Greetings,
My friends.
This is Mark Lardman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monkey and dogs,
Welcoming you to Advent 2025,
Waiting with Matthew.
And today,
On day 20,
We reflect on Matthew chapter 4,
Verse 1,
Where Matthew writes,
Since then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
So as we begin,
I invite you to stop and pause,
To find yourself in a comfortable position,
To let your body rest and your spirit settle,
As we breathe in and out,
Asking God to open our ears,
Our minds and our hearts to what it is the Spirit would say to us today.
There's a strange companionship between wilderness and temptation in Scripture.
They meet again and again.
Israel in the desert,
Elijah in the cave.
And now,
As Advent's quiet march continues,
We come to a scene that feels unsettling and strangely intimate.
Jesus,
Freshly baptised,
Is led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
Into this place of testing.
Now consider that for a moment.
The Spirit leads him.
The voice from heaven has just declared him beloved.
The river has washed him.
The dove has descended upon him.
And then the same Spirit moves him into the place where his faith will be tried.
Why?
Why would the Spirit do that?
Why would God lead the beloved one into a place of temptation?
Because formation often happens at the margins of comfort.
Because strength is trust-tested,
Not manufactured.
Because the God who draws near to us will sometimes allow a faith to be tempered so that it can bear the weight of love.
Advent is preparation,
But preparation is not always soft.
Often it's the kind of hardening that doesn't make us brittle,
But makes us able to hold what is holy.
Now the wilderness is a school with no classroom bells.
There's no curriculum written on paper,
Only the curriculum of the body and the Spirit.
Hunger.
Solitude.
Silence.
Encounter.
Matthew gives us so few details in this one line,
But the line is pregnant,
Led up by the Spirit,
To be tempted.
Notice the balance,
Spirit and testing in the same breath.
This means the trial is not accidental.
It's not random malice.
It's part of the very formation Jesus must embody to live into his mission.
Temptation isn't only about sin,
It's about vocation.
It's about learning what our hearts are for.
Is the heart for power or for service?
Is the heart for spectacle or for presence?
Is the heart to be fed at any cost or to feed others at cost?
Jesus' wilderness shows us that the path to the manger and the path to the cross pass through the same training ground.
He must encounter desire and choose again and again the will of the Father.
This verse insists on Jesus' full humanity.
He's not an abstract saviour who knows temptation only conceptually.
He is a human who experiences hunger,
Isolation and the dark suggestions that come when the body is weak and the mind is weary.
And that detail changes everything.
It means when you face temptation in the scope of your life,
When grief or anger or loneliness whisper to you,
It's not a sign that you're worse than someone else.
It's the human condition.
Even the beloved one is tested.
The comfort here is twofold.
God knows what it is to be tempted in the flesh.
And God doesn't abandon us in the wilderness.
The spirit leads and the spirit also accompanies.
Temptation is not the absence of God.
Sometimes it's the arena where God's faithful presence is most fully revealed.
Matthew will go on to show us the content of the temptations.
Turn stoves to bread,
Throw yourself from the temple,
Worship another for power.
They read like three lenses through which we can see the temptations of every age.
Bodily need,
Spectacular proof and misplaced allegiance.
In Advent terms,
These are instructive.
I mean,
We can be tempted to make Advent about consumption,
The turnstones to bread,
By substituting spiritual depth for comfort and distraction.
We can be tempted to demand demonstrations of God's presence,
Signs and wonders that assuage our fears instead of deepening trust.
Throw yourself from the temple,
Right?
And we can be tempted to bow to lesser kings,
Ideologies,
Idols,
The gods of success or reputation,
Things that promise security but demand our allegiance.
Jesus' refusal of each temptation teaches us to root our hearts in the Father's provision,
Not in immediate gratification.
It teaches us that trust doesn't need proof to become practice.
It teaches us that worship is always rightly directed to the God who forms us in the wilderness.
There's a paradox here.
The Spirit leads Jesus into a place where the enemy will test him.
And we've got to hold that paradox without flattening it into sentiment.
Sometimes the Spirit leads us into thin places,
Times of testing that are also times of revelation.
The Spirit doesn't cause temptation,
But the Spirit can lead us into places where temptation reveals what is deep inside us so that God can heal it.
The Spirit's lead isn't a reckless push,
But a faithful guidance toward wholeness,
Even if the route passes through discomfort.
Advent is a season when the Spirit often calls us into that same paradox,
To step into the quiet and risk exposure,
To allow the lights of distractions to dim so something truer can be seen.
