JESUS IN THE DESERT.
The people were looking for the promised Messiah, and would have
welcomed John as the Christ if John had not always said "One mightier
than I cometh." "I am not the Christ." The sign of the Dove filled
them with new thoughts.
While they were thinking Jesus went up the river bank alone. The power
of the spirit was upon Him, and His great work before Him, and He
wished to go for a time as far as possible from every human being. He
went into the wilderness--a wild desert country beyond the Dead
Sea--not even wishing to talk with John, whose home was in the
wilderness. Perhaps John looked after Him and longed to see and talk
with Him, but Jesus had one great desire, to know Himself, and what His
work was to be. He felt two natures within Him, the human and the
divine, and before He began to teach He wanted to hear the voice of the
Divine within Him as clear and strong as He had heard it that day from
the skies.
The desert to which He went was not a waste of flat sand, like the
African desert, but masses of rock with sand and dry grasses between,
great cliffs of chalk and limestone rise a thousand feet above the
gloomy gulfs of rock through which torrents run in the rainy season,
but which are dry and oven-like in summer. One great cliff called
Quarantana is now full of caves cut out of the face of the rock by men
who have hoped to win heaven by suffering as Jesus did.
Jesus was thinking--thinking, His human nature being full of hopes,
fears, and prayers; His divine nature being full of strength, promise,
comfort. He did not think of food when He came, and there was none to
be found. So resting at night in a cave, and wandering farther among
the mountains by day, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness of
Judea. While there He was tried by the spirit of evil in every way
known to human nature, and when all was over, and He had not yielded to
sin, His mind was calm and ready for His work, for He knew He was the
Son of God.
When He was hungry the tempter said, "If thou be the Son of God command
this stone that it be made bread."
It would have been easy for Him to try His power, but He knew that He
did not come into the world to use it for Himself, but for others, and
so He answered in the words of the Bible,
"Thou shalt not live by bread alone, but by every word of God."
Then in a vision He seemed to be in the Holy City upon a tower of the
Temple that stood over a deep valley, and the tempter speaking within
Him, said,
"If Thou be the Son of God cast Thyself down, for it is written, 'He
shall give His angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they
shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.'"
But Jesus knew that though the words were the words of God, the voice
was the voice of the tempter, and He answered,
"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
Then in a vision again He seemed to see, from the top of a very high
mountain, all the kingdoms of the world spread out before Him with
their kings, and armies, and cities; their beautiful homes and lovely
women, and great men with their gold, and jewels, and precious works of
art, and the tempter said,
"All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship
me."
Then all the Divine power in Jesus rose up against this evil whisper,
and He said,
"Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, 'Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.'"
We shall never know all that Jesus suffered during this long time when
He was away from His home in Nazareth, and away from every human being,
tempted by evil, surrounded by wild beasts, and faint from hunger, but
we know He won a great victory over evil for us. So he became the
Elder Brother and Friend of all who are tempted.
After His long fast and struggle with the powers of evil, angels came
and cared for Him, bringing heavenly strength and comfort, and He rose
in that strength and came again into the valley of Jordan, and found
that spring had come while he had been in the desert, and the willows
were green by the river side. John was still preaching and baptizing,
but was a little farther up the river at Bethabara.
As Jesus came near John pointed to Him and said to the people,
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. This
is He. . . . And I knew Him not, but He that sent me to baptize with
water, the same said to me, 'Upon whom thou shalt see the spirit
descending and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with
the Holy Ghost.'"