Muscle Man Messiah vs. Dancing Trinitarian God
Luke 4:1-13
Through the written word and the spoken word, God help us to hear your Living Word, our Savior Jesus Christ. AMEN.
This year in the lectionary, we travel through Luke’s gospel narrative. Watch with me as the Holy Spirit moves in just the first four chapters!
The angel tells Elizabeth, “Even before his birth John will be filled with the holy spirit.”
John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus, was filled with the Spirit and preached zealously about the Messiah’s coming. With the Spirit in him, he called for repentance and spoke against the empire. He was eventually arrested and killed for all of this.
The angel Gabriel proclaims, “The Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and the power of the Most High will overshadow her.”
Mary, the mother and bearer of Christ, was overwhelmed by the Spirit and embraced the struggles of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. Mary’s womb and whole being was filled with the Spirit. And she eventually had to watch her beloved Son die.
Then at Jesus’ baptism, “the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in bodily form like a dove.”
And now, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” In that wilderness, he is tempted by the devil.
Here’s the biblical proof that a Spirit-filled life is not suddenly easier! It could be harder... The Holy Spirit is indeed a gift, but it does not solve all our problems.
During his 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus fasts and is tempted by the devil. This is both an encounter between Jesus and the devil and an encounter between two narratives of who a Messiah is. Satan subscribes to what I will call the Muscle Man Messiah myth—this is the Messiah who demonstrates earthly power and might. Muscle Man Messiah is an admittedly silly simplification of the narrative the tempter seems to operate from, but it helps us move through the text looking for the marks of traditional earthly power. If this myth were true, Jesus might have fallen for the devil’s tricks.
In reality, Jesus lives in the truth of the Dancing Trinitarian God. Filled with the Spirit and a reflection the Father, Jesus counters the myth the devil believes.
A little on this Trinitarian Dance: The Trinity is incredibly hard to describe in a tangible way, but the image of a dance might be a helpful icon of sorts. The theological term for this is perichoresis. Perichoresis is Greek and describes the movement of the three persons of the Trinity and how they relate to each other. And while not a literal dance, that is a close image that allows us to put everyday language on this relationship. The image of our Dancing Trinitarian God is both gentle and powerful. The three persons of the Trinity are connected in an intimate way, working together in beauty and glory. It resists the assumption that a Messiah must literally be a warrior prince or a ruler of the empire. Instead, Jesus is a participant in a dance, which if you have done even a single class of ballet you know still involves great strength, but in a controlled and purposefully way.
Let’s see this in action. In the second temptation, the devil takes Jesus to a high place where he can look out over the kingdoms. The devil, thinking of the Muscle Man Messiah myth, says “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
I always find myself frustrated by the devil’s belief that he has this power to give or that he thinks Jesus will be persuaded by this tricky lie. I find myself angered by the devil’s undermining of the all-creating God, but the devil doesn’t play by the rules! Regardless of whether the devil truly believes he has this power to give or whether he would actually give it, these temptations are mostly tricks. The devil somehow assumes this is tempting enough to trick Jesus. He seems to assume that the Messiah would need or want that kind of power. This is the Muscle Man Messiah of imperial and earthly strength and might.
Knowing that God already has all glory and authority over the created world and knowing his Bible well, Jesus says, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Jesus resists the temptation and turns the trick back on the devil, as he does in all three situations. In so doing, we learn more about the identity of Jesus, our Savior and Messiah.
Jesus responds from the truth of the Dancing Trinitarian God. Remember, Jesus is filled with the spirit and his response to the devil reflects the Father in heaven. The three persons of the Trinity are all present in the response to the devil. The Trinitarian dance is in motion.
The powerful, grace-filled dance of the Trinity runs counter to the devil’s assumptions.
Reading this passage through the lens of the two images of the Messiah helps remind me that Jesus resisting temptation is not only about teaching me to resist my own temptations. It has been passed down through the generations because it tells us something important about Jesus’ identity. His identity as sinless, as a part of the Trinity, and as a resistor of earthly power and the empire.
The other two temptations model this similarly. The devil asks Jesus in his hunger to turn a stone into bread. In the Muscle Man Messiah myth, this would prove his ability to do miracles and to solve his earthly hunger. Jesus however responds quoting from Deuteronomy saying that “one does not live by bread alone.” In Deuteronomy, it follows that we live by “every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Again, the Trinitarian dance is present. Jesus is filled with the Spirit and reflects the power of the word of God.
When the devil asks Jesus to prove God’s might by throwing himself down from the temple, Jesus resists knowing not to put God to the test. The devil asks for proof and demonstration while Jesus embraces the truth that we must not test our God. After all, why would Jesus need to prove God to the devil. He doesn’t need to, but the Muscle Man Messiah that the devil thinks he is tempting might.
The temptation of Jesus is read in one of its forms on the first Sunday of Lent each year. How does this inform our engagement of Lent?
We are reminded, as our Eucharistic preface for Lent says, Jesus “was tempted as we are yet did not sin.” He was faced by his hunger and the temptation to prove himself to the devil, offered a high reward for worshipping the devil, and asked to put God to the test. He did none of those things. He was tempted as we are yet did not sin.
We might also ask HOW Jesus resisted these temptations. The answer is both as simple and as complex as naming that Jesus is God. Today, as I have named, I am also thinking about how Jesus being part of the Trinitarian God in particular informs his response to the devil.
Jesus is in the Trinitarian dance. We are invited too. This can be part of our engagement with Lent—joining in the dance. In Lent, we prepare for the passion of Jesus and in that preparation engage with our created nature including our relationship with sin and temptation.
For many of us Lent means giving something up or adding something on. Every day of our lives, we are tempted, but in Lent we engage practices that make us particularly aware of that temptation, of our sin, and of repentance. Considering the Muscle Man Messiah reminds me of the temptations we can fall into in Lent. So many practices engage us more in diet culture than in a relationship with God. It is easy to engage practices that make us feel more in line with society’s expectations for us. It’s easy to use Lent to accomplish our earthly goals.
Now, fasting, even literal fasting can bring us closer to God, but we must ask ourselves- Am I doing this for Muscle Man Messiah or for the Dancing Trinitarian God?
God desires our flourishing. God desires us living into our fully God-created selves. That can mean engaging in a practice of rest that resists the temptation to form our whole lives around productivity. It can mean radical self-love which is, after all, embracing our created nature. We might give up the things that prevent us from connecting with God. We can resist negative self-talk or the comparison that can come with social media scrolling. In its place we could have a gratitude practice or prayer text with friends.
However cheesy, I think of the Lee Ann Womack song “I Hope You Dance.” She says, “When you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.”
So, I hope you dance. I hope this Lenten season of preparation allows you many chances to rest in the Dancing Trinitarian God. May you resist the temptation of the Muscle Man Messiah and set it aside in favor of the dance the sustains Jesus in the wilderness. May you will be filled with the Spirit, have Jesus by your side, and reflect God our Mother as you join in the dance.
© 2022 The Rev. Adelyn Tyler
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas