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3

TEMPTED LIKE US

  The doctrine of the incarnation, that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, is the very foundation of our Christian faith. Throughout history there have been extremists who have accepted one part of this truth and denied the other. Some have asserted that Jesus is God, and only had the appearance of man. Others have said he was truly a man, the most perfect man, but nothing more. There have been heretics on both side.

  Many Christians may not be as orthodox as they appear. They affirm the doctrine of the incarnation in the creed, but subconsciously stress one side of the truth at the expense of the other. I confess that for many years I was, in this matter, a kind of heretic. I believed firmly in the divinity of Christ, but gave only a notional assent to his humanity. I did not deny the humanity of Jesus, but the humanity I professed was such a watered-down version of human nature that it meant very little to me. It did not nourish my spiritual growth, it did not challenge my faith and did not make Jesus attractive to me as he must have been to his early followers.

  I emphasised the biological aspect. Jesus was a man because he was conceived in the womb, grew up like us, ate and slept, was tired and hungry and experienced human emotions. All this is true and wonderful but there is something deeper and more wonderful in the incarnation which I was missing. Emptying himself of his divinity to become one of us was not only a biological experience but was also a truly spiritual adventure in which Jesus accepted the full consequences of being human. He laid himself open to fear, danger, darkness, loneliness and helplessness. He was vulnerable not only to the physical violence of his enemies but, worse, to the spiritual violence of temptation. He accepted the ultimate consequence of being human, that he would have to depend totally on another to save him. That other was his Father.

  I missed this truth and, for many years, Jesus was for me more like a God dressed up as a man, like an actor on the stage wearing the costume of humanity, acting a part. We know how the great actors can ‘live’ their parts. They ‘become’ the character they are portraying for the duration of a play or film. Or, to use another image, Jesus was somewhat like a psychiatrist who, wanting to help his client, studies the complexities of the human psyche so he can enter the inner space of his client and feel with him or her. Von Balthasar gives another image of such impoverished notions of the incarnation, the image of a teacher: ‘Jesus came to show us how to live, like a teacher writing on the blackboard the solution of the problem which presents no difficulty to him, since he has no part in the laborious efforts of his pupils.’ All these false understandings of the incarnation have one thing in common – that Jesus did not endure the full consequences of being human, that it really did not cost him, that the divinity was always there to protect and save him. I do not know how I missed the clear message in Paul’s words: Jesus ‘did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave and became as men are; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross’ (Philippians 2: 6-8)

  The Letter to the Hebrews says Jesus was able to feel our weaknesses with us because he ‘has been tempted in every way that we are, though he is without sin’ (Hebrews 4:15). This inspired word, which stressed the genuine humanity of Jesus had a curious stumbling block in it for me. I had the strange idea that this sinlessness made Jesus less human, that he would be closer to me if he had experienced sin. Time was needed for me to realise that the more truly human a person is, the more he or she will live from love, the more sinless that person will be. The truly human person is the one who is moved to compassion, who goes out to others, who puts love and not self at the centre. Jesus was tempted to sin. He was pulled towards evil away from love, but he held on to love even to the point of death. So he can understand us when we are pulled by evil and even when we surrender to the evil. He can hold out a hand to pull us back. He can save.

  This is what makes Jesus so attractive. I should have realised this when I read in the gospel that the sinners flocked to him (Luke 15:1). Sin turns one back to self, away from God and others. Sin separates. Sinlessness, which is unselfish love, draws Jesus closer to me. Sinners flocked to Jesus because he was a perfect man who had also experienced temptation but who overcame it with love and trust. It was because he was truly human, truly one of us, and despite suffering and temptation, could still believe in the Father’s love – it was because of all this that he could touch hidden springs in people’s hearts. There was no judgment in him. True love never makes the other feel small or mean or inferior. Jesus echoed the deepest good self in others.

  The inspired word of scripture says Jesus was tempted like us. What can it mean to say Jesus was tempted? Very often, when Christians speak of sin, they think of sexual sins, and when they think of temptation they think of temptation to such sins. This very limited and childish understanding of sin obscures the terrible variety of evil which abounds in our world and buffets the heart, evil that surfaces within us or attacks from without. We must not trivialise the very painful reality of temptation by reducing it to sexual temptation. When Jesus was asked what was the most important commandment, he said that it was love, and he summarised all law under the twofold command, to love God and our neighbour. The great temptation then is to act against love, to put self at the centre and act out of selfish motives, to pull away from other and refuse love. Jesus was one of us, a truly human person. He had an immense love and compassion for all people. This love for other, which was nourished by his love for God his Father, was the meaning of his life. But being truly like us this love did not come easily to him. It did not just happen. It involved heroic unselfishness and temptation which on one occasion produced a sweat of blood from his body (Luke 22:44).

