TEMPTATION, NAZARETH & CAPERNAUM

The only other people in the Bible who fasted 40 days and nights were Moses and Elijah.

🤔 Hey – weren’t those the 2 guys who visited Jesus on the Mount of Transformation?

☝️🤓 Transfiguration.

Yes. Elijah was taken up to heaven before he died and Moses was the only person buried by God Himself.

After His baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness of Judea for 40 days.

😐 And He didn’t pack a lunch?

No. His time in the wilderness was spent very similarly to Moses and Elijah when they fasted 40 days.

MOSES’ 40-DAY FAST

“So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭34‬:‭28‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Moses was clearly supernaturally sustained. No one lives for 40 days without water. While Moses was fasting, he was alone with God, receiving the Covenant.

I think that’s what Jesus was doing too. He was with the Father, supernaturally sustained, receiving the New Covenant.

ELIJAH’S 40-DAY FAST

“And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.”
‭‭1 Kings‬ ‭19‬:‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The Angel of the LORD brought Elijah supernatural bread and water and it nourished him for 40 days. He went to Mount Horeb where Moses had spent his 40 days of fasting. And there Elijah faced a 3-fold test of wind, earthquake, and fire.

JESUS’ 40-DAY FAST

Though the text doesn’t say so, Jesus could’ve gone to Mt. Horeb as well. Even if He did not, He still faced a 3-fold test of His own. It wasn’t wind, earthquake, and fire. It was “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” (1 Jn. 2:16).

1. Turn the stones into bread (lust of the flesh, hunger)
2. All the kingdoms of the earth (lust of the eyes)
3. Leap off the temple, angels hold you up (pride of life, defy death, prove His power before everyone)

Each of these temptations is prefaced with “If you are the Son of God…”

Jesus has just had the heavens open at His baptism and the Holy Spirit descend and rest on Him like a Dove and the Father said, “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well-pleased.”

I know we’ve read about a couple of miracles already in Mark where we got ahead of a strict timeline, but when Jesus is in the wilderness, He has not performed a single miracle yet. He hasn’t healed anyone or cast out a single devil. He has no “proof” that He is the Son of God except for the Word of the Father. But that alone is all the proof required.

We can do stupid things when we feel pressured to prove our worth or capability. Jesus doesn’t have to prove His divinity for it to be so. He is modeling what it looks like to stand by faith on the Word of God.

The level of our identity is a vulnerable spot. Most of us have a certain amount of damage there whether we realize it or not. Satan attacked Jesus’ identity with “If you are the Son of God.” I wonder if, a least partly, this was also fishing for information.

What did God mean exactly when He called Jesus His “Son”? Keep in mind that the angels – even the ones who rebelled – are “the sons of God” because God made them. Perhaps Satan was trying to figure out “Who’s the new kid?”

Satan also tempted Jesus with “the easy road.”

“And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭4‬:‭5‬-‭7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Jesus would win all authority in heaven and earth at His resurrection. Satan’s offer circumvents the cross. While I am certain that the Devil had no idea that the cross would be the triumph of Christ, the offer still appealed to the natural tendency to avoid suffering. And watch out, because “avoidance of suffering” is still a temptation the Enemy tries on all who follow Jesus.

Satan isn’t bluffing when he offers the world to Jesus. He usurped dominion when Adam and Eve traded their trust in God’s Word for trust in the Serpent’s Word. And he is willing to lose the battle over earth if it means he can win the war of the universe. He will give up the prize of Earth in exchange for worship from this new Son of God.

I don’t think he quite realizes who he’s dealing with.

Jesus thwarts his every attempt with scripture and the devil retreats to come up with a different plan.

🤔 It says that angels came and helped Jesus. Do you think maybe they brought snacks like they did for Elijah?

I suspect they did- after the fast was over.

☝️🤓 Maybe they brought manna!

Well, Psalm 78:25 does say that manna is angel-food. So…likely.

