The Presence in Our Midst: Christ in Commonlife

"And she gave birth to her first born son..." Luke 2:7
(top photo)
"Is this not the carpenter..." Mark 6:3
(bottom photo)

When I was in seminary, I continued my interest in photography by incorporating into various theology or Bible classes. One project I developed, in lieu of a formal paper, was for a class on the gospel of John. Based on John 1:14-18 (And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”) And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. RSV, italics mine) it was a presentation on the life of Jesus as incarnate in God's people today using scripture, music, and slides projected on a screen.

That then morphed into the idea of a book project that never materialized, but which I came across the other day while cleaning out an old file cabinet. It's working title was Christ in Commonlife and was going to combine photography with scripture and some meditative thoughts. The photographs, two contact prints of which are on this post, were ones I took of people I  encountered in daily like -- including family. Like the two here -- the top one is of my son Benjamin a day after he was born and the bottom one is of my dad building his garage behind the house where I grew up.

As I wrote in the book proposal

The central concept of Christ in Commonlife is that it is in every day encounters we me Jesus. Imagination is imperative since many of the photographs contain no specific Christ figure. To find Christ -- in these images as in life, you must allow your imagination free reign. Become a dreamer. Just as you used to be, before you put away dreaming and other such childish things. It is my hope that in the uniting of word and image, you will be open to really seeing again -- and in that awakened state you will find yourself encountering Christ in places and faces fresh and new. And ordinary. Like these photographs. Like life.

Jesus rides the subways today -- and the county school bus. He puts in his time in factories, office buildings, farms, and homes across the planet. He is wherever people are -- doing the things they do; eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, working, living, dying. 

Well, as I said, the project never came to fruition as a published book. But still it helped me to put into daily practice the Quaker concept of looking for that of God in every person that I encounter. Some days I'm better at it that others. But still, I try.

The book was to end with a poem. Now I've never claimed to be a poet -- I know my limitations. But this one still feels good and true and seeking to me:

Looking into faces

young or old

we catch glimpses of

ourselves, or

the people we could be.

Then we

stop, reflecting on

the beauty that lies

within.

Wonderment.

It may be

We should spend more

moments

gazing at

God in

us all. Finally

free. Ourselves. Are

you there,

Jesus?

 

So What I Said Was: It's Already Late

"When Jesus sent two disciples to fetch a donkey’s colt on Palm Sunday, they had no other task in the whole world more important than fetching it. If someone had said to them, “You are called to greater things; anyone can fetch a donkey,” and they had not done it, they would have been disobedient. But there was nothing greater for them at that moment than to fetch the donkey for Christ. I wish that we all might do every task, great or small, in this obedience." -- J. Heinrich Arnold

The roads approaching Jerusalem were jammed, as were the suburbs. After all, the main city, the site of the pilgrims’ travels for high holy days, was only about 1,200 yards wide by 1,500 yards.. Traveling the same roads as Jesus and his of disciples almost 2 million other pilgrims, coming to celebrate Passover in the holy city. Passover was one of three high holy times in the Jewish faith and the entire nation of Israel tried to squeeze within the walls surrounding the Temple. Some came from faraway lands, where the previous year they celebrated Passover with the words “This year here, next year in Jerusalem.” This year they were in Jerusalem.

Along the way Jesus continued his teaching. His opponents continued their plotting. By this time Jesus is a marked man. There’s a bounty on his head placed by those who fear him. They are afraid of him for any number of reasons. The religious leaders fear his heresy; they find his words blasphemous. The politicians worry that he has the people worked up into such a state that they will riot – thereby leading Rome to send in more soldiers to put down the ensuing insurrection. Still others just find Jesus unsettling to their comfortable way of living. All of them agree – it’s better than one man die than an entire nation.

At this time, Jesus still has the support of the populace, though. However, that support was like it is for all popular causes – it may have run the seventeen miles from Jericho to Jerusalem, but it was only about an inch deep.

He sends two disciples ahead to a village by the Mount of Olives. The Mount is in sight of the gates through the Temple walls. The two men are instructed to find a colt, whose owners will let them have it when they say the pre-arranged words “The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.”

They bring the colt back to Jesus. Instead of sneaking safely into the city, certainly the most prudent move a man in his position should make, he, a marked man, an outlaw, climbs upon it and begins his ride to the city – prominent visible to all, supporters and enemies alike. What a courageous act!

