1. To the "beginning" of Jesus' messianic mission belongs another fact - so interesting and suggestive for us - narrated by the evangelists, who make it depend on the action of the Holy Spirit: it is the "desert experience". We read in the Gospel according to Mark: "Immediately after (the baptism) the Spirit drove him into the desert" (Mk 1:12). Furthermore, Matthew (Mt 4:1) and Luke (Lk 4:1) say that Jesus "was led by the Spirit into the desert". These texts offer us various insights that stimulate us to further investigate the mystery of the intimate union of Jesus the Messiah with the Holy Spirit, right from the beginning of the work of redemption.

First of all, an observation of a linguistic order: the verbs used by the evangelists ("he was led" for Matthew and Luke, "he moved him" for Mark) express a particularly energetic initiative on the part of the Holy Spirit. It is fully grafted into the logic of the spiritual life and Jesus' own psychology: he has received a 'baptism of penance' from John, and therefore feels the need for a period of reflection and austerity (even though he personally has no need of penance, being 'full of grace' and 'holy' from the moment of his conception, in preparation for his messianic ministry.

His mission also demands that he live among sinful men, whom he is sent to evangelise and save, struggling with the power of the devil. Hence the appropriateness of this stop in the desert "to be tempted by the devil". Jesus therefore indulges the inner urge and goes where the Holy Spirit wills.

2. The desert, besides being the place of encounter with God, is also the place of temptation and spiritual struggle. During their wandering through the desert, which lasted for forty years, the people of Israel had experienced many temptations and had also succumbed to them. Jesus goes into the wilderness almost reconnecting with the historical experience of his people. But, unlike the behaviour of Israel, he is above all docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, who asks him from within that definitive preparation for the fulfilment of his mission. It is a period of solitude and spiritual trial, which he overcomes with the help of God's word and prayer.

In the spirit of the biblical tradition, and in line with Israelite psychology, that number of "forty days" could easily be linked with other ancient events, full of meaning for the history of salvation: the forty days of the Flood (Gen 7:4. 17); the forty days of Moses' stay on the mountain (Ex 24:18); the forty days of Elijah's journey, refreshed by the prodigious bread that had given him new strength (1 Kings 19:8). According to the evangelists, Jesus, under the motion of the Holy Spirit, adapts himself, as far as his stay in the desert is concerned, to this traditional and almost sacred number. He will do the same for the period in which he will appear to the apostles between the resurrection and the ascension into heaven (cf. Acts 1:3).

3. Jesus is therefore led into the desert, so that he may face the temptations of Satan and have a freer and more intimate contact with the Father. Here we must also bear in mind that in the Gospels the desert is presented several times as the place where Satan dwells: suffice it to recall Luke's passage about the "unclean spirit", who "when he comes out of man, wanders about in barren places seeking rest . . ."; and the other about the possessed Gerasen, who "was driven by the devil into deserted places" (Lk 11:24; 8:29).

In the case of Jesus' temptations, the drive into the wilderness comes from the Holy Spirit and first of all signifies the beginning of a demonstration - one can even say a new awareness - of the struggle that he will have to conduct to the end against Satan, the author of sin. By defeating his temptations, he thus manifests his own saving power over sin and the coming of the kingdom of God, as he will one day say: "If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come among you" (Mt 12:28).

Also in this power of Christ over evil and Satan, also in this "coming of the kingdom of God" through the work of Christ, there is the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

4. If we look closely, in the temptations suffered and overcome by Jesus during the "desert experience", we can see Satan's opposition to the coming of the kingdom of God in the human world, directly or indirectly expressed in the texts of the evangelists. The answers given by Jesus to the tempter unmask the essential intentions of the "father of lies" (Jn 8:44), who perversely attempts to use the words of Scripture to achieve his ends. But Jesus refutes him on the basis of God's own word, correctly applied. 

The evangelists' narrative perhaps includes some reminiscences and establishes a parallelism both with the similar temptations of the people of Israel during their forty years of wandering in the desert (the search for nourishment; the claim of divine protection to satisfy oneself; idolatry), and with various moments in the life of Moses. But the episode is specifically part of the story of Jesus, one might say, because of its biographical and theological logic. Although he was free from sin, Jesus was able to know the external seductions of evil: and it was good that he was tempted in order to become the new Adam, our leader, our merciful redeemer.

At the bottom of all temptations was the prospect of a political and glorious messianism, such as had spread and penetrated the soul of the people of Israel. The devil tries to induce Jesus to accept this false prospect, because he is the adversary of God's plan, of his law, of his economy of salvation, and therefore of Christ, as is evident from the Gospel and the other New Testament writings. If even Christ were to fall, the empire of Satan, who boasts of being the master of the world (cf. Lk 4:5-6), would have the final victory in history. That moment of the struggle in the wilderness is therefore decisive.

5. Jesus knows that he has been sent by the Father to introduce the kingdom of God into the world of men. For this purpose he, on the one hand, accepts to be tempted, to take his place among sinners, as he had already done on the Jordan, so as to be an example to all. But, on the other hand, by virtue of the "anointing" of the Holy Spirit, he reaches the very roots of sin and defeats the one who is the "father of lies" (Jn 8:44). Therefore, he voluntarily encounters temptation from the very beginning of his ministry, going along with the prompting of the Holy Spirit (cf. St. Augustine, De Trinitate, 4, 13; 13, 13).

One day, with the completion of his work, he will be able to proclaim: 'Now is the judgment of this world; now the prince of this world shall be cast out'. And on the eve of his passion he will repeat once more: "The prince of the world comes; he has no power over me"; indeed, "The prince of this world has (already) been judged"; "Have confidence: I have overcome the world". The struggle against the "father of lies", who is the "prince of this world" (Jn 12, 31; 14, 30; 16, 11. 33), begun in the desert, will reach its climax on Golgotha: the victory will come through the cross of the Redeemer.

6. We are thus reminded of the integral value of the desert as the place of a particular experience of God, such as it had been for Moses and Elijah, and such as it is above all for Jesus, who, "led" by the Holy Spirit, accepts to have the same experience: contact with God the Father in contrast to the powers opposed to God. His experience is exemplary, and can also serve us as a lesson on the need for penance, not for Jesus who was without sin, but for us all. Jesus himself will one day admonish his disciples on the necessity of prayer and fasting to drive out "unclean spirits" (cf. Mk 9:29), and in the tension of solitary prayer in Gethsemane he will recommend to the apostles present: "Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation; the spirit is ready but the flesh is weak" (Mk 14:38). Conforming ourselves to the victorious Christ in the desert experience, we know that we too will have a divine comforter: the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, for Jesus promised that he will "take of his own" and give it to us (cf. Jn 16:14): he will take of Christ's victory over sin and Satan, his first maker, to give it to anyone who is tempted, he who led the Messiah into the desert not only "to be tempted", but also so that he might give the first proof of his victorious power over the devil and his kingdom.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 21 July 1990]