Rector’s Reflections
Thursday 6th March 2025
The Temptations of Christ
In yesterday’s reflections, we looked at the first of the temptations faced by Jesus when he was in the Wilderness. We will now look at the second temptation.
According to Matthew’s gospel, “the devil took [Jesus] to the holy city [ie Jerusalem] and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you” and “In their hands he will bear you up so that you will not dash your foot against a stone”. Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord Your God to the test”. (Matthew chapter 4, verses 5 to 7).
Interestingly, Luke regards this as the third temptation faced by Jesus, rather than the second. We don’t know why Luke decided to record the second and third temptation in a different order from that found in Matthew’s gospel. Doubtless Luke had his reasons.
In any event, Jesus was being tempted to put God to the test. If he were to throw himself off the top of the Temple, he could surely assume that His loving Heavenly Father would not allow him to crash to the ground. God would surely work a miracle. And what a miracle! Everyone would see it, and Jesus would become the talk of the town. Everyone would believe that he was truly a man sent from God. Everyone would also see that Jesus really did have complete trust in God: his trust in God was so great that he was even prepared to jump of the top of the Temple! Now there’s faith for you!
And yet Jesus understood that it would be wrong for him to try and force God’s hand. And so he quotes a verse from the Book of Deuteronomy: “ Do not put the Lord your God to the test”. (Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 16).
One interpretation of the deeper meaning of this temptation is that Jesus is telling us that it is wrong for us to test God’s providential care by risking our lives unnecessarily. Yes, we know that God loves and cares for us. And we also know that we are to love and trust God completely and without reserve. We know we are called to spend our lives in God’s service. Indeed, some Christians may even be called to suffer and to die for their faith. But even martyrs are not called to embark on the road to martyrdom lightly or without serious thought.
So perhaps this temptation is all about affirming the spiritual value of being sensible. We could all draw attention to ourselves by performing some crazy stunt, but is this truly what God would want? Being sensible might be boring, but something which is boring can still be profoundly pleasing to God. And it can also give great honour to God, because it respects the fact that God has allowed us to evolve as rational beings, capable of making wise decisions. I would add that God has also allowed this universe to evolve in such a way that there are laws of gravity and we know how they are likely to behave, so we know that if we jump off a tall building we are likely to fall to the ground and end up either dead or seriously injured. God has created the laws of gravity so it is disrespectful to God to behave in a way which wishes to pretend that these laws don’t exist. They do exist, and God has placed them there for a reason.
As I write these words, I am well aware that I belong to the Church of England, a Christian tradition which has had a history of placing a high value on the virtue of “being sensible”. Perhaps the Church of England places far too high a value on being “sensible”, on making careful plans and ensuring everything is done properly. It is the Church of the Risk Assessment. Of course, the benefit of being careful is that it stops people being hurt. But might it be that the Church can sometimes be too careful and too sensible for its own good? Are there times when “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God”? (1 Corinthians 3, verse 19). I’m not suggesting that we should ever act in a way which is likely to bring harm to anyone, but I am suggesting that there are times when our desire to be sensible might be preventing us from trusting God’s Holy Spirit to lead us on the adventure of a lifetime.
So while is it undoubtedly true that we should not put God to the test, it is equally true that we should not live our lives as if God’s power and His providence were mere figments of our imagination. God’s power and His providential care are profoundly real. They are with us everyday of our lives.