Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. – Matthew 4:1-2

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 8, 2014): Matthew 4

I read an article a month ago (July 2014) about a fugitive that was arrested because his picture appeared in a news article. Specifically, the fugitive (who had jumped bail) was spotted in a “Your Opinion” article in a local newspaper. The fugitive, Jacob Close, had been arrested on a drunk driving charge a few years earlier. He simply posted bail and then disappeared. But when a newspaper ran a “Your Opinion” poll on the future of the name of the “Washington Redskins,” a name that has been argued should be changed because it is demeaning to Native Americans, the chance to give an opinion and pose for a picture in the newspaper was too much for Close to ignore. He posed, and law enforcement officers saw the picture, and moved in for the arrest.  

Now, not posing for a newspaper photograph (and this was not an “I got caught in the crowd” type of shot) would seem to be an obvious no-no if you are trying to hide from the police. If I am trying to escape notice, the last thing that I want is to have my picture plastered over a local newspaper, or in an online news site. It might be that my picture will escape notice, but why run the risk? The truth is that years of safe hiding had probably made Close overconfident.

Sometimes the Bible seems to be the master of the obvious. I love the passage in the Hebrew Bible that boldly states that the hair on Samson head “began to grow again after it had been shaved” (Judges 16:22.) I mean, were we expecting something different. And this seems to fall into the same category. After not eating for forty days and nights, Jesus was hungry (personally it wouldn’t take that long for me to get hungry.)

But that is also kind of the point. We are all tempted, but the times when the temptations of life seems to grab hold of us are not obscure times. They are the obvious times. Jesus was weak and tired and hungry. He had probably been tempted nonstop throughout his time in the wilderness, but now was the time when the temptations could hit home. And the first temptation was for Jesus to get some food – to his superpowers to change a rock into bread.

It works the same way for us. The temptations of Satan in our lives are fairly constant. But most of the time you probably don’t even realize that they are there. Because in those moments you are strong and the temptations are not hitting any of your weak spots. But in the moments when you are tired, or lonely, or hurting, or broke; these are the moments that the temptations of Satan take root. And these are the occasions that we can sometimes give in to the things that we know shouldn’t be a part of our lives.

Maybe simply knowing that can help us to avoid the temptation. But even if we do fail, we know that when we gather we are not the coming together of the perfect, but of the weak and the tempted. When we gather, it is a gathering of the ones in desperate need of the grace of God.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Luke 4