We are there in failure, as the ones who have succumbed to temptation. Again and again we have fallen, joined gladly in alliance with the tempter’s desires. The temptation narrative does not underwrite a Manichean vision of an eternal, divine struggle against evil. The narrative draws us to the awful condition of our collective weakness, yet the wilderness struggle and victory anticipates a possibility: a people joined to the body of Jesus who can overcome the temptations of evil.
