I think far too often I project my own personality and presuppositions onto Christ. It's so easy to say to myself, Jesus would feel or think or say or do this because that's what I expect He would do. But the more I read about Christ's life, the more I study Him in the Scriptures, the more I find He upset just about everybody's expectations—and especially the expectations of those who anticipated Him the most!
The Jews of Jesus' day longed for the coming of the Messiah; they believed He would descend on the earth in a fury, squashing their Roman oppressors and raising up His people in glory. They did not expect a helpless infant with questionable paternity and a genealogy muddled by foreigners and prostitutes (Matthew 1:1–16). They didn't expect a refugee Messiah, forced to flee His home due to threat of violence (Matthew 2:13–18). They did not expect an impoverished Messiah from a backwater town who offended their human pride and wisdom. And they certainly didn't expect a scandalous Messiah who seemed unconcerned with their political ambitions and religious rituals!
Even John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin who baptized Him and heralded His coming, later asked, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (Matthew 11:3). Whether Jesus was failing to wash His hands before a meal (Luke 11:38), hanging out with tax collectors (Luke 19:1–10), or talking with a Samaritan woman (John 4:1–30), it seems He was content to defy expectations everywhere He went. Which brings me back to my question. Who is Jesus? Is He the Jesus the world expects Him to be? Is He the Jesus the church expects Him to be? Is He the Jesus I expect Him to be?
The truth is expectations are unreliable and most often rooted in wishful thinking rather than the truth. We cannot hope to know the real Jesus apart from God's word. For those who were not alive during His lifetime, the Bible is the only reliable revelation we have of who Jesus is. Attempting to "find Jesus" apart from Scripture opens the door to deception, a door the enemy is all too willing to shove his foot into.
Satan is the perpetrator of everything Christ is not, which is why his temptation of Jesus is one of the more insightful glimpses we have into Christ's character. Satan's attacks were aimed at the core of who Jesus is; if you are the Son of God was his cunning attempt to dissuade Christ from His mission. How? By compromising His very identity! The threefold temptation of Christ paints a pivotal portrait: the nature of the God we choose to follow...or reject.
"If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread" (Matthew 4:3). Satan's temptation begins at the most basic level—Jesus was hungry (v. 2). He had a physical need and the ability to fulfill it. This hardly seems like a temptation! I mean, Jesus would go on to feed five thousand people by miraculously multiplying bread and fish. In fact, forget about the miracle picnic—Jesus could have ended world hunger! Arguably a good thing, right? He obviously had the power to manipulate the physical elements of the world. After all, He created them! So why not?
Jesus answers: "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God'" (v. 4). Jesus has more than physical life in mind here. Listen to what He later says to the same 5,000 who filled themselves with Christ's own "Wonderbread": "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" (John 6:26–27, emphasis added).
Miracles, it seems, often fail to produce the heart-change Christ is looking for. Full bellies can make us forgetful (Hosea 13:6). A full purse can make us self-reliant (Mark 6:8). And fulfilled dreams can tether our hearts and minds to a world that is fading away, rather than to eternal things (Colossians 3:2). We should be working not for temporal satisfaction, or food that spoils, but for the very Bread of Life—satisfaction in Christ Himself!
"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 'If you are the Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down. For it is written: "He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone"'" (Matthew 4:6). Such a display of divine intervention would have eliminated any doubt about Jesus' identity. In one spectacular show, Christ could have affirmed His deity for all to see! Again, doesn't seem like such a bad thing at first glance. Why not give people indisputable evidence to believe?
Jesus resists the devil's temptation saying, "It is written again: 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God'" (v. 7). God will not force anyone to believe in Him, and neither can we "force" Him to make us believe! He absolutely insists on human freedom, so much so that beyond living as if He doesn't exist, we were free to spit in His face, torture Him and hang Him from a cross. God has the power to force obedience to the letter and compel belief beyond a shadow of a doubt, but He restrains Himself. The reason? What He really wants from us is love, and it is not coercion but love alone that elicits a loving response!
Finally, Satan offers Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor" if He will but bow down and worship him (v. 8–9). In his most cruel temptation yet, the devil essentially says to Jesus, Hey, why not just skip the suffering part? Take the crown without the cross. Why wait? I'll let you have your kingdom now! This enticement touches a nerve with Christ, who rebukes the tempter: "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only'" (v. 10).
Satan echoes this temptation later through Peter, earning another stern rebuff: "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men" (Matthew 16:23). With his sinister offer, Satan held out on a silver platter the opportunity for Jesus to be the type of Messiah we all think we want: strong, successful, and spectacular.
But Christ came to serve, suffer, and sacrifice; He wasn't out to win any popularity contests. In becoming weak, God gave us the freedom to choose for ourselves whether we would accept Him or reject Him. He knew what many of us tend to forget—true goodness cannot be externally imposed. True goodness is a heart transformation; it works slowly from the inside-out!
Most of the time we humans are more concerned with solutions to our suffering than with the salvation of souls. But thankfully Christ is not content to put a Band-Aid on the world's external problems while we're bleeding to death on the inside. We want certainties and proofs; Jesus wants us to walk by faith, not by sight. We want the power of persuasion; Jesus wants to transform us gently. We want quick-fixes to life's problems; Jesus wants us to depend on Him. We want to be dazzled and overwhelmed; Jesus wants to woo us with His love.
We may be vulnerable to Satan's shortcuts, but Jesus is not! He was not willing to trade away our freedom for the guarantee of safety, nor our salvation for the chance to realize His ambitions. He is willing to shatter expectations and risk rejection rather than appeal to the masses. He is content to work slowly, not forcefully, cultivating a lifetime's worth of true love rather than a flash-in-the-pan romance. And He will never sugar-coat His invitation—take up your cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24)—in order to meet our expectations.
I want to know Jesus, but am I willing to lay down my expectations, resist Satan’s temptations, and accept Christ’s invitation? The saying goes: You never really know a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. So maybe the better question to ask is not "Who is Jesus?" but, "Do I really want to know who Jesus is?" Because a mile in His shoes, with a cross on your back and nowhere to rest your head (Luke 9:58), probably feels like a thousand... In His love He gives me the freedom to choose: will I take the shortcut, or will I walk with Him?