The people respond to this. They cheer and call out the words of the Psalms – praising God for sending the Messiah, the one they assume will free them from the power of Rome and restore Israel to its rightful place as premier among the nations. They chant the equivalent of “God save the King,” their words coming directly from Psalms used in Passover rituals. The specific Psalm they use is the 118th, which is known as the conqueror’s Psalm and signifies their hope that it will only be a matter of time until Jesus sounds the trumpet and their victorious battle against the infidels is joined. They wave their palm branches before him and shout their support.

His shallow supporters see in him the fulfillment of all their personal ideas about the Messiah. His disciples are feeling that, at long last, their time has arrived. Everyone is shouting, except Jesus.

He heads for the temple. Evidently he goes there with just his disciples – there is no mention of the crowd that had been hailing him. And then, “since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.”

That phrase, “since it was already late,” is fraught with meaning. Of the surface, of course, it merely means it was late in the day. The sun was setting and lamps would be lit all over Jerusalem. The time for work was over.

And, as we now know from 2000 years of hindsight, it was “already late” at another level – the end of Jesus’ life, as the end of the day, was fast approaching. His earthly ministry was about over. The end of his personal appeal to the masses was about over. The end to the plotting was about over. The angel of death was about to steal over the city as the sun set – “it was already late.”

On Palm Sunday we celebrate what is known as Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Palm Sunday. Yet, as we examine the text, we see that triumphant, as the world understands it, is hardly the right word. Yes, Jesus may have rode into Jerusalem hailed as the conquering hero, but it was a triumph that would be of the most unexpected kind. Part of the challenge of this Lenten season and Palm Sunday is for us to re-examine our own views of who Jesus is. If we believe, as the Bible and our own experience tell us, that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, then his message is unchanging also. The question is what might that message be for us today? Do we take time to do that, or will we, as the morning ends, and the noon hour approaches, decide that “it is already late” and head for our comfortable lunches and afternoon activities.

The message that Jesus was showing to those who had eyes and hearts to see that Palm Sunday long ago, was that, while he claimed his royal nature, his kingdom was one of spiritual peace and love. He rode into strife-riven Jerusalem as the Prince of Peace.

He rides on today – son of the high king of Heaven, with the armies of that kingdom riding behind him and his banner of peace. He rides on today to bring peace to us – in our lives, our families and in our world.

The world was not ready for the message that day almost two thousand years ago. Nor were his disciples. It may not be ready for the message today. The question for us is, are we? As a people who call ourselves his “Friends,” are we ready to lay down our notions about who our friend Jesus is and what his message is about? Dare we take a fresh look, with newly opened spiritual eyes, at what this son of God has to say to us? Are we willing to open our ears and hear? Or is it “already late.”

What a mixture of pain and sorrow that day must have been for Jesus. The tumult of popular acclaim had to feel good at first, and yet the closer he rode to Jerusalem, the more he must have realized how shallow that popular acclaim was. By the time he reaches the temple, he is alone with his fearful band of disciples. Instead of reigning in royal purple with a gold crown upon his head, he knows he will wear a crown of thorns and blood soaked purple robe. The hardest part must have been knowing that the very ones who acclaim him this day will call for his crucifixion by the end of the week. All because “it was already late.”

As we celebrate this day, let us pray that, though it is “already late,” we will have our spirits opened. Let us see this one who we call our Friend with new eyes and spiritual depth. Let us pledge anew our devotion to him and his cause – while realizing that to follow him will lead us ultimately to the foot of a cross.

It is already late.

Christ Came Juggling: An Easter Sunday Poem

Christ came juggling from the tomb,
flipping and bouncing death's stone pages,
tossing those narrow letters high
against the roots of dawn spread in cloud.
This Jesus, clown, came dancing
in the dust of Judea, each slapping step
a new blossom spiked with joy.

Hey! Listen -- that chuckle in the dark,
that clean blast of laughter behind --
Christ comes juggling our tombs,
tossing them high and higher yet,
until they hit the sun and break open
and we fall out, dancing and juggling
our griefs like sizzling balls of light.