😲 (gasp!) That makes Jesus like the children of Israel! He’s in the wilderness, for 40 days (instead of years) and he’s eating manna!

🤓 Ooo I wonder if he also got water from a rock.

Maybe. But Jesus is the faithful Son of Israel Who never grumbles or complains.

🤔 Do you suppose Jesus made His own pillar of cloud for shade? I totally would’ve. ☁️

---

NAZARETH

Jesus returns to His hometown and is invited to read on the Sabbath. Nothing unusual about that. He stops mid-sentence in the Isaiah prophecy about Himself. It was all going pretty well until Jesus basically says that He is a prophet and that none of them will be recipients of His ministry and that the Gentiles demonstrate more openness and faith than his own friends and neighbors. That was enough to stir up a mob that tried to push Him off a cliff.

😐 I imagine dinner after service that day was pretty awkward around the table.

Yes. No doubt Jesus’ family was there to witness all of that and perhaps it even stained their reputation in the community. How are his brothers supposed to find work if people know their brother is the crazy guy? How will his sisters find suitable husbands? I wouldn’t be surprised if they let him know what they thought of His message.

So Jesus moves… to the lake-side fishing town of Capernaum.

---

CAPERNAUM

We read Mark’s account of Jesus’ casting out this demon already.

If you go to Capernaum on a bus tour today as many do, you will get to walk around what is called “the White Synagogue.”

This was NOT the building where Jesus cast out the demon, but it IS built on top of what was left of that synagogue.

This site (now protected by church suspended above it with a glass floor that allows visitors to look down on the site) is NOT the home of Peter. Archeologists say the remains of this octagonal worship building sit on top of where Peter’s home was. Peter’s home became a place of Christian worship (basically a church) and at some point long after the Apostle’s death, the octagonal building was built over the remains. The stone circle in the center is said to mark the central hall.

I find it interesting that Jesus “rebuked” the fever of Peter’s mother-in-law. That’s a command. It means to censure, admonish, forbid. It’s like Jesus is speaking to cells and tissue and viruses – and they know it. He clearly has power over all creation.

SIDE NOTE

We’re a little out of sequence at this point. John makes it clear in 2:11 that turning the water into wine was Jesus’ FIRST miracle, not healing Peter’s mother-in-law or a miraculous catch of fish.

It’s also in Capernaum that Jesus reconnects with Andrew and John and then meets their brothers, Peter and James. I say “re-connect” because in John 1:37-40 we have 2 disciples of John the Baptist who were tagging along after Jesus. One of them was Andrew, the brother of Peter. The other was almost certainly John. We also learned from John’s Gospel, that the 4 Galilean brothers introduced their friends Philip and Nathaniel to Jesus.

Jesus tells these young fishermen— and they WERE YOUNG. Please, I beg you, toss out the mental imagery of a bunch of middle-aged, greying-bearded men. Jesus was a Rabbi. His disciples were students; probably between 12 and 25. John died somewhere around the year 100AD. He wasn’t 140 years old when he died. He was probably a boy of 12-14 when he met Jesus and wanted to follow the rabbi like big brother James. A boy of 13 or even 14 putting his head on the chest of his hero at the last supper is a VERY different vibe than two grown men getting all touch-feely. You just watch as we go through the Gospels. Watch how the disciples act- shooing away the little kids, wanting to call down fire from heaven and incinerate opponents, never taking initiative – they have to be told what to do, clumsy and awkward a times, and hiding in their rooms while the moms go the tomb, I’m telling you – teen boys. It makes WAY more sense.

Good heavens… where was I?

😐 Jesus was telling the young fishermen… something…

Oh yes… He told them, “I will make you fishers of men.” I’ll never forget when the similarity dawned on me… Look…

This is when the disciples start saying, “come help us pull in these nets, our boats are gonna sink!”

Andrew, Peter’s brother, was the first disciple named in the Bible. He isn’t in the spotlight much in the gospels, but the handful of times he is mentioned specifically, he’s always bringing someone to meet Jesus.

Would that we all would do the same. 🐟