What stands out most in the account of the Savior’s temptation in the wilderness is Satan’s powerlessness. The temptations to which we so easily fall victim prove insignificant to Christ. The Savior rejects putting one’s own interests first—ultimately, the interests of one’s own stomach—by saying that the true source of life for a human being is the Word of God. He rejects the thirst for power that consumes people regardless of era or culture by pointing to God’s unassailable sovereignty over creation. When invited to use the Creator magically as an instrument, the Savior responds by showing reverence for the holiness of the Almighty.

The apostle Paul will say that Christ is the new Adam. The renewal of the human race in Christ consists above all in this: His faith and faithfulness to the Father prove stronger and more important than temptations, which appear petty and empty before Him. His victory over darkness begins from the very moment Christ refuses to yield to temptation.

The problem of insiders and outsiders has always existed, in every society and every culture. Everywhere and always it has turned out that it is better to be an insider than an outsider. But then the Messiah came into the world, and it turned out that everything was not so simple. It turned out that an insider is not necessarily someone we know. Most often it is someone we think we know. And this is understandable: we perceive our own people as part of the familiar and known world. There is no need to look closely at them, and no need to listen carefully to their words. In general, we already know more or less what our own people can tell us.

Outsiders are another matter. An outsider is always someone you do not know. Someone who is not part of the known and familiar world, and here it does not matter where he is from: another continent or the neighboring village. Outsiders are often rejected, but they are always looked at closely. People listen to what they say. Not necessarily in a friendly way, but always attentively. After all, an outsider has to be understood. Or at least explained to oneself. Explanation is often an illusion of understanding. Understanding presupposes the perception of another person as he is. Explanation begins when we perceive this other person as we want to see him, so that he will fit within the bounds of our perception of the world familiar and known to us.

Christ can and must be accepted as He is. And He can and must be understood too - also as He is. But He does not need to be explained. Not to ourselves and not to others. Provided, of course, that we want to communicate with Christ and not with our images of Christ. And here it turns out that it is easier for those to whom He is an outsider. They know nothing about Him. His own people also know nothing about Him, but they think they know everything. Unlike outsiders, who at least are not mistaken about their ignorance. And it is this way not only with Him.

It is this way with God too. With His heavenly Father. It is no accident that Jesus gives examples from ancient Jewish history of God's not being recognized by His own people. A failure to recognize Him that separates people from God. And from the Messiah too. For God or the Messiah to begin to act, a person must want it. And must turn directly to God. Directly to Christ. But not to those images of God or Christ that he has invented for himself. Otherwise even the Kingdom may turn out to be unreal. Imagined. And so may life in it.

What is the Savior's temptation in the wilderness? Why did it become possible? The simple and traditional answer is that He, while remaining Man in His divinity, could be subjected to temptation by the devil just like any person. But this is only part of the answer. Every temptation is a test; in Greek (and also in Hebrew), both concepts are denoted by one word. So what was the meaning of the test?

Jesus is the Messiah, and the test was, obviously, connected precisely with His messianic ministry. More exactly, with the possibility of distorting that ministry and thereby making it meaningless. Distorting it just as the devil had already managed to distort it in the minds of many believing Jews, those who expected a miracle-working Messiah, a Messiah who would provide His subjects with complete abundance - of course, on earth, in our world, still by no means transfigured and lying in evil. In fact, this is exactly what the devil proposes that the Savior do: turn stones into bread; demonstrate miracles connected with superhuman abilities hidden in human nature.

But the main temptation lies elsewhere: the devil offers Jesus a deal. He tries to assure the Savior that the world in fact belongs to him, the devil, and not to God. And that the Kingdom must be negotiated with him, with the devil, if Jesus, of course, wants His Kingdom to have any place in the world at all. The devil tempts the Savior with the very same thing with which he tempts every person doing God's work; that is why the description of this temptation is important for us. If He were tempted in some special way, invented only for the Messiah, the story of His temptations would be interesting to us only theoretically. And, of course, biographically, as a most important episode of Christ's earthly ministry.

But one way or another, in one form or another, all this awaits any of us if we are Christians and want to follow Christ on His path. To substitute something for the Kingdom and its life - whether the illusory possibility of universal earthly prosperity or the development of superhuman abilities. And if that does not work, then to offer a deal, a compromise that will shield us from problems and troubles on the Christian path in a world lying in evil. Each of us has to resist these temptations. Throughout our earthly journey. Provided, of course, that our earthly journey really is a continuation of His path. The path of the Kingdom, running through a world lying in evil.