-- Eugene Warren, from The Risk of Birth, poems selected by Luci Shaw

Sky Crosses: A Good Friday Poem

Sky Crosses

The heavens keep telling
    the wonders of God,
    and the skies declare
    what he has done. -- Psalm 19:1

Silver crosses cross
cerulean southeastern skies, horizontal
at first, then lifting toward heaven's vault with
a roar that rends the air, trailing 
fire and fumes.  Higher the 
crosses soar, almost vertical, sound receding, fading, and 
unholy smoke transforming, as our sins, from
blackness and fury, to white contrails
trailing the cross. My eyes, cast
heavenward, behold umpteen tiny twinkling
crosses crisscrossing  my 
Good Friday sight.

-- Brent Bill, 2013

Following the Living Christ --Or a Committe?: A Response to IYM Proposal

I've resisted, of late, addressing any of what's going on in Indiana Yearly Meeting and its apparently impending separation. But after reading Chuck Fager and Stephen Angell's pieces in Quaker Theology and Doug Bennett's "Update on the Schism in Indiana," I feel led to add my voice to this issue. I commend their pieces and links there-in to all who wish a deeper understanding (or any understanding!) of what's going on there. 

First, let me say that I first came to Indiana (and Indiana Yearly Meeting) in late 1978.  I have served as the released minister of two congregations in IYM and was recorded as a Friends minister there in 1980.  I have a deep love for IYM and the people there -- many of whom have been instrumental in my spiritual growth over the years.  And that's people on both sides of the current issue.  My current membership in Western Yearly Meeting has not changed how much I care for IYM and the good people there.  It has, however, given me a different perspective allowed by both geographical and emotional distance.

Second, my concern is not with the good, kind, thoughtful, faithful people of IYM.  I know a good number of people serving on the task force.  I believe they have served well and faithfully.  They have labored long in an attempt to find a way forward that will speak to the conditions present among Friends in Indiana Yearly Meeting and its member congregations.  I am grateful to them for this work.

My concern is with is the task force's continued attempts at pushing for a solution.  This has nothing to do with my disagreement over the solution they propose.  The solution seem rational and well considered.  It makes sense in an intellectual way and offers a way to resolve many issues.  I trust that these good people offer it as coming from their best collective wisdom and after much prayer and worship.

Still, it seems, from the documents I've read (Angell and others) that there is no clear sense of unity among the ENTIRE membership of IYM about the way forward.  In the face of that, it seems (I humbly submit) that IYM task force should decline of offer a solution.

We Friends say we believe that Christ is our present teacher and the God's will can be known and obeyed -- in community.  Where is the trust that God will lead God's people Himself?   Why the persistence in asking one group of wise, seasoned Friends to come up with a solution?

Perhaps the task force should take another tack.  Maybe it's time for them to say, "We have labored faithfully at the task with which we were charged. You other good people across this Yearly Meeting all hear the tension and concern expressed by our members  on all sides of this matter. We, therefore, as servants of the living Christ, will not offer any more solutions/ideas. We have discharged our duties. We return the matter to the Yearly Meeting and its members. Let us endeavor to listen to the voice and will of God and labor until we have unity."

What would it be like, then, for the Yearly Meeting to commit every time it gathers over the next year (including Yearly Meeting) to sit as a people and labor together.  Everybody!  Let committees do their Christian education, evangelism and outreach, and more.  But let the times when people come together be set aside solely for worship and prayer together, listening for and to the voice of the Jesus we profess to love and follow.  That includes Representative Council and Yearly Meeting.  Clear the agenda.  Have no reports.  Gather in worship. Sing together.  Pray together.  Listen in love to each other. Trust Christ!

What greater spiritual exercise, and model of Christian discernment and faithfulness, could there be?

"'Have you anything to declare?' is a vital challenge to which every one of us is personally called to respond and is also a challenge that every meeting should consider of primary importance. it should lead us to define, with such clarity as we can reach, precisely what it is the Friends of this generation have to say that is not, as we believe, being said effectively by others. What, indeed, have we to declare to this generation that is of sufficient importance to justify our separate existence as part of the Christian fellowship?" -- Edgar Dunstan

Well, in this Friends humble (and I say that with all sincerity) opinion, the Quaker assertion that we are the Friends of Jesus is something we cannot truly declare if we are not willing to put all our trust as a community of faith in Christ's ability to lead us.  What have we to declare to a world that needs the peculiar proclamation of the Quaker message of immediate, personal encounter with the God who is present with us and leads us into truth and righteousness if we don't practice that ourselves?

With sadness and hope in my soul,
-Brent

Sunflowers & Souls: From Mind the Light

(from Mind the Light)

Light: Without it we die. Physically.Spiritually.

