[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 15/August/2021]
I wonder what you think of when you hear of the ancient city of Jericho.
You may re-member the walls falling down when the Israelites marched round it for seven days, or of Zacchaeus climbing the sycamore tree just before his dramatic encounter with Jesus, or blind Bartimaeus calling out with persistent faith so that Jesus would give him his sight. Having visited the modern Jericho about 10 years ago in the Palestinian Territories I have some slightly different images. Of the splendid, large store which seemed to sell everything from decorative ware, books, clothes, food, to the rows of lush, colourful locally produced fruit, or the cardboard cut-out of Zacchaeus in the branches of one of the sycamore trees along the road, and surprisingly a cable car going up a mountain overlooking the city.
In this day and age I suppose the cable car is not so surprising as it’s the easiest way to get up the mountain which is known as the Mount of Temptation. It is here in the Judaean Wilderness, that Jesus is believed to have been tempted by the devil after His baptism by John the Baptist. The cable car took us to an Orthodox Monastery built on a precipice high up the mountain. The buildings are long and narrow along the rocky cliff edge, and lead to a cave which is now a chapel. It is here where tradition says Jesus sheltered during His 40 days fasting and faced the temptations we read about in the Gospels.
I am sure that Jesus was tempted by the devil more times than the three examples given in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13 and also throughout His ministry, and especially the night before and during His crucifixion. The devil knew how to get at Jesus, not only by using His needs at the time such as his extreme hunger, but also how to bring about God’s will for His mission in the wrong ways. How easy it would be to miraculously supply unlimited food to the people by changing stones to bread, and back up His claims to being the Son of God with spectacular displays such as jumping off the top of the Temple without harm. In these ways He would soon be accepted as the Messiah of Israel.
The most frightening temptation of the devil was for Jesus to achieve His future ultimate reign over all the nations of the world by taking a shortcut and worshipping the devil. Imagine how terrible that would be. God, in Jesus, bowing down to Satan, and enabling the devil to succeed in his aim to rise up above God. No wonder Jesus dismissed the devil at that time from tempting Him, because if he had succeeded in his evil intentions, then Jesus would never have died on the cross to give us forgiveness for all that we have done wrong and we would not have had the opportunity to have a new life forever with our Heavenly Father.
In Hebrews 4:15 we read that Jesus was “tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.” Adam and Eve, and ultimately each one of us, gave in to the devil’s temptations but Jesus rose up above temptation and didn’t sin so that He could go on to fulfil God’s plan from before time to save us.
Fortunately we don’t have to go all the way to Jericho to believe that truth.
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Contributed by Michael Goble; © the Author
