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WHEN DID JESUS DIE?
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (Matt. 4:1)
I have a question for you this morning. The question is, “when did Jesus die?” Has there ever been a death in the history of the world so well known and so well remembered as the death of Jesus of Nazareth? People die by the thousands every day; some honorably, some cowardly; some tragically, some expectedly; some for a good cause, some for no cause at all; some in the prime of live, and some on the downward slope of the latter years. A memorial service was held here yesterday for Frances Stone Rosenthal, who passed away at the age of 99.
We remember the death of our loved ones, but Jesus’ death everyone remembers. We of the Christian faith know it well. We actually acknowledge it every Sunday: “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” He died at the age of 33, an all too brief ministry snuffed out prematurely. All of us know that. So the question may seem irrelevant. When did Jesus die?
Before you dismiss the inquiry, listen to this statement by a contemporary interpreter of the Christian faith, Myron C. Madden, from his book, “The Power To Bless.” “In the wilderness experience of the temptations, Jesus shook off all the longed for alternatives, and entered into the grief of having to die. When He fixed His course and withstood all the options that might have spared His life, the Gospels tell us that “He returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.”
What an arresting insight that is! Jesus died, not at the end of His ministry but at the beginning. Not when He was tried by Pilate, but when He was tempted by the devil to follow some of the options that would save His life. Not so much when His body was impaled on two pieces of wood, but when His spirit wrestled to the finish with the principalities and powers of this world. We find, in this experience out in the wilderness, the essence of what Jesus taught all through his ministry, that if we die to self, and live for others, that is when true life begins. Or, as St. Paul put it in this letter to Rome, “so you also must consider yourselves dead to self and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Boil down the zillions of books on or about Christianity to a few words, and what you have is the good news that if you die to self, you begin to live.
What do you want for yourself, and how are you going to go about getting it? These were, in essence, the wilderness questions. These were the questions Jesus was asking Himself. Given His own self-awareness of being the longed for Messiah, how was this going to be played out?
The first temptation was this. Turn these stones into bread. This meant, why not come into life and deal with hunger and poverty issues. There was much that might have nudged Jesus in this direction. He had a love and empathy with those who were hungry and poor. His people were dirt poor. Where ever one looked, north, south, east, west, there were destitute people. People would respond and follow someone who moved into life and gave them bread. What’s more, it was the expectation that when the Messianic age finally arrived, there would be material abundance for all.
What a temptation! But Jesus responded, IT IS WRITTEN, MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD. He did not say, of course, that bread was unimportant, or that helping others to find food was unimportant. His mission would lead to such assistance, whether it be shelter meals, Housing for New Hope, Meals on Wheels, or the sending of agricultural missionaries to the other side of the globe. HIS MISSION WOULD LEAD TO THE FEEDING OF MILLIONS. But the feeding of millions was not the way He would magically win the world.
Well, said Satan, that didn’t work. Let me try a second attack. “Why not leap off the temple?” If you won’t give them bread, give them a circus! Josephus, the Jewish historian, describes a particular vantage point at the temple that towered over a sharp and steep ravine. Looking down from there, would make one giddy. Perhaps Jesus was translated in his mind to that well know spot. In any event, Jesus felt pressured to use His messianic powers to win the crowds. Of course, He wanted to be liked. Of course, with you and me, He yearned for people to want to follow Him. So, why not cast yourself from the pinnacle of the temple and let God move in dramatically to save you at the last possible moment? SATAN SAID TO JESUS, YOU KNOW THE SCRIPTURES, “HE WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE OF YOU, AND ON THEIR HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP. LEST YOU STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE. Imagine that. Even Satan knows the scriptures! That’s a truly incredible scene right there. Here is the devil quoting scripture, to Jesus, to get Jesus, to not do, what Jesus feels is His father’s will.
The temptation was, jump off the temple and let God come in and save you. The crowds will eat it up. But Jesus said, “YOU SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD YOUR GOD .” It is one thing to fall from a precipice in the course of a climb and pray for divine deliverance; it is something else of an entirely different order to choose a peril as test of God.