Our very lives depend on light for photosynthesis—energy from sunlight that converts into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the fuel used by all living things. That’s why sunflowers track the sun across the sky, sea otters bask while floating in the ocean, and I look for an excuse to go to Florida in January. All God’s creatures move toward the light—flowers, trees, people. Light is constant and ever present. At least that’s what we assume. Then the power goes out or a month of clouds rolls in. We grumble and moan and whine until the light comes back.

But even more than physically, we respond to illumination emotionally and spiritually. Light—depending on its strength, tone, slant—changes how we perceive the world and people. Light sets a Midwestern sunset apart from a Western desert sunset, a Goya portrait from a John Singer Sargent portrait, and a joyful spirit apart from a mournful one. Yet even though light is all around us, we often don’t notice it and the difference it can make in our souls. That’s where an old Quaker saying—“Mind the Light”—offers help. “Mind” in this case means many things—including heed, tend, notice, observe, and obey. Minding the Light is a way of deep seeing.

I need help seeing. I’ve been nearsighted since high school and joined the bifocaled folks when I turned forty. I’m also diabetic. That means I go to my optometrist annually and have my eyes thoroughly checked. At a recent examination, Dr. Groninger talked me into trying contact lenses.

I liked the immediate results. I looked days younger with them—so much younger I considered getting a toupee and dyeing my beard. But I had trouble reading. I saw faraway stuff. But not near. The first day I went out to lunch with people from the office and picked up the check. That’s about all I did, because I couldn’t read it. I had to trust a coworker to fill in the amount for the tip.

So I went back to the doctor. She made an adjustment. Much better. I could read. But then I started driving. My distance was blurrier. Another week and I was back. “What do you think?” Dr. Groninger asked. “Well, I like not messing with glasses. I like the freedom. But I’m still having trouble— now it’s distance.” “Let’s try modified monovision.” She explained that she was going to power up my left eye for reading and my right eye for distance. “Oh, we’re going to trick my brain, huh?”

“Not really,” she said. Then she explained that sight already tricks our brains. We favor one eye over the other all the time, based on what our needs are. If we’re in a concert and someone with a big hat sits in front of us, the eye that can see the show tells the brain, “Hey, pay attention here and forget that hat.” And we do. So now I’m learning to see in a new way and tell my brain what to pay attention to.

The poet Tess Gallagher writes:

My father loved first light.

He would sit alone

at the yellow formica table

in the kitchen with his coffee cup

and sip and look out . . .

My father picks up his

cup. Light is sifting in

like a gloam of certainty

over the water. He knows

something there in the half light

he can’t know any other way.

That’s what Mind the Light is about: A way to learn things in the light, whether at Formica tables with coffee cups or quietly reading a spiritual memoir or in the middle of our workaday world. Minding the Light adds a further dimension to eyes and brain: our souls. It helps us pay attention to God’s Light around us and in us. How we see our lives changes as this illumination leads us to a deep appreciation of the soulful things of life. Minding the Light is an invitation to experience a new way of seeing that shows our brains and souls what to pay attention to. It’s a way of seeing our inner and outer lives with spiritual eyes and discovering the connectedness between inner and outer sight.

Throughout Mind the Light you’ll encounter boxed text labeled “Illuminating Moments.” These are meant as brief exercises in Minding the Light. Illuminating Moments are based on the Quaker practice of asking Queries. The Religious Society of Friends (as Quakers are officially known) have used Queries for almost 350 years as a way to examine our souls, seek clarity, and gain spiritual insight. Queries are a practice that can be used by anyone looking for God’s Light in life. The Illuminating Moments in this book are not about mystical experiences of God, though they may occur. As you read the Illuminating Moments, let your mind and soul fill with words, ideas, or images. Using the Light of God inside and outside you, look deeply into the Holy.

Learning to Mind the Light is CPR for the soul. It’s an encounter that will save your light. 

************

the above is an excerpt from Mind the Light: Learning to See with Spiritual Eyes which is now available for $2.99 on Kindle.   You can download a free sample chapter!

Who is Jesus? A West Newton Quaker Quest Video

Who is Jesus? Come find out what some Friends think at West Newton Friends' Quaker Quest series.



Quaker Quest is a series of free sessions presented by West Newton Friends Church, a Quaker congregation. It is a chance to explore the Quaker way. Each session includes three personal presentations by Quakers from West Newton Friends Church on the topic for the evening. There will be time for questions and answers. Refreshments and childcare are provided. Advance reservations are not necessary.

