“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” –Matthew 4:1
Original solitude
Adam gave names to all the cattle and to every bird, to all the animals and to every living creature. But for Adam, there was no companion. It is not good for a man to be alone.
Solitude is described as “not good.” God, ultimately wanting to solve the problem of solitude by uniting man with himself, creates an excellent solution for the solitude of man that reflects God’s eternal love: Marriage.
But marriage was never meant to be the final solution to solve our loneliness. Instead, marriage foreshadows a greater relationship we will have someday with Christ. And marriage isn’t enough to fulfill the desires of humanity. Even as good as it is, and even though their marriage satisfied much of their loneliness, it wasn’t enough to completely satisfy their solitude, or, for that matter, all of their desires.
Origen would subscribe (maybe?)…
Ancient Christian answers for our culture’s most profound questions. Subscribe for a new article in your inbox semi-regularly.
Why else would Satan tempt Eve, “If you eat of this fruit, you shall become like gods”? Every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desire and enticed. And when that wrong desire has conceived, it brings forth sin. And when sin has run its course, it brings death.
Adam and Eve had it all backwards. What did the serpent say? “Eat this fruit, and you shall become like God!” A lie, of course. They could not do anything themselves to become any more like God. God had made them wonderfully complete in his image. No, they were not to become more like God by their own doing.
Instead, God would become like them. And in becoming man, God would make man even more like God because when God becomes man, the nature of man is elevated. It was always God’s plan to become man. The incarnation, God becoming man, Jesus in the manger with a fleshly body, was never merely a result of the fall, some plan B.
Marriage was the picture of something better to come, an ultimate end to our loneliness. That end where Christ, in the flesh, is standing before us, his bride, full of pleasure at the sight of us. The end, when we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. When the dwelling place of God is with man, when God shall be with us, and he shall be our God, the Lamb as was slain for us.
But until then, we struggle with the same loneliness that Adam did. Single or married, we are all at times lonely in our own thoughts. Sometimes we are even lonely together. And our sin further exasperates this solitude. And we cry. We mourn. We struggle. We ask God, “Why?” Why is life so lonely?
Life is lonely, so we might desire God. So that we might long for the union of our souls with his, as a bride longs for her wedding. Life is lonely because God made us to be with him, and when we are not, we are broken.
We can only be whole when we are with God. As St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God!” In this way, our restlessness points us to seek an ultimate end to our loneliness: God himself.
The temptation of Christ
Look at Christ. The God-man who put on the veil of our flesh and stepped into our brokenness. Not only does he experience the everyday struggles we face, but he also meets us in our loneliness. Christ, the one who will ultimately fulfill our longing hearts, also becomes lonely for our sakes.
Notice here, then, that when you are lonely, you do not sin. No, but because our Christ was lonely, we can have confidence that our loneliness does not affect our purity. In fact, it was the Spirit of God who drew Christ into the lonely wilderness:
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” –Matthew 4:1-2
The Holy Spirit led Christ into loneliness. The Holy Spirit brought him into hunger. The Holy Spirit guided Christ to the place where Satan would tempt him.
Christ, recently baptized, accepting the honor of the Father, “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” is immediately brought by the Holy Spirit, the very dove who lighted upon him, into the desert to be hungry, alone, and tempted.
And here is a crucial point for you to consider. The burdens, the temptations of Christ, the hunger, and the pain were not signs of the Father’s dissatisfaction with the Son, but of his approval. Therefore, we cannot assume that when we are hungry, broken, alone, and facing Satan, God is distant from us.
Rather, it is in those moments when God is often nearest, when he is stoking our desire to be near him as well. To long for him, to desire him, to seek him with all our being that he may be found and that we may evermore be pleased with him above any happiness we have ever felt or longed for. Longing for us to draw near him in faith and love. To say with the woman looking for her beloved when she finally found him,
“I held him and would not let go. My beloved is mine, and I am his.” –Song of Solomon 2:16; 3:4
Like the psalmist who cries out to God,
“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God?” –Psalm 42:1–2
The temptation of Christ, like all true temptation, is all about one thing: love. You will desire what you love. You may love many things, but that which you love the most will overrule all lesser desires.
So that when we sin and confess our sins, we are confessing primarily that we have not loved God in the way we ought. What does King David say in his wonderful Psalm of confession?
“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” –Psalm 51:3–4
But this is a prayer that Christ will never pray, because the love Christ has for his Father is perfect. The love that Christ has for you, his neighbor, is perfect. See how Christ responds to temptation. Observe his love. His ultimate desire is revealed in his loneliness, revealed in the absence of the object of his desire, all while Satan tempts Jesus the first time,
“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” –Matthew 4:3
By bread alone? No.
As in the Garden of Eden, when Satan tempted Eve with the fruit, Satan began with one of our most basic bodily desires: hunger. Adam and Eve, who had had their fill of the Edenic harvest, were tempted with a fruit. Christ, who had fasted for forty days and nights, now hungered, and Satan tempted him with bread.
Yet, unknown to Satan, Christ, though he had fasted for forty days from earthly food, had feasted for forty days on the banquet of heaven. He had dined on angelic food. Yes, the love of God is the bread that angels eat. And though he hungered in the body, he responded,
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” –Matthew 4:4
Like Job, Christ cried,
“I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food!” –Job 23:12
But our culture tests us too. And we often allow our fleshly lusts, our bodily desires, to obscure the love we have for God. We choose the measly bread of this world over the face of God.
Our culture tries to fulfill our bodily desires in many ways. One bite too many at the restaurant. One lustful look in the middle of the night. Another puff. Another drink. Another toy. A bigger house. A better retirement.
Many of these desires are not wrong. Indeed, God gave us bodies with legitimate desires. But how often we twist our bodily desires and elevate them above God’s ordered plan!
