How would you describe the power struggle going on in this story [in the devil’s desire to tempt Jesus]? … d. This power struggle is no different than those we face daily. (Serendipity Bible 10th anniversary edition, page 1342).
The most important factor in the story of the devil and Jesus is that Jesus is not afraid to offend the devil. This enables him to escape self-imposed duress and stress. That marks the great difference between Jesus and what most of us often find ourselves doing when we are in dicey situations – we walk on eggs and are less than open and frank because we do not wish to offend or to appear uncooperative and controlling.
There is a type of perverse human interaction that is dependent upon just such unease. In the world there can be two types of people—those that like to fuck others and those that like to get fucked. Often there is a misconstruing of the latter by the former. The latter may not wish to be exploited, but are loath to offend. Simultaneously, they can wish to avoid appearing controlling to the extent that their behavior approaches irresponsibility. They realize that if they are the ones being fucked, then they can appear to be the victim and thus relieved of responsibility or blame. This plays right into the hands of the exploiter who exhilarates in his controlling, fucker status. In our Bible story there is no doubt that the devil wishes to fuck Jesus, but he’s in for a surprise because Jesus doesn’t wish to be fucked and doesn’t mind offending the devil with the flat-out truth of the matter. When our time of testing comes, I pray that we have the courage and righteousness to speak up and offend.
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