Lenten Perspective: Whom Are We Following?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The following perspective contains spoilers for the television mini series Devil in Ohio.

Whom Are We Following?

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Ephesians 5:1-2 (NRSV)

Well, it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

From "Gotta Serve Somebody" by Bob Dylan

As I noted previously, Lent is the time of the year when Christians figuratively follow Christ into the wilderness in order to draw closer to God.  This roughly forty-day season of self-denial, penitence, and looking inward is based on Jesus' time in the wilderness.  In three of the Gospels, we read that, before Jesus begins His public ministry, He spends forty days fasting in the wilderness, where He is tempted by Satan.¹

In two of the Gospels, we read that, in the wilderness, Jesus has the opportunity to make a deal with the devil.  At one point, Satan shows Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world, and, according to the Gospel of Matthew, he says, "I'll give you all these if you bow down and worship me."²

It has been suggested that what Jesus is being tempted to do is to take up the sword and conquer the kingdoms of the world.³  Looking back over the history of this world, we can see a repeating cycle of violence.  Nations are established through violent revolutions, and they are defended with violent force, until they violently fall in the same way that they were founded.  Perhaps, for Jesus, bowing to Satan would mean playing the devil's game and becoming the latest in a long line of violent conquerors.

Perhaps, more generally speaking, serving Satan means sacrificing other people in order to achieve one's own goals.

I recently watched the mini series Devil in Ohio,⁴ which tells the story of a teenage girl named Mae.  Mae was born and raised in a Satanic cult, but she flees when she discovers that she has been chosen by the cult to be sacrificed to the one they worship.  Her community has fallen on hard times, and the cult believes that if she is sacrificed, they will be rewarded with prosperity.  Over the course of the series, as the cult tries to get Mae to return to them, she proves that she is no innocent lamb.  Like the cult that raised her, she is willing to sacrifice other people figuratively or even literally in order to get what she wants.

Jesus rejects the devil's bargain, saying, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"⁵  The path Jesus has chosen will involve taking up a cross as opposed to a sword.

Later on, when it becomes clear to Jesus that His disciples are starting to believe that He is their people's long-awaited liberator, He begins to warn them that, upon reaching their destination, He will be rejected, killed, and resurrected.  One disciple, who undoubtedly expects Jesus to be a militant conqueror, takes Him aside and attempts to set Him straight.  Remembering the devil's bargain in the wilderness, Jesus says to him, "Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."⁶

Jesus then announces to His disciples,
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?  Or what will they give in return for their life?⁷

When it comes to serving Satan, things like grimoires and upside-down crosses and pentagrams are nothing but a bunch of creepy nonsense.  What is truly Satanic is doing whatever it takes to get what one wants, no matter how much one has to hurt other people in the process.

Christ came to give of Himself for the sake of others, but, in the wilderness, Satan tried to get Him to do the opposite.  Perhaps the season of Lent, when we follow Christ into the wilderness, is the perfect time for us to consider whose way we are following.  Are we following Christ's example and taking up our own crosses, or are we laying crosses on other people's shoulders?  Are we giving of ourselves to make the lives of other people better, or are we taking from other people to make our own lives better?

The way of Christ is the way of sacrificial love.  The way of Satan is a trail of corpses.


Notes:

1. Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13
2. Matthew 4:8-9 (NRSV)
3. Brian Zahnd.  "The Third Temptation."  Word of Life Church, 02/26/2023.
4. IMDB: Devil in Ohio
5. Matthew 4:10 (NRSV)
6. Matthew 16:13-23 (NRSV)
7. Matthew 16:24-26 (NRSV)

The Temptation of Christ by the Devil was painted by Félix Joseph Barrias in 1860.

Perspective: Satanic Thinking

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Satanic Thinking

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?  Or what will they give in return for their life?"

Matthew 16:24-26 (NRSV)

Don't you remember, Ma, when I went off to war
You thought it was the best thing I could do?
I was on the battleground, you were home acting proud
You wasn't there standing in my shoes

Oh, and I thought when I was there, God, what am I doing here?
I'm a-tryin' to kill somebody or die tryin'
But the thing that scared me most was when my enemy came close
And I saw that his face looked just like mine

From "John Brown" by Bob Dylan

One day, Jesus asks the Disciples who people are saying He is.  They throw out some of the things people have been saying about Him, mainly that He is a prophet who has returned from the dead.  Jesus then asks them, "But who do you say that I am?"¹

Simon, one of the Disciples, replies, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."²  The title Messiah is derived from the Hebrew word mashiyach, which means "anointed one."³  The Greek equivalent is the word christos, from which we get the title Christ.⁴  Basically, Simon believes that Jesus is the long-awaited Savior who will liberate his people from their Roman oppressors and reign over them in an age of peace and prosperity.

