Journey with Jesus #11

New Testament - Desert 06/04/09

The desert is an important theme in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament it is a place of foundation, of rebellion, of punishment and of purification. For forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert under the leadership of Moses. Through struggle, and by subsequent conquest or conversion of numerous small city states, they formed a people who believed in a single God, of justice– Yahweh. The desert was the place in which the group belief in this God first emerged. Subsequently the desert was seen as a place of punishment for disobedience, but also of purity of relationship and of preparation for settlement in the Promised Land

Later in the Old Testament – in the books of the Maccabees –the desert becomes a place of resistance against the Hellenistic invaders. It was the gathering point for those escaping from the imperial powers located in the cities. The Essene community near the Red Sea continued this tradition. Their community, founded a hundred years before Jesus, and still there during his life-time, was located in the desert just eight miles from the Jericho Road. The Essenes were reclusive, exclusive and intensely purist. From the Dead Sea scrolls we learn that they were biding their time waiting and preparing for the final, apocalyptic, battle. At this time God would send his angels to help them free the Land from its oppressors and to establish his reign.

In the Gospels, the desert is the place where Jesus’ ministry begins. In Mark’s Gospel everything starts in the desert. In Mk 1:1-14 the desert is mentioned four times: the quote from Isaiah tells of a voice crying out in the desert, John the Baptist appears in the desert, the Spirit drives Jesus into the desert, and Jesus remains in the desert for forty days. The actual Greek word here is eremos which means “deserted place”. It is in the desert that Satan finds Jesus to tempt him. In Mk 1:13 Jesus is “with the wild beasts”. This could reference that he is the coming Messiah who will bring peace – the lion will lie down with the lamb. However, there is a threatening feel to the words that links the violence of the animals to the wildness of the place. The wild animals could be a reference to the beasts from the abyss in Daniel 7 – a description of the violent principalities and powers that will be overcome by “one like a son of man”. It should also be remembered that Mark’s Gospel was written shortly after Nero’s persecution when Christians were thrown to the lions. The wild animals could symbolize these forces of violence and destruction.

Matthew’s Gospel, written after Mark, has an expanded account of the temptation of Jesus. In Mt 4:1-11 the temptations are described: to turn stone to bread, to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, and finally Satan offers him the kingdoms of the world. Temptation here is not so much persuasion or seduction but to put under trial. Jesus was under stress. The desert that holds so much significance for the people of Israel, becomes for Jesus a place of conflict.

Did Matthew use an oral tradition of the temptations as a basis for his account, or did he extrapolate the story by reflecting upon obstacles that Jesus dealt with during his ministry?
The three temptations are evident elsewhere in the Gospels. In Jn 6:26, after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Jesus says the crowd is looking for him not because they understood the sign but because they are looking for food. This is the temptation of welfare religion. It is not wrong to help people in need, but if this is all there is then it becomes a distortion of the gospel. In Mt 12:38-40 they ask for a sign that Jesus is the promised Davidic Messiah who will sweep away their enemies. This is the second temptation – the mind-boggling visual act of power, miracle religion. That Satan chose the pinnacle of the temple would suggest divine approval for this kind of religion. Jesus responds that no sign will be given but the sign of Jonah. In Jn 6:15 the crowd seeks to make him king, so he withdrew to the mountain by himself. This is his response to the third temptation, of imperial religion.

In Mk 8:1 is another clear account of the same temptation. Jesus rebukes Peter for first rebuking him, trying to stop him going to Jerusalem where he will be put to death. That Peter feels he can rebuke Jesus indicates a close relationship and that he was in a position of influence. Jesus tells him to “get behind me, Satan.” It is much harder to tell Satan to be gone when he is speaking through your best friend. Peter’s words reflect the world’s agenda. He speaks with a worldly mentality and concern. The temptation Jesus faced was not about doing evil. It was about how to do good. The temptation he rejected was to execute his ministry according to the ways of the world. The best political leaders promise to give the people what they want: i.e. food to eat; they will make use of wonderful signs (technology, publicity, space travel, anything that wows) to rally people to their side; they will always use military and violent power at their disposal to bring about good. People are always looking for a leader who can put things right – bring peace, order and security. In the temptations Jesus rejects these key anthropological pathways. Jesus sees that these human responses do not fundamentally change anything. He does not place his hope in them. In the desert – the deserted place – he can free himself of these basic human dynamics and allow the Spirit to guide him. The temptations are his rejection of these human ways. Jesus seeks to bring about human goals in an entirely new way.

In Mk 6:30-44 we have the story of the feeding of the five thousand (one of the few stories found in all four Gospels). It takes place in a deserted place. Jesus uses bread to feed the people, and also as a miraculous sign of the kingdom. He divides and organizes the people into groups – into cohorts or regiments. All three temptations are addressed and subverted here – feeding the hungry, wondrous sign and political space or empire. The deserted space is filled and transformed with a new humanity based in Jesus’ compassion and the community that comes from it. Human needs are affirmed but responded to differently – not as a project of violent power, but through and for the sake of compassion.

What is our relationship to the desert? We are in the human dynamic – the ways of the world surround us and are inescapable. The desert is the place where the dictates of the world can be stripped away, creating an empty space that the Spirit can fill. This process can be painful and scary, but also liberating, and cannot be avoided for spiritual growth.