We're sometimes quick to think of temptation only as a moral failure or a moment to be ashamed of,
But if you stay long enough with Matthew's scene,
Temptation becomes a teacher.
What does the temptation reveal about the disciples' hearts when bread's offered?
About Herod's heart when power's threatened?
About us when we're asked to worship something other than God?
Temptation shows our default trusts,
What we ultimately rely on.
It unmasks idols,
Money,
Certainty,
Performance,
Reputation,
Comfort.
And once it's unmasked,
These idols can be dislogged by grace.
Jesus' responses are instructive.
He answers with scripture,
Not with rhetoric.
He refuses the demeaning quickness of power.
He binds himself to the Father's timing.
The Word becomes his anchor.
The Father's voice becomes his measure.
Advent invites the same,
That we let temptations expose our misplacements of trust,
So the Word might orient us.
If Advent's a preparation for Christ's coming,
And if preparation sometimes includes testing,
Then what practices might help us faithfully when temptation knocks?
Well,
Let's start with silence and solitude.
Jesus armed himself with the scriptural Word.
Advent invites us into disciplined attention to scripture,
Not to weaponize it,
But to let it reform our imagination of God.
And then in this story,
We see fasting,
But with care.
Jesus comes from fasting's place of vulnerability.
Fasting can make the soul more alert to where it turns for sustenance.
In Advent,
Small fasts can prepare the heart to receive grace.
Community is important too.
Jesus in this story is alone in the wilderness,
But his life is embedded in a people.
Our temptations are less isolating when we name them entrusted fellowship.
And then there's prayerful naming,
Bringing the temptations into prayer.
Name them,
Give them words.
You might find that they shrink when they're aired in light.
We can also remember God's faithfulness.
Jesus remembers the Father's voice at baptism.
We steady ourselves by remembering God's past faithfulness.
But please know,
These aren't just quick fixes.
They're habits that we need to practice that in time will reshape desire.
And finally,
There's a hope that runs through this wilderness scene and ties it back to Advent.
Temptation is not the final word.
The wilderness is not the destination.
For Jesus,
The testing leads to ministry.
For us,
Our seasons of trial can lead to deeper trust,
Truer worship,
And clearer vocation.
Advent holds both the ache of waiting and the assurance of arrival.
It acknowledges that waiting may include temptation,
Pushes towards comfort,
Spectacle,
Or idolatries.
But it also insists that God's coming is meant to heal those very misorders.
To wait in Advent is to practice fidelity amid all the allurements of life.
It's to rehearse trust,
Even when the bread is scarce,
The proofs are absent,
And the lesser gods whisper the loudest.
It's to believe that the one who is tempted is the same one who walks into our wildernesses and holds us through them.
If you're willing,
Sit in silence for a few breaths and allow a single question to come closer.
What is the whisper I tend to answer when I'm hungry,
Afraid,
Or seeking proof?
What temptation appears most often in your wilderness?
Don't hurry to change it.
Rather,
Name it.
Let the spirit hold the name without shame.
Offer it into the light.
And then imagine,
With the same gentleness,
Jesus beside you.
Not above you,
But beside you.
Knowing the desert's ache,
Knowing the loss of sleep,
Knowing the sharpness of hunger and doubt,
And hear again the Father's voice.
Beloved.
Not because of your resistance or of your success,
But simply because you are loved.
And as you sit in this moment,
Breathe a deep breath,
And allow the words of this prayer to wash over you.
Holy Spirit who led the beloved into the wilderness,
Lead us also,
Though not into harm,
But into formation.
Teach us how to wait when temptation comes.
How to answer with truth rather than impulse.
How to stand in the quiet and let scripture steady us.
When hunger tempts us to worship quick gratifications,
Give us patience.
When fear lures us to demand signs and proofs,
Give us faith.
When the lesser powers call for our allegiance,
Give us the courage to return our hearts to you.
Hold us when we fall.
Restore us when we falter.
Let our waiting be the soil of deeper trust,
Deeper love,
And deeper readiness for your coming.
In the name of the one who was tempted and yet remained faithful,
We pray.
Amen.
And so my friend,
As you go from our time together into your day,
May you know that temptation doesn't make you a failure,
But reveals where you most need God's grace.
May the Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness also walk with you in every testing,
Steadying your heart.
May your advent waiting become a time of purification and courage,
So that when Christ comes,
You may receive him with a heart set free.
And may grace,
Peace,
And love go with you,
Stay with you,
And remain with you through every wilderness,
Now and always.
Amen.
Thanks again for being with us,
My friends.
Grace and peace until tomorrow.
