Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry….When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.”
Luke 4:1-2, 13-14
The events between verses 2 and 14 in this story are hugely significant, highlighting the move from potential to actual in Jesus’ life and ministry. The Father gave His blessing to His Son…His love, His approval, and His affirmation…and set Him aside for His earthly ministry by anointing Him with the Holy Spirit. This was the crucial moment when Jesus entered His office as the Messiah.
Luke described Jesus, when He came out of the Jordan River, as “full of the Holy Spirit”. This description implies, not a substance filling a container but a person under the full control of the Holy Spirit.
Paul used the same imagery to urge Ephesians believers to allow the Holy Spirit to control their lives, leading to godly living, just liquor controls an alcoholic, leading to debauchery (…in the Bible, debauchery means excessive indulgence in sinful, sensual pleasures like drunkenness, sexual immorality, gluttony, and unrestrained revelry – Google AI).
“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,”
Ephesians 5:18 NIV
Anointed by the Holy Spirit, after His baptism as an act of obedience, Jesus was equipped to begin His public ministry, which was revealing the true nature of the Father, in submission and obedience to the Father’s will, up to His death on the cross…
…or was He?
We have learned, especially, for example, from Joseph’s life that, just as he was subjected to rigorous testing before he became the second ruler in Egypt…
“He called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of food; and he sent a man before them— Joseph, sold as a slave. They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons, till what he foretold came to pass, till the word of the Lord proved him true.”
Psalms 105:16-19 NIV
…so also, Jesus had to be tested before He could be trusted with a great responsibility.
So, the Holy Spirit shepherded Jesus into the wilderness, away from all human contact and creature comforts, for the final phase of His training. Did Jesus know why He was being driven into absolute isolation? Did He understand this unusual and unexpected separation from civilisation?
I don’t think so.
What were His thoughts during forty days of “solitary confinement”, held there by an invisible restraint, in the heat, cold, and misery of hunger and thirst. Were His thoughts concentrated on His uncomfortable circumstances or was He using the situation to commune with the Father, to listen to Him and to prepare Himself for His entry into a serious and seriously challenging mission?
We don’t know! Let’s see what happens.
Finally, after forty days…six weeks of silence… nothing happening…gazing at a sterile, barren landscape…the action begins. Was Jesus contemplating, during those long, lonely, uncomfortable days, how He was going to carry out His Father’s will on earth? After all, as much as He was the Son of God, He was also a man who had to live from moment to moment in an uncertain world with the next moment unknown.
Suddenly, all hell broke loose…literally! The devil himself entered the scene, the “serpent” that he was, egging Jesus on with sssubtle sssuggestions! “You must be very hungry! Why don’t you just use your power to make some bread?” Why not! No one would know.
Jesus caught that thought before it entered His soul. No! Doing that would cut right across His Father’s will. His choice? The Father’s word above Satan’s word. Despite His gnawing hunger, He would not fall into the trap that ensnared the first man, Adam.
His response was simple and uncompromising…”It is written…”
And so, as the tests got closer to the bone…His mission…His submission to the Word… His union with the Father…so His resolve grew. He would do everything in His life, His public ministry, His choice and training of His disciples, His connection with people, friends and enemies, in union with the Father and in obedience to His Word.
For Jesus, the Father’s word, not to manipulate but to trust and submit to in its truest context, took precedence in every situation. He took time, often many hours before dawn, to keep in touch with the Father, and to receive His instructions for each situation.
So, Jesus could declare with no fear of contradiction…
“For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.””
John 12:49-50 NIV
How significant for Jesus, then, to set in concrete His resolve and His chosen method of operation, to speak the word of God as His everything. God’s word was His weapon of attack in conflict with His enemies, as well as His meat and drink, His protection and defence, the reason for His presence and calling on earth, and His appeal to the Father’s prophetic word as His blueprint for being who He was, the Son of Man…
If the Word of God was everything for Jesus, what of us, His followers? Should not God’s Word be to us what it was to Jesus, the power we need, appropriate for every situation, provided by the Holy Spirit as we trust in Him?
To be continued…