After His baptism, before He started His ministry, Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. During this time most probably, He reflected on His future ministry. Without any doubt, during this period, He wrestled with God the ultimate reality to get inspiration to start His ministry.
After 40 days, He was tempted by the tempter. The first temptation was to turn stones into bread. In the context of His ministry that He was about to start, this temptation was very effective to get instant and cheap popularity. Very often for the majority of people, the first and foremost concern is their belly. That's why many political parties are able to win their elections by promising “food for the stomach”. By rejecting this temptation Jesus clearly communicated that he was not going to start His ministry with instant and cheap popularity.
The second temptation was to jump from the pinnacle of the temple and show people that God would protect Him from harm and danger. Or in other words to show something extraordinary and draw people to Himself. Again by rejecting this temptation Jesus showed that not only did He reject instant and cheap popularity but also He did not want to start His ministry by performing ‘magic’.
Thirdly He was asked to worship evil and get all worldly powers. His rejection of this temptation confirmed that Jesus was not going to start His ministry by enjoying worldly pleasures.
Remember - the tempter tried to tempt Jesus by using the Holy Scripture of Jesus. Although the tempter quoted the scripture, Jesus understood the trap of the tempter. Therefore as followers of Jesus, we should always reject the cheap and instant popularity. Cheap and instant popularity lead us to destruction and make us selfish and self-centred. We need to guard ourselves against the people who try to use the Holy Scripture to tempt us and to achieve their selfish and hidden agendas.
Therefore remember that the centre of our faith is the Cross where we need to crucify our ego for our growth and the growth of others.
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