JESUS and the SATAN (skit by j. Snodgrass)
February 9, 2008
JESUS and the SATAN
-or-
Meeting the Devil’s Advocate in the Desert
By j. Snodgrass
Presented 3 February, 2008
READERS :
Narrator (Bible Student)
“Luke” (Author of the Gospel According to Luke)
Jesus (Live Free or Die)
Devil (Advocate of Alternate Strategies)
Moses (Supposed Giver-of-the-Law in Deuteronomy)
NARRATOR : Today, in honor of the Lenten Lectionary, we’re going to take a look at my all-time favorite Biblical passage – The temptation of Jesus in the desert, in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter four, verses one to thirteen. As a matter of fact, I love this passage so much, we’re going to hear it twice!
“LUKE” : Jesus…was led by the Spirit in the desert, 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. The devil said to him,
DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
JESUS : “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”
“LUKE” : The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
DEVIL : “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
JESUS : “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”
“LUKE” : The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
‘He will command his angels…to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
JESUS : “It [is written]: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
“LUKE” : When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left [Jesus] until an opportune time.
NARRATOR : Great. Man, there’s a lot in there. What we’re going to do now, is hear this scene again. But this time, we’ll have a running commentary track, from a Bible Student, and also from Moses. Now what’s Moses got to do with this? Well, throughout this scene, it seems like every line Jesus says begins with ‘it is written’ – these are all references to the book of Law - Deuteronomy, which is said to be the transcript of Moses’s farewell speech. So, if we’re all ready, let’s press play again, this time with commentary…
“LUKE” : Jesus…was led by the Spirit in the desert, 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. The devil [came] to him,
NARRATOR : When the author says “the devil” here, it’s probable he was talking about…Satan… And it’s worth taking a quick look at this character of…Satan… Or, Ha-Satan (Pronounced Hah-Sah-Tahn) as the case may be. If you were an Ancient Near-Eastern King, your word was law – you were considered a God to your people. And you had a council of advisors, but basically it was their job to say…
ALL READERS : ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
NARRATOR : And if they said no, you chopped off their thumbs and big toes. But there’s only so many times the King can decree that ‘Friday shall be Hawaiian shirt day’ or ‘From henceforth we shall all speak in Jamaican accents, man’ or whatever, before the populace gets antsy. So there was one person in the King’s court whose job it was to say “Mmmmm…No.” And no matter what the king decreed, this person had to come up with an argument against it – let’s call it ‘Playing Devil’s Advocate.’
This person’s job-title was a word meaning “Adversary” or “Accuser” – “Satan.” This name or title only appears in three books of the Old Testament – brief cameos in Chronicles and Psalm 109, and then a scene in the book of Job. In first Chronicles, 21:1: “Satan…incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said… “Go and count the Israelites…Then report back to me.”
Sounds innocent enough. But why would King David take a census of Israel? The same reason as now – taxation and the draft. So in a way, it makes perfect sense to say the Devil tempted him to do this, and of course the result was a disaster. The Lord was so furious with David that he sent a plague to kill seventy thousand men. (1 Chronicles 21:14)
[The Lord was so furious with David, that he offered the king three options: 1 Chronicles 21:12 “three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies…or three days of the sword of the LORD - days of plague in the land, with the angel of the LORD ravaging every part of Israel.' (David chose three days of attack at the hands of the merciful God, who killed only seventy thousand men – 1 Chronicles 21:14). This is what King David got for listening to his Satan.]
But even the King of Kings, Lord of Lords – even the Most High God, was thought to have such an advisor. As we read in the book of Job…
Job 1:6-12
One day the Heavenly Beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered… “From roaming through the earth…”
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
Some of Job’s eleven thousand animals were stolen, the rest were destroyed by fire from the sky. His servants were slaughtered, a house collapsed on his seven sons and three daughters, and his skin was stricken with boils. Even his wife said “Just curse the Lord and die – get it over with!” (Job 2:9) But Job’s response was not what the Satan expected. In Job 1:21, Job looked out over the devastation of all he once had and said “Naked was I born and naked will I die. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, his name be praised.” (Job 1:21) And at the end of the book, Job’s fortunes are restored, with new children and more animals than he had before.