Jesus commends Simon for his answer and gives him the name Peter, which means "rock," saying, "I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."⁵

Now that at least one of the Disciples has come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus does two things.  First, He sternly orders the Disciples not to tell anyone that He is the Messiah.  Second, He begins warning them that He will have to suffer, die, and rise again.⁶

There is a reason that Jesus does not want people to think that He is the Messiah.

Before Jesus began His public ministry, He went to the Jordan River to be baptized.  As He emerged from the water, the heavens opened, and a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."⁷

This statement from heaven echoes two passages from the Hebrew scriptures.⁸  The first passage is the Second Psalm, in which God says to the king of Israel, "You are my son; today I have begotten you."⁹  This Psalm was believed to be about the Messiah.  The second passage is the first in a series of songs in the Book of Isaiah, which begins, "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights."¹⁰  The fourth and last of these "servant songs" describes the suffering this servant will have to endure,¹¹ so the servant described in these songs is known as the "Suffering Servant."  The voice from heaven basically identifies Jesus as both the Messiah and the Suffering Servant.

Jesus does not want people to think that He is Messiah because He has not come to do what people expect the Messiah to do.  The people expect the Messiah to be a conquering king and not a suffering servant.

Peter does not respond well to the revelation that Jesus will have to suffer and die.  Like many people, he is expecting his Messiah to be a conqueror, and he knows that only failed messiahs are executed.  Peter takes Jesus aside and says, "God forbid it, Lord!  This must never happen to you."¹²

Jesus says to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."¹³  Typically we think of "Satan" as the arch-enemy of God and the source of all evil in the world.  The Hebrew word satan simply means "adversary."¹⁴  Jesus is telling Peter that his way of thinking, which is essentially the world's way of thinking, is adversarial to the ways of God.  The rock on which Jesus will build His church is acting more like a stone that would cause Him to stumble.

This is not the first time Jesus calls someone "Satan."

After Jesus was baptized, He was led into the wilderness, where He faced a number of temptations.  At one point, His tempter took Him to the summit of a high mountain, showed Him the kingdoms of the world, and said, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."¹⁵

Jesus replied, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"¹⁶  Jesus could have chosen to be a conquering king, but to do so would have effectively meant turning away from God and serving the enemy.

Jesus tells the Disciples that all who want to follow Him will have to take up a cross, that to fight for one's life is to lose it, that to lay down one's life is to save it, and that to conquer the whole world is meaningless if it costs a person his or her soul.¹⁷

The way of the world is to inflict suffering upon those who cause suffering.  This way creates a never-ending cycle of violence, because all sides think they're justified, regardless of who drew first blood.  The way of Christ is to endure suffering and then to rise above it.  As Jesus will say to the Roman governor, "My kingdom is not from this world."¹⁸  The Kingdom of God is not like the Roman Empire or any other empire, kingdom, or nation the world has ever known.  To follow the ways of the world is to conquer at the cost of one's very soul.  To follow the way of Jesus is to bear a cross.

When Jesus emerged from the wilderness He began proclaiming, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."¹⁹  The Greek word translated into English as "repentance" is metanoia, which literally describes a change of mind.²⁰  Part of repenting in anticipation of the Kingdom of God is understanding that the ways of the Kingdom are not the ways of the world and realizing that some of the ways we think are actually satanic.

The Gospel is not a story in which the hero rides into town on a white horse, brandishing a sword or a rifle.  The Gospel is a story in which the Hero rides into town on a donkey and ends up bearing a cross.  Anyone who wants to join this Hero must likewise take up a cross.


Notes:

1. Matthew 16:13-15 (NRSV)
2. Matthew 16:16 (NRSV)
3. Blue Letter Bible: "mashiyach"
4. Blue Letter Bible: "christos"
5. Matthew 16:17-18 (NRSV)
6. Matthew 16:20-21
7. Matthew 3:13-17 (NRSV)
8. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Volume One.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  pp. 69-70
9. Psalm 2:7 (NRSV)
10. Isaiah 42:1 (NRSV)
11. Isaiah 53
12. Matthew 16:22 (NRSV)
13. Matthew 16:23 (NRSV)
14. Blue Letter Bible: "satan"
15. Matthew 4:1-9 (NRSV)
16. Matthew 4:10 (NRSV)
17. Matthew 16:24-26
18. John 18:36 (NRSV)
19. Matthew 4:17 (NRSV)
20. Blue Letter Bible: "metanoeō"

The Temptation of Christ by the Devil was painted by Félix Joseph Barrias in 1860.