Partial Truths, Real Needs, and Fuller Truths
Jesus and the devil at the beginning of Lent
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tested by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
Then the devil led him to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Luke 4:1-13
Outside of Christmas and Easter, there are only a handful of stories that we hear every single year in the church calendar, but every year, we start Lent with hearing about Jesus being tempted. While it is easy to trivialize Lent—like making it about chocolate or online chess (which I gave up last year)—for Jesus, wrestling with temptation is a true spiritual battle. He’s weakened, he’s hurting, he’s hungry; he can taste the fear, for the devil is drawing near.1 This isn’t chocolate. And if we’re not used to talking about our demons, we may not even try to wrestle with them.
In fact, I wonder if the first temptation of Lent is to avoid confronting our real temptations. Lent is not, at its core, about giving up things or adding in practices, though that’s part of it. At its heart, it’s practicing living in truth.
But what is temptation anyway?
I won’t pretend to give you the end-all, be-all definitive summary of scientific data or a philosophical treatise, either of which you might find in a TED talk. But when we look at Jesus and his cosmic, scriptural rap battle with the devil, we can see three components of temptation. It is evil’s way of giving us (1) a partial truth to (2) try and solve a real need (3) in a way that misses the fuller truth.
Let’s go through those.
First, evil often does not deal in direct lies, but loves to use partial truths. When it does lie, it blends them with just enough truths to obscure.
When we buy a car, maybe it looks good, it starts up, the A/C works…only to find out it’s been through more Vermont winters than Ebenezer Crafts himself and the transmission is about two miles from falling out. Those other things are still true; it’s still true that the car looks good, it starts up, and the A/C works. But that only gets you a couple of miles before you realize your real need blinded you from the full story. Eventually, we learn it is our deeper wisdom to do some due diligence of discernment (we’ll return to that word).
The devil doesn’t lie to Jesus. He even quotes Scripture. But Jesus says no, Satan, you know that’s not the whole story…your bread, your power, your pride, no, you’re just trying to sell me your rust bucket.
Onto the second component of temptation: evil gives us (1) a partial truth that (2) tries to solve a real need. Most of us feel this probably many times a day in our bodies, just as Jesus did in his body.
What is tricky about this second component of temptation is that we often aren’t fully aware of what our deeper needs are or what would really solve them. Sure, we know when we’re hungry; that’s easy. But maybe you don’t realize how much you are lacking connection, how much you need to be heard, or how insecure you feel, or how powerless you feel in the face of evil, or how meaninglessness has been lurking at your door. Then here comes the devil with a partial truth to fix that real need.
You feel disconnected? Here’s a drug for that. You feel insecure? There’s a car for that. You feel powerless? Well, violence will make you feel powerful. That’s a partial truth. But of course, they’re missing something fuller and truer, and they create more problems at more levels.
But the needs are real. And in Lent, I don’t want anyone to feel ashamed for being tempted by your real needs. Pressing needs. Loud needs. Fervent needs. Just like people take their need for God by looking everywhere else for him but him, and just like the partial truths are still true, our needs are still true. We do need to feel heard, to feel loved, to find meaning, to be connected. These are not wrong needs. But there are wrong ways to fill those needs.
So that brings us to the third part. Recapping, temptation gives us (1) a partial truth, that (2) tries to solve a real need, (3) in a way that misses the fuller truth.
As Jesus experienced, there are so many ways in which people will twist a partial truth from God at the expense of fuller, deeper truth. Sometimes, on issues we know well, we can see the fuller truth and our neighbor can’t. But all of us sometimes miss the fuller truth, whether we don’t have it or have forgotten it.
Again, Lent is not just about giving up physical things. That’s part of it, yes, but for another set of three today, Jesus has temptations to three P’s: to the physical, the political (or power), and to personal pride (okay, five P’s). And he would have more temptations, just as we do. These are, too, partially true principles, and there are real needs in these domains. We need to eat, we have needs that can only be solved through the often deeply disillusioning shared societal negotiation process we call “politics,” and we need to know we are loved.
But when we are presented with a solution to a need that seems all too convenient and emphatic on these partialities,2 we have to stop and ask ourselves, what is the deeper truth? We need to pause when we see a corner to cut, when we feel the urge to go against what we know deep down is off with who we are in Christ, when we get away from the Way of Jesus, which we can only see if we are in regular communion with his written Word and putting it into practice in our lives.
Jesus shows us over and over in the Gospels how we can practice seeing to the roots, the more core problem, and the fuller principle at play. He would spend so much of his ministry arguing with Pharisees, scribes, and even his disciples about the deeper truth underneath the partial truths. He is always showing us the fuller truth by his very person. As John’s gospel would especially emphasize, in the cosmic, spiritual domain, he is the fullness of truth.
Temptations will keep lurking all around us in the places where partial truths are constantly distracting us from fuller truths. Since we’re not Jesus, we all give in to this. But when we keep returning to him and following him and listening for his call, we enter a process we call discernment.
Discernment—it’s a word we know, and I’m gonna load it up with a little more meaning. Discernment is our shorthand word for counteracting partial truth with more truth. Discernment is patience when the immediate need and the partial truth are so loud. Discernment is how we give space for the fullness of truth to appear and the fullness of Christ to make himself known.
Discernment is buying truth enough time to fill out what’s missing, to take a second and “play the tape through,” as I learned in recovery stuff a while ago, which means asking, “What is the end game of following this temptation? Where does this action really lead? What’s the hidden trade-off?”
Discernment is not about paralysis through analysis and overthinking, but clearer thinking, fuller thinking, the space for Christ’s humble voice when something else is roaring inside, your hunger is raging, your thirst for righteousness is clammoring, your desire to be close to God overwhelming, or desire to numb it all out is marching. Discernment is piercing through the noise to say, where are you right now in this moment, O Christ?
The temptations will keep coming—the physical, the power, the pride, and more. Christ’s mantra to counter this is “It is written.”3 There’s a lot that is written. What it boils down to the most, as he would teach, is that it is written to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. It all flows from that.
Not only is this written in text, it is written on our hearts through Jesus Christ. When we use his gift of discernment, we know he is always there speaking to us, and if we tune in, we can hear a whisper louder than any deafening temptation, the full truth we already know: abide in him, and every need will be taken care of. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.4
Those who know, know.
“Powers and principalities,” meet “powers and partialities.”
H/t “At Home with the Lectionary” podcast.
1 Thess 5:24