Indeed, Jesus had been declared at the Jordan as the Messiah. But, at the same time, he had been given the figure and clothing of his messianism, diametrically opposed to the popular and official conception: he would not be the political-military Messiah, but the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, the Poor of God.
In any case, in the official conception of the Messiah King, faith and politics were always intimately intertwined, and precisely from here, from this confusion, arose a dangerous ambiguity that eternally lends itself to temptation amid a heap of misunderstandings.
In both conceptions (Messiah King, Messiah Servant) it is a question of the glory of God. How will Israel give greater glory to God: with the military victories of David or with the forced labor along the rivers of Babylon? Where are the interests of God and his glory: in the manger-cross or in the hosannas of the triumphal entry?
There are dark, innate and wild forces breathing in the heart of man, crouching in the shadows, which, arrayed in ranks like an army in battle array, cry out for glory, opulence, domination, and at the same time, reject with disgust oblivion, failure, obscurity. They have the status of goddesses, because they have always and forever tipped the scales and prevailed without counterweight in the realm of impulses. And, inevitably, temptation
slyly rears its head in the heart of man; and it is a temptation because it lends itself to confusion, because there is fallacy (they always exhibit a beautiful appearance), and because they offer mixed, as in an alloy, the interests of God and our interests, the glory of God and our own glory, the domination of God and our domination. An idolatrous symbiosis.
Everything that threatens our glory threatens the glory of God, and vice versa. The enemies that hurt our interests hurt the interests of God, and vice versa. It seems that we are building the Kingdom of God, but we could be building the kingdom of the earth: seeking and promoting prestige, strength, influence, in a word, power, thinking that we are promoting the power and glory of God.
In this dangerous and seductive symbiosis lies, yesterday, today and tomorrow, the ultimate secret of temptation: we could be betting on the glorious and triumphant Messiah, “being ashamed” of the cross, of the Poor Man of Nazareth, of the Suffering and crucified Messiah.
This seduction was also on the lookout for Jesus: to strip off the garments of the Poor Man and dress himself in the brilliant trappings of the triumphant Messiah, to establish in this world the glorious empire of Yahweh. Order, efficiency, organization, structures, the system will be eternally locked in battle against uselessness, darkness, oblivion, gratuitousness. The former will be seducing the latter. seconds to the final frontier, and with an indisputable constellation of explanations, theories and reasons.
When Matthew says that Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted (Mt 4:1), being tempted means: he was led to clarify his messianism and, as a consequence, to reject the triumphalist conception and to fully and definitively assume his destiny as the “Suffering and Poor Servant of God”, according to the indication given to him in the Jordan.
Taken from the book “The Poor Man of Nazareth” Chapter III “Under the Sun of Satan” by Father Ignacio Larrañaga.
