Tempting Jesus Read online

  “Enjoy the show,” the weathered veteran growled.

  Salome screamed as the young soldiers attacked her and tore her dress. Jesus grimaced, and intensity seared his eyes from beneath the soldier’s grip. His mind raced. Must he lie here and watch these men violate his sister? He was God. He knew that, though he had never used his power to prove it to himself or anyone else. Now would be a good time.

  Another thought sprang in his mind, a thought expressed by the wisest of men: “There’s an opportune time to act, a right time for everything on the earth. God will make everything beautiful in His time. Trust God with what he is doing, even in opposition to your desires.”

  In the struggle that filled the succeeding seconds, Jesus surrendered to his Father’s will. He must not save himself or his family in this crisis. He must not draw attention to himself. His time had not yet come.

  The indecent behavior of the young men tortured him. How he hated this sin. How he hated all sin! As he lay helpless, listening to his sister’s cries, he broke down and sobbed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jesus staggered to the edge of the stream for a drink. A boulder supported him as the water refreshed his feet. The streambed struggled through forests of scrub brush, disappearing into endless wadis in the distance. He couldn’t remember how long he had been in this desolate place. He no longer climbed the cliffs to take in their amazing panoramas. It exhausted his strength just to take the few steps from his sanctuary under the acacias to the stream and back.

  Visions of his mother’s homemade bread mingled with his fervent prayers. Often, in the cycles of day and night, his cries ascended to his Father, entreating his will and the strength to fulfill it. He shrank from the task before him, staggering before it in agony of mind. Day after day, its intensity increased his fatigue. He couldn’t last much longer in this place. Desperate hunger and exhaustion seized him. He was ready to go home.

  Home. How he wished he were home. Mother’s cakes and stews no doubt awaited him there. Sometimes he woke with them next to him. Yet when he reached for them, his hands gripped stone. So the sight of his mother walking toward him up the streambed shouldn’t have surprised him. She carried grapes and a basket of bread.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Mother!”

  “I’m not your mother.”

  Jesus closed his eyes and opened them again. No. It wasn’t his mother. The food and his mother vanished into a dazzling form standing before him. Jesus relaxed. His Father had heard his prayers and sent deliverance.

  “Thank you, Father,” he whispered.

  “Greetings, Favored One,” the being said. “You have found favor with God. He is well pleased with your willingness to follow the bloodstained path. As he sent me to deliver Isaac from the knife of Abraham, so he has sent me to deliver you.”

  Jesus’ face relaxed. He could go home now.

  “I’m so hungry…”

  “Yes,” said the being. “It was never God’s will for you to die of hunger any more than it was his will for Abraham to kill Isaac. He loves you too much to allow you to follow this path further, to leave you in this wasteland without food or comfort. It is not his plan for the wild beasts to feast on your body.”

  The angel laid a hand on Jesus’ shoulder. He pointed toward heaven.

  “I bring you the very command of God,” he said, “with whom you share ultimate power: turn these stones to bread, revive your strength, and go forth about my business once more.”

  Jesus cocked his head and stared deep into the angel’s eyes. His words turned the will of his Father on its head.

  “And what about Isaiah 53?”

  “You have lived Isaiah 53 throughout your life here,” the angel said, “and now you are near death. How much more suffering do you think your Father will require of you?”

  “I don’t know,” Jesus said. “That is up to him, not me.”

  The angel locked eyes with Jesus, raising his eyebrows.

  “I have come to reveal the will of your Father,” he said. “And you seem reluctant to do it, even though you are near death. I understand how hard your path has been in human flesh, but regardless, the Son of God must always be in the will of the Father.”

  The angel smiled and the warmth of it reassured Jesus.

  “You’re the Son of God,” he continued, “aren’t you?”

  Jesus staggered to his feet and faced the angel.

  “You heard his voice, the same as I did when John baptized me. He told me I was his beloved son and, like you said a minute ago, that he was well pleased with me.”

  The angel quivered and rose to his full height. The sun darkened as he spoke.

  “I am Gabriel!” he said. “The one who stands in the very presence of God. I am sent to speak to you and to bring you the good news I have delivered. Your uncle lost his voice for disbelieving my words.”

  The darkness brightened, and Gabriel smiled again.

  “You need more than a voice,” he said, once again reaching out to touch Jesus. “When a bird is pushed out of the nest, it must use its own wings or perish. Voices and appearances are just that. The proof is in the flying. How else will you know that you aren’t just a man, or worse, the fallen angel banished from heaven long ago? Look at you: here in the wilderness starving to death, forsaken by men and, for all you know, by God too. It is not God’s will for you to be in doubt of your connection to him.”

  He paused and cast soft eyes on Jesus.

  “This is your Fathers will,” he said, “for you to use your own wings and fly. You must listen to his voice and turn these stones to bread.”

  Jesus stepped back. He shook his head.

  “I came into this world to do the will of my Father,” he said. “While doing that will, I must deny myself and trust in him for my every need—even the food my body craves. It is better to suffer starvation than to take matters into my own hands.”

  Jesus trembled and fell to his knees. The angel before him stared at him blankly. Jesus gasped for breath before he continued.

