Unholy Sh+t: The First Temptation of Christ or the one time Jesus didn't get hangry

I was probably about six years old when I asked my mom if she would buy me some candy from the store. She said no because we couldn’t afford it at the moment, which was profoundly unjust. When she wasn’t looking, I put the candy in my pocket. I didn’t particularly understand how money worked, so I am unsure if this counts as a conscious sin, but it definitely met the legal definition of theft. Then again, this was the early 90s, and I’m not sure what the consequences would have been had I been met with the long arm of the law. Back then, I probably would have gotten a lecture; kids today would probably get the death penalty. Shortly after feeling very sure of myself entering a life of crime, my mom finished her shopping, and we left.

Not being a seasoned thief, I pulled the candy out to eat it before getting to the car. Shocked, my mom turned around to stop me before I could even unwrap it. She sternly asked me where I got the candy from, and I proudly explained that I had stolen it, thus saving her money. I thought this was all going pretty well, but instead of being proud, my mom was p+ssed. Like, extremely mad at me, I was shocked, embarrassed, and didn’t know what to do. The next thing I knew, I was being taken back to the scene of the crime and made to confess my transgressions to the manager. That motherf+cker took MY candy and put it back on the shelf for some rich kid to eat. I think that everyone was missing the point that I was essentially a modern-day Robin Hood.

That day, I learned two lessons: first, if I were Adam, I would have totally failed, and we would have ended up in the same mess. Second, my mom is a narc.

Unholy Sh+t: An Irreverent Bible Study

First Sunday of Lent

Today’s reading: Matthew 4:1-11

We begin the season of Lent with one of the more bizarre stories in the Bible (and that’s a long list to be a leader in!) The first temptation of Christ. Now, if you aren’t familiar with the story or maybe haven’t heard it in a while, allow me to summarize:

Jesus goes to the Jordon to be baptized by his cousin, John the Baptist. When he arrives, John is all, “Dude, you’re my cousin; you can’t be the Messiah.” And Jesus is like, “Surprise, b+tch.” This response suddenly humbles John, and he says something to the effect of, “I’m not even worthy enough to touch your piggies, bro.” John commences with the baptizing of Jesus, and then BAM, Big Guns himself, shows up: the Notorious G.O.D. And He says, “That’s my boy!” End scene. (Matthew 3:13-17) Now that you are caught up, after all of those shenanigans, Jesus immediately leaves the crowd and goes into the desert for forty days and forty nights for a story so laced with symbology that even Agent Smecker had to take a stab at the Last Temptation.

Have you ever read poetry that has been translated from another language and been entirely confused only for the snob, who was the one who forced you to read this poetry in the first place, to smugly say, “it’s better in its original language.” Like, what were you supposed to do? Stop what you are doing right now and there to learn how to speak that language just to read this poem. That’s entirely rude. Well, I’m gonna be that guy for a minute, and I apologize in advance. When the Gospels were written, the authors weren’t planning on this becoming a bestseller. They could have never anticipated that it would be translated into nearly every language in the world. As such, there are many moments when the authors make certain parallels that just get lost in translation, and the temptation of Christ is one of them. For example, in Matthew’s telling, the temptation perfectly parallels the first part of Deuteronomy, where Moses explains the struggles of the Israelites as they wandered in the desert themselves. They were also tempted many times. The way the story goes, they run into multiple struggles, and the people begin to grumble about how badly things are going for them out in the desert. First, they are starving and need food, but there isn’t any. Eventually, God allows bread to be delivered to them, known as manna (Deuteronomy 8:3). Over time, they start to doubt God entirely and want to test the authenticity of his commitments to them. They fail over again because they are human beings (Deuteronomy 6:13 and 6:16). Matthew juxtaposes these two stories to show that Jesus succeeds where other folks fail. Which, I might add, is kinda easy to do if you actually know that God is real, you’ve been to Heaven, and you also have existed since before time, but whatever, good job, bud. I just want to make it clear I am not judging the doubters because who doesn’t have doubts from time to time? Conversely, I am less than impressed that the deity didn’t doubt himself. Either way, lots of folks were impressed with Matthew’s telling of the story and his cute little parallels.

So there you have your first big symbolic moment in the story. Sure, Jesus was only stuck in the desert for forty days and the Israelites for forty years, but who’s counting?

This brings us back to another little temptation, the OG temptation, if you will.

