The Encounter in the Wilderness Is a Story About Saying No
There is a story in the Bible about how Jesus went into the wilderness, became weak after having fasted for 40 days, and then confronted the devil.
It is a story about saying no.
That aspect of the story, Jesus saying no, ought to be noted more than it is. In choosing to respond to the devil this way, Jesus elected for a tactic available to you and me. Presumably, much of what he might have been able to do in this confrontation is not something you or I would know how to do. I cannot perform miracles nor banish the devil away. I am powerless in these areas. But Jesus joined me in this powerless state, employing the recourse to which I have access. When I am tempted into some course of error or despair—much as I might feel otherwise or might be prone to overlook the option—I do have the ability to say no.
I have been thinking about this, the role my own consent plays in some of the states that find me. A detail out of the pop-culture lore about vampires offers an analogy: One of the traits we associate with vampires is that they cannot enter a home unless they are invited. Some states of mind are just like this. If I am fearful of an upcoming event about which I am uncertain, do I have to invite in the full dread of all the worst potential imagined outcomes? If I suspect I am being deceived or treated unfairly, do I have to invite in the full resentment before I know the facts?
The facts, of course, are part of my recourse. More largely, the truth is my recourse. In my own succumbing to these states of mind, the sequence generally goes like this: (1) I hear the inner fear or accusation as an assertion that sounds plausible; (2) I agree to that assertion as the seemingly natural consent owed to something so plausible; then, in providing this consent, (3) I welcome in all the implications that also race in with my agreement. Point number two is the choice. I don’t have to agree.
Jesus, in the way he responded to three different lines of attack in the encounter in the wilderness, broke with that sequence. In the case of each attack, he did hear the assertion, but then he did not give his consent. In each case, Jesus said no by asserting the truth instead.
The story of Jesus in the wilderness appears in Matthew chapter 4 and Luke chapter 4. (It is also mentioned without detail in the gospel of Mark.)
In this story, the devil is the antagonist. Do I believe in the devil’s existence? I do not believe in the cartoon character with horns and red skin, and none of us is called to believe in this. Yet to take seriously the notion of an accuser operating outside the core of our thinking is a different matter. Elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus describes the devil using attributes more subtle than horns and red skin. The devil’s tool is the lie, Jesus said, and his objective is death (John 8:44). Do I believe that something is whispering lies into my thoughts that have the aim of killing my spirit or joy? I think this sounds a lot like the experience of living as a conscious, conflicted human being.
So we have this story, Jesus in the wilderness. One other point about the story that ought to be more noted is this: It is a story just one or two steps removed from the voice of Jesus himself.
No one else is present in this story as witness. That means we know this story only because Jesus must have told it. One guesses he told it multiple times, to multiple gatherings of disciples. One disciple hearing it must have been Matthew, who included the story in his gospel. And while another gospel writer, Luke, never met Jesus the man, he was a faithful reporter. Someone told him this story, Matthew or another hearer, and Luke relayed the account. Jesus told the story, and in so doing, he assured that two different writers would document it.
Why did he want the story out there? What does he want us to see?
Two possibilities suggest themselves:
One relates to the point already made. That is, we have the power we need. We can serve God and serve love. We can sustain the light to do so. The way is found in recognizing and confronting the whisperer, in hearing the whisper for what it is and saying no.
The other observation is an elaboration on this first point. Namely, in saying no to a temptation toward stumbling or darkness, in resorting to truth instead, we have a surplus of resource available.
Again, Jesus could have employed miraculous power and didn’t. He instead used the Bible. In the story of the wilderness encounter as it is given to us, Jesus quotes scripture against each of the devil’s challenges. But what is more, the scripture quoted, countering three different courses of attempted manipulation and deception by the devil, came from just one book of the Bible, and not very much of the book at that. Check this in a Bible with footnotes: Everything Jesus quotes in his encounter in the wilderness comes from Deuteronomy chapter 6 or 8.
I wonder if Deuteronomy 6 through 8 just happened to be a passage Jesus had studied or meditated upon recently, not long before this encounter. If so, other passages of the Bible might have served as well. Clearly, Jesus did not range far through the Bible to find what he needed. Perhaps he could have refuted the devil just as well with lines from two or three chapters of some very different text. A suggestion of the story, therefore, is that the Bible, this anthology we have in a book on our bureau or in an app on our phone, contains more than we need. Another, broader suggestion is this: There is plenty of access to the truth—it is near and it is simple to find and state. We just have to resort to it, however boldly or defiantly. We have to hear the lie and then not meekly consent. We have to resist being polite to the vampire.
That very point about the truth being simple and close at hand might apply to this story as well. In both Matthew’s and Luke’s versions, the story of Jesus in the wilderness is only about a dozen verses. Why again did Jesus want this story out there?
Potentially various reasons in addition to what I have offered here. The story also has a lot to say about Jesus’ kingship and the spiritual world’s recognition of this; a different essay could explore entirely different aspects of the wilderness story. But on the level of what it portrays about the predicament of living, maybe Jesus wanted the story out there because this little story is enough. In this world, in our conflicted thoughts, in the wilderness we inhabit during this life, Jesus knows we will need to say no. Maybe just this simple story provides a fitting model for how to respond when the liar whispers, and a sense of how much and how little is sufficient for the no to be.
Photo: The devil said to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, just make the stones into food” (Matthew 4:3). Photo of the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, New Mexico.