May 2 Quakers and Everyday Living
April 18 & May 9 Quakers and Jesus
April 25 & May 16 Quakers and Worship

Please come early for conversation, coffee and refreshments!

You are welcome here!

West Newton Friends Meeting, 6800 S. Mooresville Road, Indianapolis, IN 46221 – 317-856-5967 – http://sites.google.com/site/westnewtonfriends/

Soul Silence and Pounding Nails: A Good Friday Meditation

Silence, especially in life’s busyness, leads us through the whitewater of life to gentle pools of stillness and calm. 400 years of Quaker silence have pointed us back to the center within. Silence moves us from difficult self-examination to healing to relaxing in God’s presence. Interior silence takes us to a place where we are living St. Paul’s injunction to pray without ceasing, even when we are not consciously aware that we are doing so.

That happened to me on a recent Good Friday. I spent the day hammering the nails out of pieces of wood that made up the pallets that the outside walls of our new house had come on. Our home is made of timbers recycled from old factories and exterior walls constructed on jigs on the factory floor. These were then put on pallets and shipped on semis from New Hampshire to our Indiana home site. “The wood we use in the pallets is better than most builders use in their homes,” said one of the people building our house. “You’ll want to salvage as much of it as you can. Don’t let the framers burn it up.”

Quakers are strong on grace and redemption. If something can be saved and used again, it is. I hoped to see these used 2x4’s born-again as a woodshed or workshop. So, the sun blazed and I pounded nails out instead of in. A few yards away, four framers worked at pounding nails in, hanging the walls and roof panels. While I drove 16 commons out of 2x4s, they drove 10 and 12-inch spikes through 2x6 walls into 6” posts and beams with 3 pound sledges. The sound of hammers on nails rang through the Good Friday afternoon. That ringing was accompanied by the church bells from St. Thomas More Catholic Church just a couple of miles away, drifting on the spring breeze.

This symmetry with the holy day was not lost on me, even though Friends, being non-liturgical, don’t celebrate holy days or seasons. Still it was easy to recall other nails driven long ago – not through walls into posts, but through outstretched hands into rough wood. Even while carpenters yelled to each other, rough voices calling out measurements and grunting and cursing to set panels in place, I found silence in my soul. I was not sitting in a congregation listening to the last words of Jesus. Nor was I following the Stations of the Cross. But I was, in my soul, remembering, alongside those congregants. My arms grew weary of pounding and pulling nails. In, but at the same time apart from, the noise I pondered Jesus’ tiring journey that day. In spite of the noise, silence swathed my soul. Here I am, I thought, spending Good Friday in the company of carpenters. How fitting. I prayed for them. I prayed for me. I prayed for the world.

I heard a car pull up our long lane. It was my friend Aaron. A rabbi. My soul laughed – how right, how good. Carpenters and a rabbi on Good Friday. I thanked God for the silence of my soul that helped me see that day that was holy because God breathed life into it.

I was led into the holy that day, while hammering out nails and visiting with rabbis and framers. Arms weary, back bent from stacking reclaimed wood, it was a Good Friday.

adapted from Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality

And The Tempter Came -- A Lenten Meditation

Once a week during Lent, I'm going to be offering a little meditation on some of the biblical characters who appear in typical lectionary readings for this season. I present them, not as the work of some erudite biblical scholar, but rather as a life-long Bible reader who often is so familiar with the stories and people in them that he forgets to see them as "real." So I tell these stories with the hope that I will see them with fresh eyes -- and learn some new spiritual lessons.

I am also doing it as part of IVP's Lenten Blog Tour. IVP has invited several of its authors to contribute their thoughts and devotions to a Lenten blog tour.

Every Monday until Easter, a Lenten reflection by one of our authors will be posted on his or her own personal blog. A variety of authors have volunteered, and we are excited to share the different perspectives of each during this holy season.

Follow the tour—

February 20th (Available now!): Rachel Stone, forthcoming author

February 27th: Margot Starbuck, author of Girl in the Orange Dress, Unsqueezed and Small Things with Great Love

March 5th: J. Brent Bill, co-author of Awaken Your Senses

March 12th: Logan Mehl-Laituri, forthcoming author of Reborn on the 4th of July

March 19th: Andrew Byers, author of Faith Without Illusions

March 26th: Valerie Hess, author of Spiritual Disciplines Devotional

April 2nd: Beth Booram, co-author of Awaken Your Senses

Good Friday, April 6th: Chad Young, author of Authenticity

This week's meditation/story is based on Matthew 4:1-11.

