Mark 1:12,13 - The Spirit drove Him into the wilderness

1:12

Mark writes in a very dynamic style, and that is nowhere more clear than here. “The Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness”. Matthew 4:1 has a much gentler “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness”. Luke 4:1 also has Jesus being “led” by the Spirit, but Mark has the Spirit driving Jesus into the wilderness, and doing so immediately. Jesus was going to be tested, but this was no accident, it was part of the deliberate and definite plan of God. Maybe Mark had in mind the situation that Roman Christians would face. The Greco-Roman world was something of a moral cesspit with many temptations, and someone who had just become a Christian would face many temptations. Much the same as happens today! The Spirit seeks to build character in us, to enable us to overcome the world (John 16:33).

1:13

Matthew and Luke give details of three specific temptations that Jesus faced in the desert. Mark simply says that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days and was tempted by Satan. The forty days can be seen as somehow parallel to the forty years the Israelites spent in the wilderness. Mark does not even say that Jesus did not give in to the temptation, though that is implicit. “He was with the wild animals” stresses the aloneness of Jesus. He was on His own resisting the temptations. But also the angels were “ministering to Him”. Matthew 4:11 has the angels coming to Him after the devil has left. There can be times when we feel very alone, and note that the temptations that Jesus faced were not what we might normally think of as temptation, eg sexual temptations. We can have difficult decisions to make, or difficult circumstances to face, and we can feel alone. Jesus has been there, and He won. And even in those circumstances angels may minister to us.