fist.

And when we put it into that context, that perspective, Jesus’ temptation takes on a different level.  If it’s just Jesus being tempted to prove himself, it’s easy enough to see Jesus being able to resist a “double dare” from the tempter.  Jesus is confident in who he is - why should he have to prove anything to Satan?  Start using what you both already know and pointing out the ways in which what Jesus is doing don’t make any sense, work in the expectations of the time and even the yearning of God’s own people… and then you’re singing a different tune.

It’s a tune that has reverberated all throughout the history of God’s people, even as far back as the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis.  As the serpent entices Eve to partake of the fruit, it makes its appeal on the authority that the humans have already been given in the garden - God gave them permission to eat from any tree in the garden but one.  Why would God have only one tree they couldn’t partake of unless God was holding back something from them?  Why, if Adam and Eve have been placed as the supreme caretakers of God’s creation, if they’ve been given the opportunity to name all the animals and plants, to care for them and to find their sustenance in them… why shouldn’t they be able to eat from that one tree?  If they were made in God’s image, why shouldn’t they eat of the fruit and become like God, themselves?  Suddenly, the temptation makes that much more sense, and we realize how crafty the tempter truly is.

In this season of Lent, we gather together to celebrate the one who did not give in to temptation, who did not waver in his faithfulness, and who was sure and confident enough, both in who he was and in whose he was that he was able to stand before the tempter and say “Man does not live on bread alone.  Worship and serve only God.  Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  We gather in remembrance of a man who had the power to speak stones into bread, and yet gave bread to his disciples saying “take and eat - this is my body broken for you.”  We gather to celebrate and give thanks to someone who could have had entire kingdoms and nations delivered at his feet, and yet chose to deliver himself into the hands of those who hated and mocked him. And as we remember and celebrate these things, we gather in the hope and promise of the resurrection.  We gather to remember that it is in this singular man that we find our identity - and not just our identity, but our strength to continue faithfully on our own journeys.  We gather to remember not only who we are, but again - whose we are, to know that just as we have been sealed in baptism, marked in ashes, and sent out into the wilderness of this Lenten season, that we walk in the footsteps of Christ.  And as we walk together in those footsteps, we know we follow the son of God.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.