Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13
I have chosen to focus my commentary on the Gospel text from Luke and the epistle text from Romans.
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.
Romans 10:8b-13
But what does it say?
‘The word is
near you,
on your lips and in your heart’
(that is, the word of faith that we
proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe
in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one
believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth
and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to
shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is
Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on
the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
I find these two
texts put into conversation with one another to be particularly interesting. In
the Gospel text, Jesus is in the wilderness.
He is being tempted by what the text calls the devil. I do not believe in the personification of
evil, but that is a discussion for another time. The important takeaway for me from this text
is that Jesus is repeatedly tempted by a force outside himself to do something
to better his immediate circumstances of suffering (40 days in the wilderness).
Jesus’ final comment to his adversary is, “Do not put the Lord your God to the
test.”
I find myself
frequently wanting to put God to the test.
To say, “I need you to do something to save this patient or alleviate
this child’s suffering or show up and do a miracle so that I can believe in
you.” And I am not the only one who does
this. Many of my patients suffer crises of faith as they pray fervently for
healing and healing does not come. I have done nearly all the theological
gymnastics that I can stomach about this issue.
I have tried to be okay with things such as “healing doesn’t come in
this life sometimes” or “We are just not seeing the bigger picture and God’s
plan” or so on. And I have yet to be satisfied.
What I have settled on is that I just do not know. I do not have an answer, because sometimes
there are not answers. I am not Jesus,
and neither are any of my patients—to the best of my knowledge—so I probably
would not be able to resist the temptation of doing something to alleviate
suffering in my immediate circumstances.
This Gospel text
warns against putting God to the test, but the text from Romans says, “Everyone
who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” So how are my patients who
cry out for salvation from their pain and suffering supposed to reconcile these
texts?
I don’t have an
answer. But as I told one of my patients
the other day, the only thing that I am 100% sure about is that God knows what
it is to suffer because of the cross, and because of that, they are never alone
when they suffer. Is it okay to “put God to the test” to alleviate suffering or
intractable pain? Is it acceptable to
pray for very specific things (safety in surgery, a brain bleed to be healed,
and so on) or is that putting God to the test? Furthermore, what does it mean
to be saved? Is it merely an
existential, far off, sort of idea? Like you shall be saved from this
life…eventually. But there is a lot of pain you have to endure first. Or is
salvation more immediate? Saying that you will be saved and have eternal life
is absolutely ridiculous to someone who is enduring the excruciating pain of
cancer or trauma from a hospital bed.
I am not willing
to settle on any quick and easy answers nor am I willing to preach them to
others. It is not as simple as advising “Do
not put the Lord your God to the test” or offering the platitude “Everyone who
calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Maybe the only comfort is that
God knows what it is to suffer and even Jesus called out to God from the cross. In dying, suffering, and pain, we are not
alone.
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