When Jesus was born he cannot have had any conception of what his vocation was. And sadly, we have only one small glimpse of his spiritual development, before his baptism; and that is the story of his being in the Temple talking to the Elders for three days, while his parents looked for him in vain. At the time of his baptism, John the Baptist suggested that their roles ought to be reversed; but Jesus demurred. So evidently, both men had some idea of what his vocation was; but we get no hint of how that came about.
All we are told is that immediately afterwards Jesus felt strongly, maybe irresistibly, moved to go into the desert, and be alone. I know the feeling; I expect we all at some time have experienced a feeling, either to do something, or to refrain from doing something, which is almost compulsive or overwhelming. Once in the desert he had plenty of time to think, to work out what kind of a Messiah he should try to be. And at first he was not apparently thinking of a Kingdom The first temptation was fair enough: to turn stones into bread. This may have been just a response to his physical hunger; or it may have been prompted by the thought that his Ministry would best reveal the Nature of God, by his being a glorified medico/social worker helping the victims of life to get back onto their feet. He would show that God cared for them, and invite them to show their appreciation by living lives acceptable to God. His Ministry would be a call to individuals.
But the other two temptations were so fantastic, that they must reflect the degree of danger that Jesus thought he was facing. And they reflect that he was thinking first in terms of Jewish society, and then in terms of a World conversion. He had progressed to thinking in terms of founding a “Kingdom”. And there was no earthly point in his preaching that “the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand”, unless he had a clear idea in his mind of what that kingdom would be like. So there is no harm in our doing the same. His was a Kingdom of Love; and the Romans could be relied on to maintain Law and Order. But the Romans have gone; they left over 1500 years ago, in case the clergy haven’t noticed. So our situation is different from that confronting Jesus, and is more like that facing Confucius. We have to maintain Law and Order. Now Confucius insisted that humaneness was the fundamental norm not only of human conduct, but of political and civilized government. Persuasion is better than coercion. Violence is the breakdown of politics; a good example removes the need for coercion. It is hardly sensible to kill those who have not “the Way”, (the Way of virtue), in order to uphold those who have the Way. But the Legalists thought that Confucian values are all very well for the few who are up to them, but the Ruler has to concern himself with the whole population; and that means coercion, because some people only understand the language of fear. In the Book of Lord Shang, war and killing are permissible so long as the aim is to abolish them! The Legalists were speaking a language, which is familiar to us today.
Anyone who remembers the Second World War knows that we escaped defeat by a hair’s breadth; and the victory of Nazi tyranny would have been the end of everything worthwhile. Someone has to keep the secular world going. If you abolished the Law Courts, a kingdom of love would not descend. Within months the gangsters would get the upper hand, and you would have terror and chaos, as William Penn found in the early years of his administration of Pennsylvania. The Christian kingdom of love may be what the soul longs for in its relationship with God, but it fails to provide a way of life to those struggling to maintain a decent just society. The man-in-the-street sees this with crystal clarity, even if Church leaders are blind to it. So he goes off to the pub or his golf club, as his tastes lie.