In Jesus’ story, Jesus passed through the waters of baptism, into the temptations of the wilderness, and up to a high mountain with the devil. In the Exodus story, Moses went through the parted Red Sea, into the wilderness, and up to Mount Sinai. Yet in both cases, Jesus responds, “The Scriptures say, ‘Worship the Lord and serve only him’” (Matthew 4:8 / Luke 4:8 CEV). Luke’s devil makes a stronger claim to power. Just worship me, and you can have it all.’” (Luke 4:5-8 CEV). It has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. The devil said, ‘I will give all this power and glory to you. In Luke’s version, “the devil led Jesus up to a high place and quickly showed him all the nations on earth. The devil said to him, ‘I will give all this to you, if you will bow down and worship me.’” (Matthew 4:8-10 CEV). It is interesting to note that in Matthew’s version of the story, the devil “took Jesus up on a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms on earth and their power. Jesus resisted the tempter’s call, even when brought to the mountaintop and presented with the kingdoms of the world (Matthew 4:1-11). Then the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, and the devil tested him, trying to convince him to use the power of God rather than relying upon the faithfulness of God. And as soon as he came out of the water, the sky opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down on him like a dove” (Matthew 3:16, CEV). Jesus’ journey into the wilderness began when he passed through the waters of baptism and was filled by the spirit of God: “So Jesus was baptized. “The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert, so that the devil could test him” (Matthew 4:1 CEV). The wilderness served as a space apart, forcing the Israelites to confront hunger, fear and isolation (Exodus 16:1-8 17:1-7), for the experience of God’s immanent and transcendent presence (Exodus 15:25-26 16:4-7, 10-12 17:5-7, 19:16 – 20:21), and for the defining of the identity of Israel (Exodus 15:25-26 17:8-16 20:1-2). Through their forty years in the wilderness, they were nourished and transformed as God’s chosen people. God came to them in the wilderness, spoke to the people through a cloud (Exodus 16:10), and formed a covenant with the Israelites, testing their faith and consecrating them in service to God (Exodus 20:1-17). Moses, in faith, prayed for God to sustain them, and God responded with water and manna (Exodus 15:27 – 16:35). When Moses took the Israelites into the wilderness, they were thirsty and hungry. Yet the desert was also a place to experience God. There was real risk of death by thirst, hunger or predatory animals. Like the pre-creation waters of Genesis 1:2, desert was a place of chaos and danger in their imaginations. God had not yet sent any rain, and there was no one to work the land.” (Genesis 2:4-5 CEV). Remember the barren land that served as the ground of creation in Genesis 2: “When the LORD God made the heavens and the earth, no grass or plants were growing anywhere. Wilderness in this context is a desert, rather than the forests we might imagine today, and had particular connotations for the ancient Israelites. God liberated the Israelites from slavery, leading them out of Egypt and into a barren wilderness. Moses did so, and the water became fit to drink” (Exodus 15:22-25 CEV). The people complained and said, “Moses, what are we going to drink?” Moses asked the LORD for help, and the LORD told him to throw a piece of wood into the water. They did find water at Marah, but it was bitter, which is how that place got its name.
“After the Israelites left the Red Sea, Moses led them through the Shur Desert for three days, before finding water. These themes emerge again in Jesus’ journey into the wilderness, tying his identity to that of his Hebrew ancestors. Through the experiences of the Israelites in exile, we learn that while the Biblical wilderness is a place of danger, temptation and chaos, it is also a place for solitude, nourishment, and revelation from God. The wilderness of the Bible is a liminal space-an in-between place where ordinary life is suspended, identity shifts, and new possibilities emerge. Jesus performed much of his ministry in urban settings, yet many of his most transformative moments occurred in outdoor settings-bodies of water, mountaintops, and wilderness.
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