Matthew 3-4

Matthew 3-4

If, by killing one person, you could rid the world of evil, would you take up the sword?

Jesus, who has just passed through the baptismal waters of the Jordan River and been declared God’s beloved Son by descending Spirit-dove and by heavenly voice, is now spirited away to the wilderness to be tested by the devil. (Because that’s what the Spirit does to God's beloved children, right?) He fasted forty days and nights, and it is from his forty-day fast that we derive the forty days of Lent, a season of penitence and fasting.

Much (very much) has been written about the three temptations recorded in Matthew and Luke, and the temptations are very important in understanding who Jesus is and what his mission is. But I want to suggest an unrecorded temptation that may also help us understand and appreciate who Jesus is and what he learned in the wilderness.

Here’s the set up. Jesus and the devil are alone together (Is that an oxymoron?) in the wilderness. No one watching. No one to see. Jesus is tired and hungry, but he’s still God’s Son. He has power to command demons and the devil himself as he demonstrates at the end of the story. He’ll spend much of the rest of the gospels casting out demons in a seemingly constant battle against the prince of darkness and the rulers of this world. Don’t you think that he was tempted to get it over with, to cast the devil and his demons out of this world right here at the beginning and finish it? Maybe call in the twelve legions of angels he mentions later in the garden? Or Angel Team Six? Or maybe an angel drone strike?

But, no. Why not?

In John Gardner’s 1980 novel, Freddy’s Book, a sixteenth century Scandinavian named Lars-Goren kills the devil. And it makes no difference. The novel closes:

“Now the red of the sky was fading. In Russia, the tsar, with ice on his eyelashes, was declaring war on Poland. ‘Little do they dream,’ he said, ‘what horrors they’ve unleashed on themselves, daring to think lightly of the tsar!’ All around him, his courtiers bowed humbly, their palms and fingertips touching as if for prayer.”*

This is what Jesus knew. He knew that violence does not cast out violence. He knew that killing does not end killing. He knew that destroying a person, even the devil himself, is just another manifestation of the evil that one is attempting to eradicate. He knew that his Father willed for him another path, the path of self-sacrificial love of enemies. And he was the faithfully obedient, beloved Son, showing us the Way, the way of the cross.

What then shall we do? Shall we take up the sword, or lay it down? Even when we think we can kill just the right person to make the world a better place, what then shall we faithful and obedient followers of Jesus do? Shall we take up the sword—or take up the cross?

(If you want to explore the agony of this decision for a very committed Christian in the face of seemingly unmitigated evil, read how Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought about joining the plot to assassinate Hitler. Biographies abound.**)

*John Gardner. Freddy's Book (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), p. 246.

**Here are some Dietrich Bonhoeffer biographies:
Ferdinand Schlingensiepen. Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. 2010.
Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich. 2010.
Mary Bosanquet. The Life and Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 1968.
Renate Wind. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel. 1990.
Edwin Robertson. The Shame and the Sacrifice: The Life and Martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 1988.
Eberhard Bethge. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. (First published in 1967, I think. Revised English translation published by Fortress, 2000.)
Two novels based on Bonhoeffer's life:
Paul Barz. I Am Bonhoeffer: A Credible Life. 2008.
Denise Giardina. Saints and Villains. 1998.