So now we jump forward again to Jesus in the wilderness, full of the spirit. He’s got a plan – speak out against authority, and get himself killed in the most agonizing, humiliating, excruciating way possible – and when I say “Ex-Cruc-iating,” I mean EX-ecution on the Cruce/Crux/CROSS, in more pain than it would take to give birth to septuplets EIGHT times in a row. And in comes Satan, or the Sah-Tahn, to tell Jesus he has another option…
DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
JESUS : “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”
NARATOR : Moses?
MOSES : Deuteronomy eight, two to five - Remember how the LORD your God led you…in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know…whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
“LUKE” : The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
DEVIL : “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
JESUS : “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
NARRATOR : Aaaand let’s pass the mic to Moe…again…
MOSES : Deuteronomy six, thirteen to fifteen - Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods…for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.
“LUKE” : The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
NARRATOR : Here the devil quotes from Psalm 91, a battle-hymn of courage for those who believe in the Lord.
Psalm 91 [Wildly Abbreviated]
5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys [in the afternoon].
7 A thousand may fall at your side…but…
9 If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge-
10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra…trample the great [beast] and the serpent.
JESUS : “It [is written]: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
NARAROR : One…Moe…time…
MOSES : Deuteronomy six sixteen - Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah.
NARRATOR : “Massah” was where the Israelites, weary and thirsty from being led through the desert, cried out against Moses. The Lord caused water to flow from a stone for them, and they named the place “Massah,” which means “Testing” because there they had put the Lord to the test. (Exodus 17:3-7)
“LUKE” : When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left [Jesus] until an opportune time.
Now we’ve heard two very different versions of this story. First, we heard a story in which God’s ultimate messenger for Good, Jesus, faced off against God’s ultimate messenger for Evil, the Devil. A classic struggle, a clash of titans, an ideological battle with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Righteousness prevails.
But it’s the second story we heard that interests me more. A young person, guided by faith, has chosen to speak out against authority, to do what he or she believes in, even at the cost of his or her own life. And someone else – maybe someone evil…or maybe a friend or lover, an trusted advisor, even a caring parent…says “What about food? Security? What about climbing the corporate ladder? Why don’t you run for president? If you’re so righteous, so faithful – why not let God take care of you? Don’t you want to live?”
My father is an Episcopal priest. His great goal in life is to die for what he believes in – to stand against unjust authority, and be executed for it. But that’s not his goal for me. He’s always telling me to take the safer path, get a middle-class job with insurance and whatnot. That doesn’t make him evil, it makes him a responsible parent. My goal is also to fight the system, and if need be, to die for what I believe in. But now I’m a father too, and the minute my son shows any sign of rebellion I’ll be saying “My son – go with the flow. Get a job, settle down, take it easy, and live.” Don’t get me wrong – I’m not condoning sympathy for the devil, or saying we’re all Luke Skywalker today and Darth Vader tomorrow. The point is that even for Jesus, light of the world, no choice was ever truly black and white.
I have never been propositioned by a crimson-red man with horns and a tail, offering me the world on a plate (if choices were so clear – why would we even need this cryptic Bible for enigmatic guidance?). But I have been propositioned, offered things, position, power, whatever, by people. Sometimes people I know and trust, sometimes people I don’t – sometimes by people who hold worldly authority over me. When I’m faced with temptation, I ask myself the obvious question – What would Jesus say? But of course, Jesus couldn’t ask himself this question… “What would I say?” Jesus looked to HIS heroes, often Moses and Isaiah. In this case, he found in the words of Moses the guidance he needed to fend off the Satan’s temptation. But the story does not end there, as we see, the Devil only departs from Jesus “until the opportune time.” Worldly temptation will last as long as the world endures, but now as we face it, with the words of prophets in our hearts, we have another hero to consult as well. Jesus, who could not be swayed by temptation, even when it meant his own death.