  “The problem with men is that they rely upon their sinful selves instead of upon God. With them, it’s all about self. I have come from God to set them free from this way of living; furthermore, to set an example for them to follow. Shall I then save myself by relying upon my inherent divinity instead of upon God? If men can only escape hell by keeping their wills surrendered to God’s will, then I must do the same thing if I am to be their example.”

  “But...but…” the angel stammered.

  “No buts,” Jesus said. “I will not act on behalf of myself, but will trust in my Father alone. I will not turn these stones to bread, for it is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’”

  The intensity of his speech expended the last of his energy, and he fell forward against a rock in front of the angel. He clung to it, gazing up toward the angel and Heaven. To his surprise, the angel responded with compassion, moving forward to help Jesus into a more comfortable position. He took off his own cloak and positioned it between Jesus and the boulder to ease his stress.

  “Only one who truly knows God could be as single-minded and steadfast as you, could hold up to such a test of fidelity as you just passed,” the angel said. “Now rest here a bit.”

  Jesus drifted in and out of consciousness. His reality shifted from image to image: an angel bending over him, thousands of loaves of bread around him, a bloody lamb on an altar, his dad’s corpse lurching along in a cart, clutching to the height of the temple porch. Gradually, the dominant feature of his delirium became his stance on the height of the temple porch. From the pinnacle, he tried to focus his eyes on the Altar of Sacrifice far below him. His vision blurred. He squeezed his eyes shut and attempted to return to his acacia trees by the stream, but he failed.

  “The problem is,” said an angel beside him, “that life for men is like the hallucinations you’re experiencing right now. How can any o
f them discern reality? How do you know whom or where you are? A minute ago, you thought the stones around you were loaves of bread. Now you are standing on the temple mount—aren’t you? How can you be certain of truth in a world that is such a House of Mirrors?”

  The answer came to Jesus, but his tongue refused to speak it. At last, he stammered the words.

  “By, by the Word of, of God.”

  He swayed on the height and nearly swooned.

  “You have spoken wisely,” the angel said, “even in your psychedelic world. From our earlier conversation, you believe strongly—as do I—that you are the Son of God and that you are sent to this world to be a sacrifice for men.”

  He edged Jesus closer to the brink of the temple porch.

  “How strongly do you believe this? Strongly enough to cast yourself down?”

  Jesus stepped back from the edge, shaking his head.

  “You have nothing to fear,” continued the angel, “for God promises in Psalm 91 to bear you up with his angels lest you be dashed to pieces.”

  The angel paused for a moment and peered over the precipice.

  “Of course, that’s easy for me to say. I’m not the one who’s jumping. Your faith would have to be strong indeed.”

  Jesus gazed at the angel with glazed eyes. This angel doubted his faith! Why? Couldn’t he see his condition: a fortune that had befallen him because of his faith in his Father’s providence? His faith was strong, and he could easily prove it. He could!

  He stood on the brink for a moment, battling four thousand odd years of human weakness flowing in his veins.

  But no—proof and pride were not his Father’s ways. He, above all, understood that.

  “My Father will keep me in his will,” Jesus said, “but if I presume to force his hand to save me from a course of my own choosing, then I have left the path of trust and submission and failed to give men such an example. I will have used my Father’s word to excuse transgression instead of championing obedience.”

  Jesus leaned against the molding and continued to hold the eye of the angel, piercing through the creature's guise.

  “I know who you are,” he said. “You are the Prince of Darkness and enemy of all good. You urge me to tempt my Father as the children of Israel tempted him in the wilderness, demanding evidence that he was with them when he had continually provided marvelously for them. Hear, then, the words of Moses: ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ To jump would demonstrate distrust in my Father and stroke my own ego, whether it was to prove the strength of my faith, the truth of my divinity, or to test his promises.”

  Recognition quickened Jesus’ pulse as his awareness shifted once more. His stride matched his dad's on the wide road to Sepphoris. A graveyard of crosses drifted by on either side them. Hundreds of patriots—beaten and bloody—hung there. Each set of unfocused eyes accosted him in the path, imploring him to help. His stomach churned. He stopped and gazed up at a grotesque victim with his entrails spilled out.

  “Dad,” he said in a quivering voice.

  He turned back toward his dad for comfort, but his father was gone. He lay instead in a wagon, disfigured and staring up at Jesus with unseeing eyes. Jesus raised his head to the man at the reins of the cart, and his heart froze. A dark angel sat there, regal and majestic.

  “I know who you are too,” he said. “Son of God. You stand among the images of your Father’s will if you are hell bent on following it. Take a closer look at the miserable creature hanging above you.”

  The dark prince sneered at him and laughed.

  “A pretty picture, eh?” he said. “Disemboweled and scarcely recognizable. And where is your Father?”

  The demon shook the cart, and the corpse gurgled.

  “I’m afraid you’re alone and quite at my mercy!” the demon said with an evil chuckle.

  The gaunt form of Jesus strained to see past the horrors surrounding him, but no escape from the cruel, tormenting creature presented itself. Or did it? Maybe there was another way. Maybe…

  He stretched his mind toward it.

  “Let me help you,” the angel said.