We begin our story “In the beginning…” (🎶 a very good place to start🎶) when Adam and Eve are tempted by the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Of course, they didn’t understand the assignment, and now we have clothing, bugs, and periods. So let’s all stop and give a big round of applause to our greatest of great-grandparents for all that.

Jesus is first tempted with food. Now, if you know anything about Jesus, he LOVES himself some food and gets quite cranky when he doesn’t have food. I imagine that, at this point, Jesus is very hangry. Saying no at this moment is pretty profound, but him not exploding Satan is divine. This is the dude who withered a fig for just being out of season. This moment parallels two previous events of temptation: the Tree of Knowledge and manna in the desert. Jesus rejects the trap. Now, we talk a lot about Jesus as a sacrifice, but the sacrifice comes in stages, and this is the first step. Jesus has now passed the test that was previously failed. He doesn’t fall prey to the temptations of the Devil. Not for food, not to show off his power by jumping off a building, and not the final temptation to just give up on this messiah business to be a dictator of all the kingdoms of the world. Do you know who would have, without question, failed this test? All I’ll say is it’s someone who wouldn’t have lasted 45 seconds at the idea of becoming ruling of the world.

Now, I think it’s pretty interesting to take a moment here to note that the temptation of Christ is one of the earliest literary debates among theologians. Many argue whether this story is a parable or literal. Did the events happen exactly as told, or is it a story describing the feeling of temptation? Thomas Aquinas argued that Jesus may not have been tempted as literally as some of his Gospels imply. Ultimately, the Catholic Church has ruled it's an absolute fact, and the story happened exactly as written, and we know they are always right, so I guess that solves that then. But just for the sake of argument, not to disagree with the established dogma of the church or anything. However, Jesus does go out into the desert, allegedly all on his lonesome, and the only known witnesses to the events that happened are Jesus and the Devil. To our knowledge, neither of them wrote accounts of what happened. So we either have to believe that Jesus told this story to his disciples and they chose not to write it down as a parable but as a narrative or that it’s possible that the gospel writers are attempting to help us understand a spiritual struggle within the context of a literary device. Personally, I am more on old Tommy’s side, and I think it's more likely that the events didn’t happen as written, but then again, I am a heretic, so what do I know?

I was once asked in a Bible study, “If Jesus is God and Satan can’t be in the presence of God, then how come Satan could tempt Jesus by talking to him?” The easy answer would be, “because Jesus was in the form of a man at the time,” but do y’all want the real answer? Alright, I’ll give you the real answer! Because the Devil absolutely can be in the presence of God, and you were lied to your entire life.

Let’s look at another biblical temptation: the story of poor ol’ Job.

The story of Job begins with God just up in heaven doing whatever God does, and the angels show up for a roll call. First, we have Harmony, then Chastity, and then *checks notes* Lucy? That’s right! Satan just walks right up to God, and they have a whole ass conversation before placing a bet on how Job will react to a long series of torments. So you were lied to, and God can, in fact, be in the presence of evil, even the absolute evil (Job 1:6-12). Jesus, in just forty days, undergoes numerous parallel moments spanning the entirety of humans failing, and sometimes succeeding, at remaining steadfast to God in spite of their immense struggles. Jesus passed the test, ultimately leaving the desert to fulfill his destiny as the New Adam, having not fallen into temptation like his prototype.

A little-known fact from the temptation narrative in Mark is that Jesus is also canon as a Disney princess because immediately following the temptation, the wild animals attend to him in the desert. (Mark 1:13)

Sometimes in our lives, there will be moments when we could abandon our purpose, ethics, and morals in exchange for personal gain. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you shouldn’t have things: a house, a car, and food on the table. I am not trying to convince you to become a hermit or something. However, we should all be mindful of the moments when we betray who we are, or our vocation, at the expense of others. Another point that gets lost is that if Jesus had abandoned his purpose that day, if he had chosen the path of becoming the supreme leader of all the kingdoms of the world instead of staying focused on the kingdom he came to build, then a lot of folks would have been hurt in the process. That little girl he rose from the dead? She would still be dead. The woman who he healed with a discharge of blood would still be sick. Everyone he was supposed to feed would still be hungry. There was so much more at stake had he abandoned his mission.

So whether the story is literal or a fairytale with woodland creatures, the message is the same. Jesus was willing to deny himself to help others at any cost. We are being invited to learn from the mistakes of our predecessors and to follow in the example of our brother, Jesus.