************

And The Tempter Came

His hair and clothing were still wet with water from the Jordan and his ears echoed with the words, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” when he made his way to the desert. Jesus knew that the voice from heaven was God’s own. God had broken the silence between himself and humankind that had been in place since the days of the prophets and was again revealing himself to his creation.

Jesus knew, too, the meaning behind the words. They confirmed what he had long known in his heart -- the words of the 42 Psalm “I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’” And, echoing the words of Isaiah, they revealed the very nature of his ministry. “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

Jesus knew these scriptures – and their implications. Yes, he was chosen. Chosen to be, not a conquering hero as the Israelites wished for, but a suffering servant, a Messiah who would revive the spirit, not the nation.

This would be no easy task. It would be easier to the righteous warlord the people wanted – to call down angels from heaven and rally the earthly troops who were long tired of foreign invaders and rulers. To prepare for a spiritual messiahship called for preparation.

So following the Spirit, Jesus headed into the desert. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. He chose a forty day fast to reflect Israel’s forty-year wandering. Israel’s wandering and Jesus’ hunger taught the lesson of dependence on God. For Israel, the wandering was a purifying time, to purge them of self-centeredness and whining. For Jesus it was a way to prove his obedience and loyalty to God in preparation for his appointed work.

Jesus remembered that the Israelites, on their trek in the wilderness, were tempted. He knew he would be, too. So, Jesus, weak with hunger, awaited the test.

Soon enough it came. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Ah, wily one, Jesus thought. You come not raising doubts my of sonship with God, but assuming it. Yet, you try to twist its meaning. As the Son of the living God, you suggest, that I have the power and right to satisfy my own needs. I do have that power. Maybe I even have the right. But would doing that be consistent with my mission? Such powers are mine but I have given them to God; to my Father's mission. How then do I answer. My hunger is not what really is at issue here. It is my utter dependence on God's word. My true food is to do the will of my Father who sent me.

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

The tempter knew those words. The one who had once been a prince of light in God’s heavenly kingdom was well familiar with celestial constructs. These words came from the Book of the Law, the Torah. They were ones hurled at him when he tempted the people of Israel on their 40 year march from Egypt. He knew it was time to take another tempting tack, to try something else.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. I’ll fight Scripture with Scripture, Satan thought, knowing the words came from Psalm 91:11-12. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Of course, he omitted a few the words – specifically, “to guard you in all your ways.” Deceit works so much better if it is based on truth, no matter how that truth is skewed. Satan's misapplication of this quotation, turning it into a temptation, might trap Jesus’ devout mind. The way he said this passage of scripture makes it appear to gives approval to something that might otherwise be sinful. After all, it does say that the angels will lift anyone who trusts in God up in their hands.

Pondering his answer, Jesus remembered a passage from Exodus where the Israelites “put the Lord to the test” by demanding water. What an ungrateful people. God’s protection had been with them on their whole journey but they wanted more. Now he was being tempted to do something similar. He saw that for both Israel and himself, demanding miraculous protection as proof of God’s care was wrong. His proper attitude should be one of trust and obedience, no matter what lay before him. Jesus recognized Satan’s testing as a sort of manipulative bribery expressly forbidden in the Scriptures.

So he responds with a verse from Deuteronomy 6. Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

So the Devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

The world at Jesus’ feet. Once again, what the tempter offered was legitimate in itself. The Messiah would one day rule all the world, possessing all “authority and splendor.” The temptation here was to achieve power by taking a shortcut to messianic authority. It also meant sidestepping the agony of the Cross, not an altogether unpleasant option.

At the heart of this temptation lies Satan’s claim to possess the world. Jesus neither challenges nor acknowledges this claim. He lets it pass.

Instead, he remembers the words he heard on his baptismal day, the words of Isaiah that implied that the Messiah should first suffer and only then “enter his glory.” The way of the Cross is his way; the journey to Jerusalem and Calvary is one he must take. Jesus sees that Satan’s suggestion means depriving God of his exclusive claim to worship. That is against the centrality of Jesus’ message. He has come to point people to God, not himself. He has come to restore a right relationship between God and humans.

Jesus said to him, again using the words of the Law, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.