By The Rev. J.C. Austin
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the war in Ukraine so far has been the public leadership of Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy during the invasion. President Zelenskyy quickly emerged as one of the most effective icons of national inspiration, determination, cooperation, and pride in the face of overwhelming odds since Winston Churchill. It is all the more remarkable given that Zelenskyy ascended to the presidency after spending most of his life as a comedian and television personality.
Before his election, his greatest victory had been 
winning the Ukrainian version of “Dancing With the Stars” on TV! But it seems that unusual background has helped him become extraordinarily media savvy, utilizing social media to show him moving through the besieged streets of Kiev and encouraging both civilians and soldiers, calling the people to resist the invasion in any way that they can, and demolishing Russian talking points about him having gone into hiding or fled the country.
Perhaps all of this can be summed up in one popular meme that has been circulating. On the top half, there is a heading that says, “Ukrainian Leadership” and shows Zelenskyy sitting around a rough-hewn table with Ukrainian soldiers, laughing together while drinking tea, clearly near the front lines with his troops. On the bottom half, there is a heading that says, “Russian Leadership,” and it shows Vladimir Putin in the foreground, sitting at the end of an almost comically long but elegantly carved table, with his top generals sitting at the other end, so far away that you can barely see the subservient fear on their small faces as they meekly listen to whatever Putin is opining about all the way over on the other end.
In simply juxtaposing these two photos, someone has produced a masterpiece of pro-Ukrainian propaganda that works precisely because it seems self-evidently true: Zelenskyy’s power and authority comes from his authentic commitment to serve his people and defend their freedom, while Putin’s comes from manipulation and intimidation of others for his own self-interest and self-aggrandizement, which begins to inspire ridicule rather than fear when it starts to falter or fail.
This is essentially the leadership question that Jesus is being given by the devil in the wilderness: as God’s Messiah, what kind of leader will you be? More specifically, the devil is tempting Jesus with the benefits of self-centered leadership. “If you are the Son of God,” the devil begins, “command this stone to be a loaf of bread.” That had to be pretty tempting. There are few of us here, at most, that have experience with the kind of hunger that Jesus is enduring at this point.
Luke tells us that Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness for forty days, and that he ate nothing at all that whole time. That means that not only is he truly famished, as in experiencing a personal famine or starvation, but that he has already been enduring the temptations of the devil for some time. It’s not just these three questions that are the experience of temptation in the wilderness; it’s that these the last three temptations of Jesus after forty days of similar questions as he became more and more physically weak and hungry.
So why is this a temptation? I think it’s commonly thought that the test here is one of proof: show me that you’re the Son of God by turning this stone into bread. But that’s only a temptation if Jesus is a fragile and insecure Messiah who needs to take a dare to prove his power when challenged, which Jesus rather obviously is not. No, the temptation here is the act itself: turning the stone into bread so he can eat.
But why is that a problem? Jesus is out here on the fortieth day of his wilderness fast, his body struggling just to maintain its basic functioning at this point. Was there some kind of shortage of stones in 1st century Judea that we don’t know about? Jesus is literally starving, he has no food, but he does have the power to make food for himself, and doesn’t even have to take anything away from anyone or anything except this one perfectly nondescript stone to do it. So how is doing that a problem?
Well, it’s a problem precisely because it seems perfectly reasonable according to the rules of the world we live in. Vladimir Putin may be a particularly reprehensible self-serving human leader, but we take it as a matter of course that pretty much everyone in this world operates out of self-interest. Regardless of the structures or systems that they use, from the Old Testament kings to modern-day democracies, human governments and leaders essentially always serve their own interests and benefits; it’s just a question of how much they serve the interests and benefits of their people, as well.
And there lies the true power of the temptation that the devil is offering Jesus here, the same temptation that faces anyone who has the opportunity to wield great power: maybe I’m strong enough to use these self-serving things for good. You see, that is where real temptation lies, for us and for Jesus. We use the concept of temptation far too frivolously in our culture: we talk about things like chocolate cake being tempting, the idea being that it’s something that’s decadent and self-indulgent that we probably shouldn’t do if we’re trying to eat healthy. But it’s also, in the great scheme of things, irrelevant.
Real temptation is much more insidious and significant than that: the temptation to tell a lie to get the job we want so that we can provide better for our family; the temptation to take justice into our own hands when we know someone is getting away with something they shouldn’t; the temptation to do whatever it takes to get elected to public office so we can then do good once we’re in power. Temptation to do something we know we shouldn’t is one thing; temptation to do something that we know we probably shouldn’t but which would accomplish something good for others is something else. It is far more seductive, and often far more damaging to ourselves and others and the world, than the richest piece of cake could ever hope to be.
That is the temptation that Jesus is being confronted with here. That is the through-line of these three temptations: the temptation to use his power to serve his own cravings and needs, however legitimate; the temptation to acquire authority over all the worldly powers, starting with the Roman Empire, which he could reorder into systems of justice and abundance and peace for all, for the small price of kneeling to the devil; the temptation to use his power to achieve great renown by having God rescue him dramatically from falling off the temple in front of the crowds always gathered there, which he could then use to build his movement.
And Jesus is tempted to do each one. He is tempted, because by definition, they are temptations, so they must have been appealing to him: to end his own hunger, to end the hunger of everyone in the world, to establish himself unambiguously as the Son of God who commands the angels of God on a whim as he establishes the kingdom of heaven on earth. And yet, each time, he refuses to yield to the temptation, even quoting Scripture to explain why he does so, until the devil finally gives up after forty days of this sort of thing and leaves “until an opportune time,” Luke tells us, which ends this time of temptation.
The temptation, so to speak, for us is to marvel at Jesus’ faithfulness and resolve in enduring these temptations, especially when we realize just how powerful and insidious they are. But that’s not actually the point of the story. The point is not Jesus’ power in resisting such temptation even in the midst of profound deprivation in the wilderness; the point is the power of the Holy Spirit in strengthening him to do so, enabling him to live not in the sense of bodily need, but spiritual need.
As Jesus himself says in answer to the question about turning the stone into bread: “One does not live by bread alone,” and he has the power of the Holy Spirit, the Breath of Life, to sustain him in his trial. It is the Spirit, after all, that descended upon him along with the water of baptism just before these trials in the wilderness, and even the Spirit that drove him out into the wilderness in the first place.
Which is why this passage is so important for us, too. Because we all face temptations in our lives, and the hardest ones are the temptations to do something wrong in order to do something right, and especially when we find ourselves in wildernesses of our own, with no sustenance or escape in sight. And in those moments, the solution is not to look deeper within ourselves, to harness our own resolve, to rely on our own wisdom and faithfulness to see us through. Rather, it is to trust in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to be with us in whatever wilderness we find ourselves, wrestling with whatever decisions we have before us, to guide and strengthen and sustain us.
That is the promise that is given in this passage to us; that is the promise embodied in the bread and cup that is set before us now: that we do not have to turn stones into bread to feed ourselves, but that what we truly need is set before us by God through the Holy Spirit to fill and strengthen and sustain us for the life and work that is before us. So come to the table; be fed once more, even and especially if you feel like you’re just wandering in the wilderness, and know that God is with you and for you, wherever you may be, wherever you may go.