Look to Christ! Look to him who sacrificed it all. Who counted his bodily desires as nothing in the face of God’s pleasure. He, who through his deepest of loves for God, was given the first of the resurrected bodies—that body which will never suffer with death or pain, which is utterly satisfied with God himself.
Do you hear his desire for the word of God? A loaf of bread may fill our hunger for an hour, but the Word of God fills our souls forever. A glass of water may quench our thirst for an hour, but if you drink of the living water, you will never thirst again.
Apart from God, bread or any other fleshly fulfillment will never satisfy.
God has put eternity in our hearts. Our appetite is ever-hungry, and only an infinite God can fill the bottomless pit of our hearts. All our other desires point to God, who is the only one who can bring any ultimate fulfillment. He is our heavenly bread. He is our living water.
Taking advantage of God
Satan comes to Christ a second time. He transports Christ to the pinnacle of the temple,
“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels to bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.” –Matthew 4:6
Ah, Jesus, if you are the Son of God, prove it to your people. Show them God will protect you. Show them your command over the angels. Bring yourself fame and recognition! Isn’t that what you want, glory?
“It is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.” –Matthew 4:7
If Jesus cast himself off the temple, he would be taking advantage of God’s power, or tempting God with his own premature death so that God would be obliged to save him. But if we truly love someone, we don’t reduce them to a tool to use in a scheme to make ourselves great. No, if we love someone, we sacrifice ourselves for their good.
And yet, again, that is precisely what the world and our flesh would tempt us to do. To use people for our own fame. Or even worse, to use God for our own comfort, for our own glory.
Politicians invoke the name of God to further their careers. False teachers fleece the flock of all their money to expand their empire. They use their ill-gotten gains to buy fancy suits and jet planes. And even we today are tempted to do this on a smaller scale in our families, careers, and in the way we interact with the world.
Look to Christ! Yes, Christ wanted glory. He wanted ultimate glory. He wanted ultimate honor. He wanted ultimate comfort. And for that highest of glories, Jesus lived a lonely life, hated by his countrymen and persecuted by the authorities. Ultimately, he would be killed by the Romans in sight of that pinnacle of the Temple Mount.
And for his pain, for the suffering of his life and on the cross, Christ did not gain some temporary worldly honor. He gained eternal glory. He earned that which he desired most in the desert: the smile of God.
“Well done, my good and faithful servant!” That is the glory we seek! To hear the words from the one who loved us so deeply that he sacrificed his own life for us, “Well done.”
Apart from God, fame, recognition, or comfort will never satisfy.
God has made us in his image. We were made to honor God and receive his favor. All glory of this world is fleeting. It is a shadow of the pleasure of God. God is our glory.
Choose today whom you will worship.
Satan came to Christ the last time. He now makes his ultimate desire known, the desire he had when, prior to earth’s creation, he fell from heaven’s glory,
“Bow down to me! And I will give you all the kingdoms of the world!”
As John Milton so eloquently described Satan’s motivation, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”
And Jesus’ response?
“Be gone, Satan! For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” –Matthew 4:10
What does it mean to worship? Worship is the honor you give to the greatest of your loves. It is praise, love, and reliance.
Had Jesus bowed to Satan here, he would be signaling that he loved what Satan represented and what Satan could give him. He would be showing his reliance on Satan to provide for him what he thought would satisfy his desires. In the act of bowing, Christ would be showing praise to him for who he was and his power.
But of course, Christ did not do bow to Satan. We worship God alone. Why?
Because God is the only one worthy of that degree of love. He who created us. Who became like us. Who dies for us. Who restored us. We love him because he first loved us.
Because he is the only one able to both provide for our needs and satisfy all of our longings. We were made for him, and he gives himself for us.
And because he is the only person who deserves our worship. He is the only immortal, invisible, God-only-wise.
And again, we are tempted to bow down to the allure of wealth and power. In our feeble minds, it is so easy to be distracted by the meaningless power of this world. It is easy to be anxious, to fear, to think, “Can God really provide?” To rely on something or someone other than God to care for us.
Even though he is faithful, even though he is loving, even though he is all-powerful, we worship lesser things because we deceive ourselves into thinking we will be better off worshiping this or that rather than the very God who gave us breath.
Look to Christ! Not a moment of discontentment! Not a shiver of fear! Only courage, “Begone Satan!” Oh, may God continue to form us into the image of his Son! We are weak. We tremble. We wander. But thank God, his Son does not. May we lean on him. When we struggle, may we grasp the hem of his garment. And when the seas rise, as Spurgeon once said, may we kiss the wave that drives us to the rock of Christ.
Apart from God, wealth and power will never satisfy.
Touched by our infirmities
Life is lonely. It is painful. And Christ did not insulate himself from that loneliness, pain, or hunger. We often feel weak and powerless. But we are never abandoned by God. Look to Christ! When you are tempted. Look to Christ! When you have victory, look to Christ! When you give in to temptation, look to Christ! And say with the Psalmist,
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” –Psalm 51:1, 7
Our decisions in the face of trials, loneliness, and temptation reveal who or what we love most. And when our love for God is proved, our desire for him intensifies into an overwhelming longing for him, a desire which shall be satisfied and shine as an example for those around us.
And in your loneliness, look beside you. Gaze on the Christ who is near by your side, hungry and tempted, yet without sin. Look to him, that High Priest who understands and experiences our struggles. Look to Jesus, very God of very God, who is the answer to our loneliness and the ultimate fulfillment of all our desires.
In the name of that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
A homily delivered on February 22, 2026 at St. Thomas Anglican Church in Halfmoon, NY. The voiceover is not the original live recording.
Great work. That part of taking advantage of God really hit me