JESUS’ FIRST TEMPTATION Part 2 When Satan insinuated that there is no special provision for Jesus as it had been for Israel, God’s firstborn son, why shouldn’t Jesus take the matter into Your own hands? Why not work Your own miracles and then announce to the people, struggling on the borderline of poverty and economic hardship, that the new age of Gods abundance and generosity has arrived? Feed Yourself and the crowds and win their immediate allegiance. Meet their physical needs and You will have the world at Your feet overnight. They will hail You as the great Architect of a utopia of peace and plenty for all. Jesus saw the danger. It was a bribe to get a following. It a shortcut, an appeal to shortcircuit Gods timing and thus Gods plan. It offered an easy road to popularity knowing that whatever panders to the human appetite—physical, emotional, aesthetic, volitional—is bound to be applauded. But for Jesus this was not the way ahead. People need bread. He acknowledged that fact in His feeding the crowd; but there is no guarantee that any person wants to hear the divine word. And so, when they came—at the conclusion of the feeding miracle—to abduct Jesus and forcibly to crown Him King, He fled from their enthusiasm (Jn 6:15). He would not be their King in that way. Shortly thereafter Jesus challenged them to follow Him as the Suffering Servant, the one who would give Himself as a sacrificial Lamb, but they refused never to follow Him again (Jn 6:66).
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 12:38:34 +0000
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