the power of restraint

            The gospel according to Matthew indicates that Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, and afterward came  “His temptation” (Mt.4:2).  What was the purpose of Jesus’ fast?  One might be inclined to conclude that His fast was exclusively to prepare Him for His close encounter with Satan.  However such a conclusion seems to fall short of the overall context.  Mark’s gospel de-notes a sense of priority that naturally follows Jesus’ baptism - - immediately The Spirit impelled Him to go into the wilderness (Mk.1:12).  When Jesus stepped into the river Jordan to be baptized His journey as our Redeemer began in earnest.  His baptism (through which He symbolically shouldered our sins / Lk.3:3) was the first step in a trajectory that would lead Him to the cross of crucifixion.  The manner in which He sojourned was to be a daunting assignment.  Jesus came as Israel’s Messiah (the Savior of the world), but as such He was com-missioned by His Father to travel the way of sorrows (Via Dolorosa), thereby bringing to fulfillment Isaiah’s grand prophecy concerning THE SUFFERING SERVANT (Isa.53).  Surely, this must have been the focus of His forty-day fast - - - to excel in doing His Father’s will.       

            The story of the temptation in the wilderness was Satan’s attempt to short-circuit the plan of God.  But Jesus had resolved to do the Father’s will in the Father’s way.  For Jesus, there was to be no shortcut.  Yet the temptation was real.  “He Himself was tempted in that which He suffered…” (Heb.2:18).  This “power of restraint” is seen repeatedly in the wilderness temptations and throughout His ministry (cf. Mt.16:21-23 & 26:36ff).  The kind of Messiah the children of Israel envisioned was not the Messiah God ordained.  Satan’s lure offered a flamboyant route to kingship.  But the mind of Christ was “at one” with The Father’s - - there would be no crown without the cross - - “for the joy set before Him He endured the cross…” (Heb.12:2).  As Philip Yancey writes in The Jesus I Never Knew, “God made Himself weak for one purpose: to let human beings choose freely for themselves what to do with Him.”  Such an incomprehensible maneuver on the part of our Almighty God is what drove Paul to discover & declare, “The LOVE OF CHRIST compels us!” (2Cor.5:14).               

                                                                                                             Terry Siverd / Cortland  Church of Christ