Hello my friends,

I have been getting a lot of messages lately asking about ways to maintain faithful determination towards goodness and justice in days like ours. So, today I wanted to focus on that central theme through the lens of Luke 4:1-13 where Jesus was tested in the wilderness. In so many ways, it feels like we are in a big wilderness of our own, desperately looking for the way forward. I hope our time together today can be a helpful addition to that conversation.

Resources to consider:

​-When Love Gets The Last Word. My daily Lent devotional began on March 5th and I am so thankful to hear so many of you have been encouraged by it so far! I do want to mention that a few people have had trouble finding the devotional after they have downloaded it onto their computer. If you have this issue (or any other) please send me an email with the subject line "devo" and I'll be glad to help you resolve the issue.

​-Episode 12 Benjamin Cremer—Main Street Idaho Podcast. I had such an incredible conversation about religion and politics with the host of Main Street Idaho Podcast recently. We talked about ways that Christianity has been misused in ways that negatively impact us here in Idaho and nationally as well as ways to confront this misuse as followers of Jesus. You can find the episode through the link above.

​-Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart I just want to suggest this book one more time. It was recently released and gives such a clear eyed look into the anti-democracy movement that hold so much of the power in our nation right now. She concludes the entire book with six strategies for the pro democracy movement to employ that I found so insightful and helpful as I think about the days ahead. I highly recommend it.

Okay, onto today's content.

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Maintaining Faithful Determination In A World Of Chaos.

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was temptedby the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.”

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;

they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

Jesus being tested in the wilderness is probably one of the most well known events about him, even outside the Christian faith. It conveys such timeless lessons not only for enduring hardship, but also how to endure hardship while staying true to our values, especially when it comes to power and the temptation to exploit it for our own gain.

I wrote further in depth about Matthew’s version of this event and its profound implications for how followers of Jesus are to approach the political realm. You can read that here.​

Today, I want to focus on how Jesus refers to God in these passages, what it says about the way he was responding to the tests he was facing, and how it can help us in our wilderness today.

What's In A Name?

Notice how Jesus refers to God in his response to the devil’s last two tests? Jesus refers to God as “the Lord your God.” Lord and God. This simple act is really significant.

In Jewish tradition there is a practice known as the “unification of the name” (Hebrew: Yichudim). It is the bringing together of two names with two different attributes to mark a central identity of the one being named.

For example, my name is Benjamin, which is Hebrew in origin. Ben simply means “son, descendant, or member of a group.” The other Hebrew name joined to “ben” is “yamin,” which means “right hand” or “south.”

Benjamin in the Bible was the twelfth and youngest son of Rachel and Jacob. However, in Genesis 35:16-18, Rachel originally names him Ben-Oni, which means “son of my sorrow,” as she tragically dies while giving birth to him. Jacob would later rename him “Ben-yamin” as he would be the precursor to the tribe of Benjamin, which would play a powerful role in Israel’s political history.

This joining together of two names occurs often throughout the Bible and points to the broader theological significance of what is happening in the Biblical events themselves.

Jesus is doing that here in our passage today as well. The English word “Lord” here points to the presence of the four letter unutterable divine word for God in Hebrew, which is "YHWH." Jewish tradition dictates that this name reflects the attribute of mercy in God. The English word translated as “God” here is the word Elohim, which conveys the justice attribute of God. So, Jesus is joining these two names together to not only reject the devil’s temptation to control all political power and exploit God’s power for his own gain, but Jesus is also asserting that the true justice of God is accomplished not by power, but by acts of mercy.

I think this is an often overlooked, remarkably simple, yet profound element of this passage. In the wilderness, when Jesus was tired, hungry, and being tested by evil, Jesus not only rejected the untruthful way, but remained faithful to the way of truth, which is that true justice is not accomplished by coercion or power, but by acts of mercy. Jesus would go on to accomplish the greatest justice by the greatest act of mercy: laying down his life out of love for all people, even his enemies. It wasn’t through coercion or power, but by mercy.

This way of justice is being tested and disregarded on such a grand scale in our world. The temptation to coercion and power is being widely accepted, even by those who claim to follow Jesus. All while treating acts of mercy as weak or even toxic.

I’m reminded of the quote by the American psychologist Gustave Mark Gilbert who observed high-ranking Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg trials. He said, “I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think l've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

Jesus is the Word of God who became human and dwelt among us (John 1). God experienced the fullness of human life, suffering, and death out of love for us. Yet there are those who claim to worship this very God today who claim empathy is itself an evil rather than its absence being a root of evil.

It is a broken society that lifts up bullies as heroes and treats the compassionate as if they are villains.

It is a bankrupt Christianity that gives theological justification for this absurd behavior rather than opposing it with all its theological might.

Name The False Religion Of Authoritarianism

How are we to maintain hope in a time like ours today let alone faithful determination to the truth, that justice comes through mercy, not by might or by power like Jesus did?

Well first, Jesus rejected the false way of coercive power being presented to him as truth. We must boldly do the same in our time.

The “religion” dominating the realm of political power and falsely being presented as the way of truth right now isn’t Christianity. It’s authoritarianism. This religion of authoritarianism worships an unholy trinity of fear, revenge, and greed.

This religion of authoritarianism has simply hijacked Christianity to use as a costume to masquerade around in, attempting to convince us it has been sent by God.This religion of authoritarianism has functioned as a zombie towards Christianity, devouring its mind and heart in order to turn it into an undead henchman sent to convert the hoards into those who will not stop their onslaught until their ravenous appetites of fear, revenge, and greed are satisfied.

