WEEK TWO INTRODUCTION 
TITLE: THE SPIRITUAL BATTLE BETWEEN CHRIST AND SATAN
February 21 - February 27

The famous Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson suggests that “Life is tragic.” He goes on to say “You are tiny and flawed and ignorant and weak and everything else is huge, complex, and overwhelming.” “We are in a constant state of existential threat,” Peterson states, and “the worst ‘snake’ of all is malevolence.” In the early chapters of Genesis, Adam and Eve are seduced by the devil, who comes to them in the guise of a snake. This yielding to sin, resulted in their removal from God’s perfect garden and then being cast into a deeply flawed world of disease and death--cut off from the God they had walked with in Eden. Since then, as St. Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 6, “Our struggle [is] against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” A centuries-old life and death battle between the enemy, Satan, and Christ continues to this day. But Genesis 3:15 says regarding Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman. You will bruise his heel but ultimately He [Christ] will crush your head.” 

The spiritual life involves ongoing malevolence at the hand of the one who wishes to defeat and destroy all followers of Christ. Yet God gives believers “victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). Pastor Louie Giglio puts it this way, “In the great [wilderness] testing, the enemy comes with torpedoes at [Christ’s] weakest moment. And Jesus is like, ‘You don’t understand, I’m going to crush your head; I’m going to shut you up; I’m on a mission from the very first word spoken in the Garden of Eden; you’re about to give me some body blows but I’m going to take you out.’” Giglio goes on to say, “Jesus stormed the gates of hell. There was a war on the cross, there was a war in the tomb, there was a war when Jesus went down into the depths of the earth, there was a war when he arose from the grave. Christ put the victory flag in the ground. Christ conquered sin and death. From Christ’s great victory we can move out from victory into victory.” Indeed, Christ is power, authority, and victory--a truth we very much need to cling to in these troubling times. This week we study Christ’s interactions with Satan as we prostrate ourselves before the throne of God--contemplating our own temptations, struggles, and shortcomings. Yet more importantly we must truly believe what Christ has accomplished for us through his life and death and resurrection!   

Day 5 - Sunday, February 21
Title: THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning You’; and ‘On their hands they will bear You up so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.

Poetry: 
Stones into Bread
by Malcolm Guite

The Fountain thirsts, the Bread is hungry here,
The Light is dark, the Word without a voice.
When darkness speaks it seems so light and clear.
Now He must dare, with us, to make a choice.
In a distended belly’s cruel curve
He feels the famine of the ones who lose,
He starves for those whom we have forced to starve,
He chooses now for those who cannot choose.
He is the staff and sustenance of life,
He lives for all from one Sustaining Word.
His love still breaks and pierces like a knife
The stony ground of hearts that never shared.
God gives through Him what Satan never could—
The broken bread that is our only food.

THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

The voice might come from anyone, from everyone. It whispers, cajoles, reasons, and suggests. There is just enough logic in the lulling words to create microscopic cracks that permeate a conviction and threaten to fracture it into pieces.

In J. Kirk Richards’ painting, The Temptation, the figure near Jesus appears to be human, yet is shrouded in shadow. It stands behind Jesus’ back and points off into the distance where the dramas and opportunities lay, just waiting to be claimed by a young messiah if he would just pay attention.

The voice seems to make sense at first. If Jesus, who is clearly a gifted prophet, wants people to hear his message, then the best way to get the word out is to do some spectacular things, like turning stones to bread to feed the masses or jumping off the pinnacle of the Temple only to land unscathed in the arms of angels. There’s no reason to waste time doing these miraculous tricks among just the local people who have desperate needs. Advertise your skills broadly and with fanfare! Who could resist following a messiah of that caliber? A bigger platform is what’s required. If he’d only join up with a winning team—a kind of act of worship—then he’d have the whole world eating out of his hand.

In Scripture, the voice of Satan—the devil, the tempter, the accuser, the adversary—is a voice that seeks to draw people away from God’s intentions and purposes. It may come through enemies both visible and invisible but also through those who think that they mean well. The voice may enter a mind as a sighing breath and then take root like a plant rich with toxins, its sap oozing with the poisonous suggestion, Did God say . . .?

In the Richards painting, there is a line that cuts across the scene, slicing through the tallest of buildings and passing through both the figures of the tempter and Jesus. It has the appearance of a far horizon that separates land and sea from sky. The devil gestures over the line and toward the city, the place where Jesus’ fame and power might be put on display. But Jesus’ face rests on that horizon line, his chin brushing it just so. His mind is not captured by the lure of the city, but rather by the distant joy that awaits him on the horizon of God’s intentions. He knows this horizon because he hears and lives by the word that God speaks. He will not test God with acrobatic parlor tricks. And it is this God who alone will be worshipped and served. 

The devil has exhausted his resources for a time. He has whispered his diversions, he has breathed his foul temptations, he has dangled the baubles of celebrity, all to no avail. So he departs as the unwelcome guest who was not invited in the first place.

And the angels who were said to be at the ready to catch Jesus if he were to leap from the Temple’s pinnacle now gather to catch him as he falls into the place of restful prayer in communion with the God who has never forsaken him.

Prayer:
Security: an idol we bow to and work for and dream of.
Security: an illusion we imagine and discuss and plan for.
Security: a gift we find here and now and in memories and in hopes.
O God of ever-present love, help us to embrace true security, fleeing from idols and exposing illusions. All things are passing, God never changes.
Amen.
Let it be so.
(Lina Toth, in Celtic Daily Prayer Book II)

Michael McNichols, D.Min.
Affiliate Assistant Professor of Intercultural Studies 
Fuller Theological Seminary

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