No Baby

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

When I hear this story, I don’t find the temptations all that tempting. All the more, when I read folks who write at length about temptation, it seems that whatever it is that tempts them doesn’t really appeal.
Hmmmm.
Part of the problem for me is that we don’t really think in such categories. With the way we look at our world, there aren’t really any temptations. Just different choices. (You may now go off on your own “self as project” direction - that would lead me too far afield, I have a meeting in a few minutes...)

Stoffregen in his text work concludes with this quote and comment

Keith Nickle (Preaching the Gospel of Luke) concludes his comments on this text with these words:
Without trivializing the intensity of Jesus' wilderness encounter, it is nonetheless appropriate to point out that all Christians find themselves struggling with similar temptations to dilute the quality and even exchange the object of their commitment during the course of their pilgrimage. There are times when they too, in response to the call of God, are tempted to be satisfied with offering the adequate rather than the best that their disciplined service can offer ... or, having caught the vision, to succumb to impatience and seek to accomplish God's purposes by means alien to God's character ... or, to seek to coerce God by taking shortcuts to success. [p. 40]
I have seen it happen often in congregations: They strive for mediocrity and usually reach it. Is that succumbing to the temptation to give God less than our best?

I find that a little less compelling than Stoffregen does. . .
It seems that these approaches are all about our commitments, our choices, our best, all that we do.
Yes, to speak of temptation is to venture into the area of the things that we do and the choices we make and, thus, the lives that we lead, but what is the ground of our choices - when they are “best”?

Elsewhere, Craig B. Adams shares the insight of a Jewish psychiatrist in his community (an insight I suspect articulated elsewhere) that “the mature religious person is one who can embrace ambiguity.”
Oddly, while the stuff I’ve read on this text wants to admit to the ambiguities of temptation, they seem to lack any ambiguity their own dang selves.
Few deal with the fact that Jesus finds himself in the Wilderness of Temptation driven by the Spirit.
Hmmmmm.
Baptized into Christ, you, too, bear that same Spirit.
Perhaps all does not depend on your making the correct decisions, but in trusting that come what may, the Spirit is with you, and will guide you into God’s loving embrace, restore you to God’s presence (Ps. 51) forgive you, and send you into the world to bear your cross. . .
I don’t know what the heck I’ve just written, if this doesn't make sense to you eaither, let's just say that I'm willing to embrace ambiguity. That way I can pretend I know what I’m talking about.