Matthew 4:1-11
February 26, 2023
Rev. Annie Watson
What I take away from this story is that Jesus was God’s way of rebooting humanity. In the technological world, a reboot refers to restarting something like a computer, to put it into a state of readiness for operation. That’s what God did for us, through Jesus.
God needed to do something. Humanity had been taken over by a virus, what we call “sin.” This virus began when the first man and woman disobeyed the very first commandment they were given. As Paul tells us in Romans 5:12, “sin came into the world through one man (and woman).”
Some theologians say our computer went “down” during the “fall” of humanity, when the first couple decided they couldn’t resist partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This was when the virus was “downloaded” into our moral systems.
Like a computer battling a virus, humanity has been battling the virus of sin from Day One. At the time of the flood, the virus nearly wiped out the entire system, but then God hit the reset button with the rainbow in the sky. All was well until the dormant virus infected us again.
God knew something needed to be done to help us, so God gave us something like a computer manual, the Law of Moses. With this manual, God became more user-friendly, but unfortunately, the virus kept reappearing and humanity kept stalling or crashing time after time.
God tried to help humanity re-boot on numerous occasions. We call them “covenants”. There was the covenant with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, with David—but each time the virus of sin continued to slow down, if not block, our relationship with our Creator God. Until Jesus came on the scene, the re-boots and upgrades never lasted.
It’s a good thing God is patient. We would have never hung in there with a virus-infected humanity like God has. Whenever my computer wants to upgrade and I have things to do, I get really impatient. I even get impatient when I have to turn my phone off and on so I can watch more TikTok videos!
Jesus shows us just how patient God is with us. From a Christian perspective, Jesus is humanity’s final reboot. We are still infected by the virus of sin, but through Jesus we have a great anti-virus program.
Of course, this new system needed to be tested, which brings us to the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Following his baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness for this very purpose, to be tested, to see if Jesus, our anti-virus software, can keep humanity from permanently crashing.
Patience is needed. When we have to watch that little circle go round and round when our computer or television streaming service is trying to work, we have to have a little patience. But this is nothing compared to the testing of Jesus that went on for forty days and forty nights.
God was going to make sure that we have the best anti-virus program imaginable. Jesus is tested in three ways:
First, if one is fasting for a lengthy period of time one will get very hungry. The devil tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread so that he can break his fast. This is the temptation to give up, which is what we often do when we are waiting for our computers to upgrade and reboot. We give up when the temptation is too great. But Jesus didn’t give up. He continued to fast.
Then the devil went to Plan B and tried to get Jesus to jump off the top of a building, to put an end to it all. “Isn’t your assignment too difficult, Jesus? Why bother any longer trying to reboot humanity? Are they really worth all this?”
This is how we often feel when our computers are slow or our television or phones are not working. We get so frustrated we just want to toss them aside or even throw them up against a wall! But Jesus resisted the temptation to put an end to his anti-virus testing. He kept going.
But the devil wouldn’t give up either, not yet anyway. So he comes at Jesus with a third temptation: to take over the world. But with one caveat: You can rule the world, Jesus, but only if you stop this foolish nonsense of trying to save humanity. Fall down and worship me, Jesus, and I will make you more than just an anti-virus program. I will make you the CEO of the entire company!
But Jesus continued to resist the devil’s temptations, who got frustrated and left. Then the angels—the technicians—came and assisted Jesus in the remainder of the testing period.
Jesus is now ready to be our anti-sin savior. Now, he just needs to go out for a while with a few salespersons, his disciples, to hawk his product until the day his program is turned off for three days and then turned back on for the ultimate upgrade. And that’s how humanity was rebooted.
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