  The classic scripture passage about the temptation of Jesus is the temptation in the desert after the baptism in the Jordan. Remember that the short gospel account is a summary of days and weeks of struggle. It was not simply a matter of Jesus hearing a voice inviting him to work a miracle and then replying to it with a text of scripture and that was the end of it. No! It was real temptation, real interior struggle going on for days. The tempting voice did not come only from outside Jesus. It was echoing within him. Jesus was feeling this could be all right. I am hungry; I need food. Why not work a miracle? But his truer self resisted and saw that this would be going back on his agreement to be fully human, to being truly dependent on power outside himself, truly relying on his Father. He has emptied himself of divinity out of love for us. He will accept the full consequences of his choice. There is interior struggle and pain, but he wins through. He resists the temptation. He does not sin.

  Notice how the temptation is introduced., ‘If you are the Son’ (Matthew 4:3). Here is an attack on his identity, an attack on his trust in the Father. The essential temptation is always the same, to sow distrust in God’s word, in God’s love. So it was in the beginning in the garden. The serpent tried to sow doubt. ‘Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’ (Genesis 3:1). The first man and woman listened and were deceived. Now there is a similar scenario in the desert. The temptation is subtle. ‘If you are the Son. Perhaps you are not the son! If God were truly your father, how could he allow you to be hungry? After all, what father would give his son a stone when he needs bread?’ The devil tries to sow doubt in this man. But this is a new Adam, a new man and he will not listen to the tempter’s word, but only to his Father’s word. That will be his food, his nourishment for life’s struggle. He will show all of us that all who trust like that will not be ashamed.

  The devil takes Jesus to the temple top and invites him to cast himself down. Again it is temptation; test your so-called Father. Scripture says he will not let you suffer. Cast yourself down, work a great miracle, people will be in awe and will worship. It will be a quick, easy, painless way of winning people to your side. What a plausible temptation, one which finds an echo in our hearts. But to agree would be to deny the incarnation, it would be clinging to divinity and evading the full consequences of being human. It would be failure to trust his Father and would avoid identifying with suffering people. There is another way, the way of being fully human, whatever it may bring, the way his Father wants and which he has accepted. Jesus did not argue this out calmly and easily. He was tired, weary, hungry. He battled with the tension within him; the pull of his human nature towards and easy and glorious way and the deeper wisdom of the Father which would lead eventually to Calvary.

  The battle is not over when Jesus emerges from the desert. At a later time he will suffer the full consequences of this choice to be human, to be like us in all things. The temptation will recur and he will be reduced to a sweat of blood. St. Luke finishes the account of the desert temptation with ominous words: ‘The devil left him, to return at the appointed time’ (Luke 4:13). Gethsemane is the appointed place and Holy Thursday the time. Jesus again faces his tempter who will make a last desperate play to turn this man away from the path of love. ‘This is your hour; this is the reign of darkness’ (Luke 22:53). In the garden he feels the full weight of his very real humanity. ‘And a sudden fear came over him, and great distress. And he said to them, "My soul is sorrowful to the point of death"’ (Mark 14:33-34) He is so lonely and afraid. The forces of organised religion, of self-righteous, holy people, of ambitious politicians, are all combined against him and he is brought so low he wants to call it all off. ‘Father! Everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me’ (Mark 14:36)

  But once again, as in the desert, he holds on and trusts his Father. ‘But let it be as you, not I, would have it’ (Mark 14:36). He is not abandoned. He receives just enough power to cope, to hang on, to remain faithful to love, to the Father, to you and me. For let us take note that all this is for us. Through it all he is saying, ‘It is possible to hold on, to trust, to love.’ This is what the incarnation means. This is how he is saving us. We look at this man, our brother, and ask the help of the Holy Spirit that we may understand what we see. Then, when we try to be like him, to love and trust like him, we are starting to experience the salvation he brought.

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