Three Minutes in the Desert with Satan

On the first Sunday in Lent, many churches will read a Gospel Lesson containing the story of the Temptation of Jesus.

Like many pastors (and Christians in general), I was not always impressed or pleased by what the History Channel producers of the 2013 Bible Miniseries did with each story and every character. However, I believe there are a good number of scenes where what they came up with is not only on-screen gold, but also pretty decent theology, and spot-on Biblical storytelling.

The Temptation of Jesus

Noteworthy among those scenes is a three-minute clip that covers this coming Sunday’s traditional Gospel Lesson from Luke 4:1-13. Out of all The Bible Miniseries 8 hours of content, The Temptation of Jesus was one of those scenes, which immediately struck me and indefinitely stuck with me. In this short, but striking sequence, the three temptations are powerfully portrayed in a way that shows us what Jesus’ time in the desert, first with the Spirit and then with the Satan, was all about.

As the scene opens, a dusty dawn wind blows across the desert waking Jesus from his sandy slumber. Shaking, he struggles to sit up. He most convincingly looks like he has endured the extreme elements for 40 days and 40 nights. His face is bleeding and broken. His lips are parched and pale. Attempting to stand, Jesus trembles. He turns his head and his tired eyes focus to observe a darkly hooded creature strutting towards him. Still steadying himself, Jesus utters, “Satan.”

Stopping to stand a stone’s throw away, Satan, with spine-chilling speech, spouts, “If you are the son of God…command these stones to become bread.”

Then, with grotesque fingernails protruding from the cuffs of his robe, Satan reaches down, picks up, and flips a stone towards Jesus, who catches it as it turns into a loaf of bread. Staring at the sustenance he clutches in his worn hands, Jesus resolutely responds, “Man shall not live by bread alone…but on every word…that comes from the mouth of God.”

As he looks up to defy his tempter, the camera pulls back, and Satan transports Jesus to the precipice of a craggy peak. There he urges Jesus to prove God’s paternal promises and protective power, stating, “If God loves you throw yourself down. ‘His angels will lift you up in their hands.’” Jesus, in turn, raises his head heavenward and proclaims, “How dare you put God to the test.”

The scene swiftly shifts back to the wilderness, and as he begins to fall forward, Jesus catches himself and Satan seductively suggests, “If you bow down and worship me…I will give you the whole world.”

Here is where the scene gets really, really good.

Satan’s Offer

Instantly, Jesus is seated, on an ornate wooden throne and at Satan’s gesture Pontius Pilate steps forward and slowly and softly lowers a handsome golden crown upon Jesus’ brow. But, suddenly, as the crown finds rest on his forehead, Jesus’ future flashes before him and us. Back on the throne, his eyes flash open.

Still, at Pilate’s, Jesus finds himself with a crown of thorns crushing down upon his bleeding brow… Immediately, he’s back on the throne, now wearing the golden crown. Flash forward… Pilate shouts, “Crucify him.” Now, back to the throne room, where Jesus’ feet are being washed and caressed and then kissed by Pilate. But as soon as his feet feel the soft lips, they vanish only to be replaced by hard nails being driven through his feet and into the wood of the cross. As the hammer falls again, Jesus screams and flinches. Back on the throne, his eyes flash open.

Straightaway into the desert, where Jesus with almost a compassionate…dare I say, even caring or concerned look on his face, pleads, “Get away from me Satan.” Jesus finds his footing and stubbornly stumbles towards Satan…straitens up to glare into the eyes of the tempter and triumphantly shouts, “I worship the Lord my God and serve him…ONLY.”

Satan vanishes and a slimy serpent slowly slithers away through the sun-kissed desert sands, defeated, yet, as Luke explains, resolute to continue his onslaught on the would-be redeemer of the human race.

Jesus stands tall and again looks heavenward.

Scene ends…

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Why is the scene–flashing back and forth between the two alternative realities–so significant and striking?

In those few frames, we see the way Satan appealed to the humanity of Jesus by tempting him to take the easy way out. He could be supreme ruler and Lord over all but without the suffering…without the sorrow…without the cross. “At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow” would still hold true, but all would bow in terror before him as Satan’s number two. There would be no hope in the one who had come to make all things new.

And you might say that Jesus had every right to do it. What did he have to lose, but the souls of his friends and enemies?

Enemies, who would plot and scheme to kill him.

Friends, who would abandon him. 

We, who would dishonor and disobey and defy him.

Satan was offering him power over all the earth. Wouldn’t that be better than suffering and dying for sinners?

Yet the power that comes from making a deal with the devil, is not really power at all but slavery of the worst degree. To be lord of all, yet the slave of one was not what God intended for his beloved son. Nor was it what God designed for you and me who in his sight, might lovely be.

The Choice

Instead, Jesus chooses to carry on towards a painful death, and not only physical death but spiritual death and suffering that we cannot even begin to comprehend.

He did this to save sinners like you and me. To wash our stains in his crimson blood so that we might “receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.” (1 Peter 5:4)

We Fall in Awe

On the last day, “every knee shall bow” at the name of Jesus. Yet those who believe in him will not bow in terror. We will not just submit to one with supreme power, but we fall in awe before the one who lived the life we could never live and died the death that we deserve.

In the desert that day, the rescue plan was underway, and God made man ruled the day.

Oh, Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High

Oh, love, how deep, how broad, how high,
Beyond all thought and fantasy,
That God, the Son of God, should take
Our mortal form for mortals’ sake!

He sent no angel to our race,
Of higher or of lower place,
But wore the robe of human frame,
And to this world himself he came.

For us baptized, for us he bore
His holy fast and hungered sore;
For us temptation sharp he knew,
For us the tempter overthrew.

For us he prayed, for us he taught;
For us his daily works he wrought,
By words and signs and actions thus
Still seeking not himself but us.

For us, by wickedness betrayed,
For us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death;
For us he gave his dying breath.

For us he rose from death again,
For us he went on high to reign;
For us he sent his Spirit here
To guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All glory to our Lord and God
For love so deep, so high, so broad,
The Trinity whom we adore
Forever and forevermore.

–Thomas a Kempis