  The ugly scene vanished, and Jesus stood with the angel in a wooded alpine meadow. Light shafted through gilded trees, and a breeze revived his beleaguered senses.

  “As you must have guessed by now,” said the angel, “I am not just any angel. I am Lucifer, the mighty leader of billions in this universe. This world is mine, a possession that has been given to me alone. Come, I want you to see it.”

  A few steps along a corridor of trees led them to a precipice. Jesus peered over the edge. His stomach flip-flopped at the sheer drop, his vision failing to pierce the misty clouds beneath him. Yet even as he searched the depths, a panorama of unsurpassed loveliness and prosperity appeared before him. Scene after scene formed before his eyes: diamond cities laced with azure waterways, fertile vineyards in manicured valleys, the rich palaces and trappings of the elite, and the secret power of the wealthy. For several minutes, he strolled through the charmed world.

  What magnificence! He staggered back from the edge, the intensity of it overwhelming his senses. The Prince of the Earth awaited him.

  “So you are God,” he said, “and you want this world back, particularly the men in it, right? That’s why you are here.”

  Jesus nodded and sank to his knees. The angel’s eyes locked on his. A faint smile crept across the being’s face, and he shook his head.

  “It doesn’t have to be so hard,” he continued. “Forget this horrible ordeal you have imagined as the only way to reclaim what you have lost. There’s another way—a better way.”

  “But my Father,” said Jesus in a whisper, “he—”

  “Why are you so set on doing things your Father’s way?” the Prince said. “A way littered with pain and suffering. Why are you so determined to worship him as the end-all of ideas in the universe? You are God too! Do it your way. You know you can do it just as well—even better.”

  The angel lifted Jesus to his feet and supported him as he led him to edge of the precipice once more. As Jesus’ eyes came into focus, the mists below materialized into the ranks of vast armies of men. The blast of horns smote him, and a numberless ocean of men chanted his name, acknowledging him as the god of the earth. Jesus lifted his eyes and gasped. Hosts of angels beyond bowed before him.

  “They await the power that you alone possess,” the Prince said. “The power to command men and angels. Only your charisma and valiance can win them. They but need a benign leader. You need only step forward, and how they would gather to your banner!”

  Jesus’ eyes pooled as he gazed at the assembly before him. His heart longed for the devotion of men. The angel’s arm swept across the world.

  “All these things are mine to give you,” he said. “I will give it all to you and support you with all my strength.”

  Jesus hesitated, his mind racing. He could stretch forth his hand and command the world. He could accept this offer and win the world of men without suffering. It seemed a better way.

  Yet, how then could the Word of God be fulfilled? Genesis foretold that a serpent was to bruise God's heel. The Psalmist prophesied of a savior who would submit his spirit to God, and Zechariah predicted a servant-king who was to ride a donkey instead of a stallion.

  Yes, it would take more than an external commander to change the hearts of men. Drastic measures of self-denial and suffering, from both God and men, were needed to bring them back to love. According to scripture, the Messiah was to be that suffering servant who would die for the sins of men.

  Jesus closed his eyes in an attempt to escape the cries of the men below and the visage of the angel at his side. In his mind’s eye, he beheld a hand stretched out toward him across a great gulf. He reached for it, struggling to stay committed to the covenant he had pledged with his Father to redeem men. He stretched out far, reaching, reaching, reaching….

  “I can’t deny that my heart has desired t
his,” Jesus said, opening his eyes and focusing them on the Prince. “A way to avoid the horrors that lie before me, to win the world and the hearts of men without a struggle. However, to turn from the bloodstained path is but making the same mistake that you made, Lucifer. I would be worshiping myself instead of my Father, doing it my way instead of his, violating the other centered principle of love that cements all things together. The result would be to throw the entire cosmos in the blackness of death.”

  A flood of tears engulfed the face of Jesus as, at last, his hand clasped his Father’s across the gulf, as of old.

  “I won’t do it!” he said. “I won’t! To do so would be tantamount to falling down and worshiping you, O Father of Selfishness!”

  His Father’s hand pulled him close, drawing him back from the abyss of death.

  “Leave me, Lucifer!” he cried. “Leave me now! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord thy God and Him only shall you serve.’”

  His Father’s power lit his countenance, and the Dark Prince writhed. The angel’s noble form twisted from light to darkness.

  “You will die in this wilderness!” he screamed. “Forever!”

  “That is not my concern,” Jesus said, collapsing forward. “It is less calamity to suffer whatever may befall me than to depart in any way from the will of my Father.”

  Ranting and raving, the angel departed. His screams echoed from mountain to crag. Jesus fell into blackness. His acacias swayed above him as the darkness faded. His Father’s angels lit their branches in the twilight as they nursed him from the brink of death.

  “He hit you with every temptation known to men,” said a soft voice. “With a ferocity that no human will ever know, he attacked you with the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, and the lust of the eyes. Your Father is well pleased with you, for you faced these formidable enticements and passed the test!”

  Their words faded into the night as he fell asleep in their care, dreaming of another day when new strength could avail him to complete the whole of his Father’s will. He must not rest until the foe was vanquished and men could choose to be his once more.