This religion of authoritarianism sees the world as being full of enemies to be conquered rather than full of neighbors to be loved. This religion of authoritarianism is so dominated by fear towards its so called “enemies” that it will openly justify putting literal abusers, fraudsters, and hypocrites in power as long as they claim total allegiance to it and promise to vanquish their “enemies.”

This religion of authoritarianism falsely claims to “stand for truth" while dealing in the most outrageous lies all for the sake of control. Lies like Qanon, a stolen election, migrants eating pets, students being dropped off at school one gender and picked up another, political opponents controlling hurricanes, and claiming that Ukraine started the war.

The “truth” according to this religion of authoritarianism is whatever is “efficient” in the moment for its endless pursuit of power. This is why it will ardently make these “truth claims” in one moment, only to act like they never happened the next before moving on to the next outrageous lie.

This is also why it treats both the U.S. Constitution and the Bible in the same way. It will call them both “sacred” and “foundational to who we are,” yet it proceeds to chop them up in order to use only the parts that benefit its pursuit of power while downplaying or outright disregarding the parts that do not conform to its definition of “truth.”

Adherents to this religion of authoritarianism will call everyone else around them who doesn’t believe as they do a “sheep,” while being completely oblivious to how they literally shift and adjust their worldview by whatever their leaders claim in the moment. They are the most ardent champions for the same kind of tyranny from their leaders that they would rage against if their political and religious opponents were in power.

Because this religion of authoritarianism claims to uphold “true Christianity,” it shows the greatest hostility towards the gospel of Jesus and those who follow it. This is why compassion and mercy are demonized as toxic sins and those who want to encourage every sector of our world to bring good news to the poor, feed the hungry, bring healthcare to the sick, and liberate the oppressed are treated with hostility and labelled as “radical” and “woke.”

This is why it is so important for those of us who follow Jesus to continue boldly embodying his gospel. Not only out of advocacy and care for the least among us, but for the sake of our future.

We must never forget that Jesus was killed by his own for advocating these very things in his time where religion had crawled into bed with the empire. His death and resurrection brought about a movement that was unapologetically committed to nonviolence, inclusion, and helping everyone in need. It was committed to enacting justice through acts of mercy. This movement outlasted all those who thought they had “won” on the day Jesus was crucified. But the love of Jesus got the last word.

The same is true for us today. While those in power love to boast about their authority, make their chilling threats towards their enemies, and claim to stand on the side of the truth, they are part of an expiring movement and they know it. This is why they are so angry and coercive all the time. They know their movement is fragile because they do not speak for the majority. They know their movement will only survive if it is enforced by power without mercy. History tells us that such movements are never sustainable and always die by self inflicted wounds. The book of Revelation tells us that they are beasts raging against the extinction of their empires in the face of the Lamb they crucified in order to gain dominion, only to see this Lamb ushering in the kingdom of God by mercy.

We must be committed to Jesus and his work in our world trusting in the truth that love will have the last word.
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Ways I Am Trying To Do This.

1. They want us to give up. This religion of authoritarianism depends on trying to overwhelm us with its constant heartless actions and relentless boasting of power. They want us to give up, especially those of us who are committed to justice and mercy for the least among us. So I stubbornly refuse to allow this tactic to work on me. I see their arrogant roars and belligerent bearing of their teeth as the tactics of creating apathy and despair as they are and I refuse to allow them to define my mental, spiritual, and physical state of being. I refuse to allow them to have a say over my freedom. I refuse to allow them to be able to stop me from loving ALL my neighbors as myself. I reject that tactic the same way Jesus rejected the devil’s tactics. This produces a stubborn hopeful determination within me. They want us to give up, so don’t give them that satisfaction.
2. I can’t fix everything. Part of why the authoritarian’s tactic of overwhelming people can be so effective is that there is so much they are doing and so much of it is just so wrong and heartbreaking. From the dismantling of our national parks, to putting Medicaid for millions of Americans in the crosshairs, to shifting from our democratic allies in the world to tyrants, and so much more, there is so much that is breaking that needs fixing. So anyone who actually sees how devastating the consequences of all these things can be can be overcome by despair. The way I have been responding to this is by focusing on the things I can do well and support others who are focusing on other things they do well but I can’t. This has brought a renewed energy to my work and creative avenues for supporting others in their work.
3. Treat social media and news like a job. This advice was so important to me as I started working online more often and I have given a lot more serious attention to it in light of all that is happening. I can sometimes feel like if I’m not constantly paying attention to social media or breaking news that I am not caring enough about what is going on. This isn’t true. I care deeply and making myself burned out by constant news and social media consumption isn’t going to allow me to care for others well, including myself. So I am treating social media and news consumption like a job. I can check news updates periodically between the hours of 9-5, but once I’m “off” I stay off until the next day. This has had remarkable mental health benefits and allows me to be completely present with my family, which is so important.
4. You are not alone. Our world has become increasingly isolating already and the division we are experiencing now only intensifies that reality. So I’m fighting against it. I have been connecting with people as much as my time allows. Whether it is having a new friend over for coffee, joining a group of community leaders to discuss the state of local and national affairs over good food, or just calling someone in the thick of doing good work to give them support, I have been trying to stay connected with the people in my life. This not only helps me to learn so many different perspectives on what is happening in our world, but it reminds me that I am not alone and there really are so many people pursing justice by acts of mercy. So find them in your world too and join them.