On the Temptation of Christ (III)

A final thought on the Temptation of Christ that's still humming in my head: I can't help but notice that later, in Matthew 16:23, Jesus will say the very same thing to Peter that he says here, as he resists the Satan's temptation: "Depart from me Satan!" (the same Greek verb hupago is used in both places). Now, I'm not the only one to notice the uncanny parallels between 4:10 and 16:23. Though most manuscripts record Jesus' words in 4:10 as a simple "Depart from me, Satan," at least some ancient manuscripts (C, D and L especially, for all you textual criticism buffs out there), have him saying exactly word-for-word what he'll say to Peter later on: "Get thee behind me, Satan" (lit. hupage opiso mou Satana).


What's going on here?


A re-cap may help. In Matthew 16:23, Jesus has just told his newly-named "Rock" that it is necessary for God's true Christ to suffer shame and die disgracefully; to which Peter has just expressed his worldly incredulity: "Lord have mercy! May it never be!" And it's in that moment, it seems, that Peter has become a stumbling block to him, a "scandalizer" who is thinking not after the way of God, but after the way of the world (16:23). And when I line up 16:23 with 4:10 (the way some ancient scribes, it seems, wanted to), it all becomes clear: in insisting that Jesus be a Messiah after the way of the world, and asking him to forsake the path to Golgatha, Peter is holding out to Jesus the very same temptation he faced on that extremely high mountain, when the satan offered him every messianic glory the world had to offer, if he would only bow to the devil's means and seize it. In insisting Jesus live up to his own worldly measure of "Messiah", Peter, however unwittingly, has become a temptation to Jesus all over again.


And here's where the questions rush at me. Do we tempt Christ, ourselves, like this, whenever we come to him demanding he fit whatever worldly measures of "the Christ" we've set up for ourselves? Do we put God to the test (in a way that Jesus himself refused to do, standing that day on the wing of the Temple), whenever we weigh his Christ against our personal criteria for what makes a Lord-and-Saviour a Lord-and-Saviour? Do we stop our own ears to his invitation to follow him in a life of self-denial and cross-bearing (16:24), because no Messiah in the world would ever suggest that a "life of self-denial" was the "life lived to the full." And in those moments, when we do, are we actually standing like Peter was, on the side of the tempter in Matthew 4:10?


In the wake these questions I'm left wondering if the greatest temptation in the Christian life might be our temptation to tempt Christ, by insisting that he be the kind of Messiah we think we want (a rocks-to-bread, never have to suffer, way-of-the world Messiah), rather than the Messiah God has revealed him to be: the Messiah of the cross.