We arrive at another Low Sunday. Of course the mightiest Low Sunday--and probably the least low, is Quasimodo Sunday, the Sunday after Easter. But this is the Sunday after the Theophany, the second Sunday of Epiphany. There are no specific readings though once it was reserved to celebrate the Wedding at Cana. We wait to observe this next week. This is the Sunday when the gospel reading is a rather bland one about Jesus collecting his first diciples, but which is reserved to remember no particular Epiphany, but the Meeting of Christ and Devil. The Spirit has driven him not into ministry, but into the desert where he dwells with the wild animals and is finally met by the Devil.
I began to write about the Temptations of Jesus when suddenly I realized I didn't really know the story. I wasn't a great fan of it and had never really understood it. I went to listen to Matthew's account. After forty days the Devil says to Jesus, prove you are the Son of God by turning these stones to bread. Jesus refuses to use his magic on the stones quoting Scripture. The Devil does not feed him, but takes him to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and tells him to throw himself off to prove who he is. Again Jesus does not. Lastly the Devil says worship me and you have this whole world. Again, Jesus refuses, this time telling the Devil to take a hike and we are left wondering just what the fuck this story is trying to teach.
Of course one thing that comes to mind is that there would be no need for Jesus to prove anything to an actual person called the Devil. Jesus is being tempted by the Devil in Himself always nagging with these strange questions of who are you, what can you do? And Jesus is reluctant to do anything. A close reading might wonder if Jesus was simply afraid, if he ceased to rise to the occasion. After all, in Job, God rises to the Devil;s bait. The Devil is the tester and there is an idea that his tests are appropriate. Jesus refuses them, and this has put in my mind a riddle. What if the story is missed? It is popular in many Christian circles to declare based on this and a few other passages in Scripture that the earth belongs to the Devil, that it's kingdoms are his and he is the ruler of everything going on? But when the fuck did that happen? The Psalms and many prophets roundly declare just hte opposite. The earth is the Lord's and all of its fullness, all of its kingdoms belong to him. Isaiah goes further declaring It is I the Lord who creates woe and even in Job, the Devil does nothing without the consent of God.
It is in reading this story on a surface level that we miss a contentious point. In The Mist of Avalon, Talieson says, "Doubts and Devil both belong to God and in the end both serve him." The Devil is not God's enemy, or rather not his opposite. The Devil cannot escape his old job no matter what Christian and later Jewish spins are given to him, God and the Devil are One. The tempter and the tempted are One. The lesson in the desert is not running from Satan, but incorporating him. The way we respond to ourselves, our desires and the world hinge around this lesson. We are repeatedly told that Jesus, filled with the Spirit was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for the very purposes of meeting the Devil. The Spirit of God and the Devil are in collusion to teach the Christ. The Devil is to Jesus what Baba Yaga or Mother Hulda is to the girl who needs initiation in the fairy tale.
The Gospel of Mark foregoes this story of the three temptations and simply says the Spirit led Jesus into the desert where he was tempted and among the wild beasts. He is the only one who leaves out any specific mention of the Devil, but points out the old territory of those figures from Azazel to the Bucca to Pan who are called the Devil. Jesus is in the country of the wild beasts, surrounded by them, and this country is going to become his, for Jesus is a man of sorrows who has no place to lay his head and will even suffer death outside the city. In Mark, the dying and rising Jesus, the sorrowful one becomes Orpheus among the wild beast, singing his son of transformation.
Having been baptized in water, God leads Jesus to the desert that he might be baptized into darkness. and self revelation. The Second Sunday of Epiphany is not one that celebrates a particular Theophany, but it is one of necessary initiation, for until Jesus and the Jesus in us contront and incorporate the Devil within, there can be no true acceptance of or working in the blessing: This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased."
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