Matthew 4:8-11 Jesus beats the devil for now
And the Devil
left him: interesting that even though Jesus did not fall to the Devil’s
offering that we are still left with a cliffhanger. Our passage doesn’t say the Devil went away
for good and in fact would leave us to believe that the Devil will be back. In any good comic book you know the bad guy
is never gone; they will always return (even when you think they are
dead). We get the same sense here, the
Devil will be back.
When is this
important? Because just as God gives us
second chances to follow in the Divine’s way so does the Devil give us second
chances to follow in evil’s way. You see
throughout our life we are given opportunities to respond to God or to allow
the Devil to creep in.
We use Lent as
a time to think about this. Usually we
as Christians don’t like to talk about the Devil or we allow that to be
“outside” the norm. In many ways we do
this as a way to defeat the Devil – not allow ourselves to acknowledge the
personification of the evil in the world.
Yet the Bible gives us many examples of a Devil being. The opening moments of Lent remind us of this
strong and real threat to the good in the world as the Devil challenges
Jesus. Yet we are equally reminded of
the amazing strength of Jesus who did not allow the Devil in; who did something
that is considered humanly impossible: he did not sin. This moment of Divinity within Christ gives
us hope that our Messiah has arrived.
This moment of Divinity reminds us of the second chances that God gives
us in life to make the choice to follow the good. This moment of Divinity reminds us that evil
can be strong in this world and offers us more hope in grace!