"Well," Satan said, "I have one more trick up my sleeve." And this was the last temptation, and in one sense, it was the smoothest. “The devil took Him up and showed his ALL THE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD AND THE GLORY OF THEM; AND HE SAID TO JESUS, “ALL THESE I WILL GIVE YOU, IF YOU WILL FALL DOWN AND WORSHIP ME.” Here was a direct route to the end that Jesus had in mind. To bring all humankind to the point where they would realize that in Jesus was the true life of God. That really was Jesus’ goal, to bring humankind back into a true communion with the living God. JESUS WANTED TO CONQUER HUMANKIND FOR GOD.
But translated out, from Satan’s standpoint, this temptation meant that Jesus would make His bid through political and military power. I mean, isn’t that the way the world tries to gain kingdoms, power, and glory. This was an invitation for Jesus to accept the Zealot option, to form some kind of coalition with the revolutionaries and their political allies. From what we know of Jesus now, THIS SOUNDS ABSURD. BUT REMEMBER, WE ARE HERE DEALING WITH JESUS AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS MISSION, ASKING THE QUESTION, "WHAT AM I HERE FOR AND HOW SHALL I BEST USE MY POWERS TO GET IT?"
And, it must be remembered that the people, were ready for such an effort. The land of Palestine was like kindling wood. The sight of someone coming out of the wilderness, talking about the tyranny of Roman rule and putting up a banner under which some resistance could be waged, must have been at least a consideration and not an impossible fiction for Jesus.
In a way, that’s what Peter wanted Jesus to do, who pulled out his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane. In a real way, that’s what Judas wanted and expected Jesus to do. But Judas, in spite of all Jesus’ teaching, never got it straight, which is why Judas could betray Him at the end.
BUT TO THIS OPTION, JESUS ANSWERED, “IT IS WRITTEN, YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE.
When did Jesus die? What we are suggesting this morning is that, out there in the wilderness, Jesus died to self, died to all the possible options that the world uses to gain loyalty, died to all that might have saved Him from His death on the cross. What was at steak was THE WILL OF GOD VERSES THE WILL OF THE WAYS OF THE WORLD. What was at steak was what He intuitively, inside, felt God wanted of Him, verses, THE OPTIONS THAT CAME TO HIM FROM THE PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS OF THIS WORLD, and be sure, they are incredibly strong.
And is this not true of every temptation? The battle is always WHAT WE INTUITIVELY FEEL GOD WANTS OF US, VERSUS, WHAT THE POWERS OF THIS WORLD SUGGEST TO US. That may be oversimplifying a lot of complex issues, but I think not greatly so. WHAT JESUS DID OUT THERE, IS TO DIE TO THE STANDARDS, VALUES, AND EXPECTATIONS OF THIS WORLD, SO THAT HE MIGHT, IN TURN, LIVE TO GOD.
I love the way Paul Tillich puts this in one sentence, although the sentence is not easy to grasp in one reading: “Jesus not only sacrifices His life, as many martyrs and many ordinary people have doe, but He also sacrifices everything in Him and of Him, which could bring people to Him, as an OVERWHELMING PERSONALITY, instead of brining them to that, in Him, which is greater than He and they.”
And the heartening upshot of it all is that Jesus came out of the wilderness brimming with life. If you check Luke’s account of this incident, he says, and I think Luke must have had to restrain himself in this recital, that ‘Jesus returned in the power of the spirit to Galilee.” He came out with power and a detectable presence. Those who came where He was, knew where He had been.
What do I want for myself and how am I going to go about getting it. These are not only Jesus’ questions, but ours. These are questions Jesus had to re-ask and re-answer daily, as we need to re-ask and re-answer daily. It wasn’t the death that He died at the end that explains Jesus. It was the death He died at the beginning. Jesus’ offering up of Himself did not happen all at once on Calvary. It began with His death in the wilderness. It began with one little word to Satan, and that word was, “No.” Which Luther so beautifully captures in his great hymn. The good news of it all is that Jesus emerged brimming with life. It was the way the Master went. Should not the servant tread it still?
PRAYER
Lord, where we have drifted into a
compromise with the world, loving its gods, admiring its ways, wanting its
rewards, take us into the solitude of some wilderness of Your own making, and
there let us speak our yes or no. For Your glory and to the good our own souls.
Amen.