Have you ever had one of those moments when one little bit of Scripture leaps from the pages and punches you in the mouth (in a good, wonderful way)? It happened to me this morning.
I was reading the account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, which I’ve read, like, infinity times (hat tip to Napoleon Dynamite). And I’ve made all the “right” applications of the passage to my life. Jesus was suceeding in overcoming temptation where Israel had failed. Jesus was overcoming and conquering Satan, living a sinless life in my place. Jesus was fighting against Satan with the word of God, which provides a model for us. And on and on.
But then this little sentence jumped out:
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. (Matthew 4:11)
The angels were ministering to Jesus. That’s interesting, I thought. Why did Jesus need the angels to minister to him?
Because, you idiot, he just endured the full, intense, exhausting, carefully calculated, carefully planned, forcefully executed onslaught of Satan himself! He went head to head in an all-out battle against King of Darkness! He hadn’t eaten for forty days, and was probably physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. After Jesus won the battle against Satan, the angels ministered to him, strengthening him, comforting him, lifting him.
Sometimes I think of Jesus as walking through life without ever really struggling. I mean, come on, he was the Son of God. Surely that made things easier for him, right?
Wrong! What scripture makes clear is that Jesus experienced the utter fullness of our humanity, and was tempted in every deep, full, multi-faceted sense of the word. Just because Jesus didn’t have a sinful nature doesn’t mean that it was easy to resist sin. Remember, Adam and Eve didn’t have a sinful nature either.
Jesus endured the constant, relentless onslaught of Satan’s choicest temptations. Jesus wrestled with Satan himself, not a middle level management demon. I don’t think Satan himself needs to bother with me. He can simply send one of his demons to tempt me. But not so with with Jesus. The Prince of Darkness harnessed all his powers of temptation and deceit in an effort to derail our Savior. In Hebrews 5:7 it says:
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
Jesus fought for our salvation with loud cries and tears. Cries of desperation, discouragement, exhaustion, and numbness. Tears of grief, betrayal, and heartache. He was sinless, but he was also a Man of Sorrows, intimately acquainted with grief, betrayed by friends, assaulted by enemies, sweating drops of blood in Gethsemane.
For thirty-three years Jesus was pressed, stretched, and assaulted on every side. The relief didn’t come until he uttered the words, “It is finished.” Why did Jesus endure this? To win our salvation! To do what Adam, and Noah, and Israel, and David, and Solomon, and me, and you all failed to do. Jesus spent all of his might, strength, and emotion to conquer sin and Satan, and to make our forgiveness possible.
I’m so grateful for Jesus, the King of Kings who desperately needed the angels to minister to him. I’m grateful that we have a Savior who was tempted in every way, and who now ministers himself on our behalf. That’s the kind of Savior that I need.
