12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
Mark, presenting the details from Peter's perspective, does not even tell about the three main temptations described by Matthew and Luke. He sounds like me when I get off a fifteen minute telephone conversation and when my wife asks what it was about, I summarize in one sentence. But he does add in some details. First, the Spirit not only led Jesus out there; he drove Him. The Son of God was not used to being subject to living in territory steeped in sin; He had seen all around him the effects of sin in people's lives, and it's not very appealing. The Holy Spirit not only helped Him through it; He led Him to it, because all three of the members of the Godhead were working on the plan of salvation. Secondly, he was with the wild animals. Not many of us are wilderness survivors. There was not much food available in this barren desert area, so seeing another moving object could be a fearful thing. Besides being hungry, tired, and lonely, the mind games that everything around you was out to get you would be very real. And Satan never let up. Mark does not paint a picture of temptation, or even a scrapbook of photos; it's more like a documentary video; "being tempted" indicates a constant motion. What Jesus faced was much more intense, much more extensive in forty days than any of us experience in forty years, yet He came through it and more without sin.
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