Luke 4:1-7: a reflection

1Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness 2for forty days, being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing in those days. Afterward, when they were completed, he was hungry. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’” 5The devil, leading him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6The devil said to him, “I will give you all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I want. 7If you therefore will worship before me, it will all be yours.”

Led by the Spirit into the wilderness and fasting forty days, Jesus is hungry, and the devil begins with the most basic of needs: If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. It is a temptation to use his power to satisfy physical hunger, to put bodily need first. Jesus answers with Scripture: It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. He refuses to make physical need the first thing, affirming that we live by more than bread, by God's word.

Notice Jesus' answer: man does not live by bread alone. He does not deny that we need bread; hunger is real. But he refuses to make physical need our deepest need or first priority. We live, he says, not by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. There is a deeper hunger than the body's, a need for God and his word that bread cannot satisfy, and Jesus will not let the physical crowd out the spiritual.

That is a needed corrective in a world focused on physical and material needs. We are prone to treat our physical and material needs, food, comfort, security, provision, as the deepest and most urgent things, and to neglect the deeper hunger of the soul for God and his word. Jesus reminds us: man does not live by bread alone. Do not let the pursuit of physical and material things crowd out your deeper need for God. Feed your soul on God's word, which is as necessary to your true life as bread is to your body. You live not by bread alone, but by every word of God; do not neglect that deeper hunger.

Lord Jesus, when you were hungry in the wilderness and tempted to put physical need first, you answered that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Correct my priorities. I am prone to treat my physical and material needs, food, comfort, security, provision, as the deepest and most urgent things, and to neglect the deeper hunger of my soul for you and your word. Remind me that I do not live by bread alone. Keep the pursuit of physical and material things from crowding out my need for you. Help me feed my soul on your word, which is as necessary to my true life as bread is to my body. Satisfy my deepest hunger with yourself and your word, and let me live by every word that comes from you.