Years ago Nikos Kazantzakis wrote a book with this title, which was later made into a very controversial film. Kazantzakis’ idea was that at the last-minute Jesus dreamed that he had avoided the crucifixion and settled down to a normal country life with Mary Magdalen. When he awoke, he realized that it was but a dream and decided to go through with his crucifixion. He chose to deny the final temptation to have a normal life but to go ahead and die for the sins of the world.
My own understanding of Jesus’ “last temptation” would be quite different. As I see it, according to a good deal of the Gospel writings and those of Paul, they believed that Jesus thought he was some sort of “Super Star” dying for the sins of the world. On the contrary, my own reading of the accepting way he received the judgment of the Jewish leaders and Pilate without protest or comment shows clearly that he did not view himself and his death as some sort dramatic and cosmic “payoff” for the sins of humankind.
Moreover, a close reading of what is now called the “Q Gospel”, namely the passages where Matthew, Luke, and Mark all agree almost verbatim, while leaving out the rest of those Gospels, shows that Jesus’ message and mission was an effort to teach humanity how to live and worship God, not that of dying on the cross for the sins of the world. Indeed, the main content of those coinciding passages of the three Gospels is what we call the “Sermon on the Mount”, which focuses on Jesus’s ethical teachings. The passages which tell of the death and resurrection of Jesus are not included. (Cf. Matthew 5-7)
In my view, then, the last temptation that the Jesus of the “Q Gospel” faced would have to become some sort of “magical savior”. The real test of the teaching of Jesus is focused in verses like “Love your enemies”, “You pay taxes on mint, dill, and cumin, but you ignore justice, mercy, and honesty,” and “Those who praise themselves will be humbled. Those who humble themselves will be praised”, “Treat people as you would like them to treat you.” Or as in the story of the Roman Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his sick servant, when the Centurion told Jesus he trusted him implicitly, Jesus said: “I tell you nowhere in Israel have I found such faith.”
In the end the last words of Jesus were “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Never once did he talk back to his persecutors. He took all that they dished out to him silently. In the account of the Jesus washing his disciples’ feet he placed himself in the role of a servant and said to Peter, who objected to having Jesus wash his feet, “If you will not let me do this, you have no part in me.” He came to give his life for others, and to thereby teach us how to serve each other. Thus, he avoided the last temptation.
When one reads the final accounts of the Jesus story in each of the Gospels it becomes clear that there was a great deal of confusion about who saw what, who did what, and what it all meant. In my view the writers (compilers?) of these final events were both confused and under a good deal of pressure to come up with an account that made sense and cohered with the then traditional theology. They were all written many years after the events in question. The Q document focuses on the Sermon on the Mount, in short on Jesus’ more radical teachings about how to live a life pleasing to God. In addition, if we read Q as a separate document, it leaves out all the ‘extra” material about Jesus’ miracles and conflicts with the Romans.
In my view, then, Jesus avoided the “last temptation” to become a “hero” by sticking to his teachings about what a life committed to God really looks like. In his opening chapter the author of John’s Gospel says: “We beheld his glory, full of grace and truth.” That’s enough for me.

Some of you may remember the book about this groundbreaking, hands-on version of the Christian message back in the 1940s through 1970. A guy named Clarence Jordan started a movement known as the “Koinonia Farm Experiment” in southern Georgia in 1942 during World War Two. He had the radical idea that the faith Jesus was talking about should apply directly to our daily work and lives. The idea caught on and out of those who joined in came a number of programs in the south. Naturally enough such concerns and activities got the group into a whole host of difficulties, especially with the Ku Klux Klan.
The details of how this community worked and what they accomplished are spelled out in the book by Dallas Lee entitled The Cotton Patch Evidence. The New Testament Greek term “Koinonia” means “fellowship” or “community”. The main drive of the movement was to improve and enhance the work of poor farmers in the South, the vast majority of whom were black. The Koinonia folks were themselves almost entirely white, so this mission was hobbled from the out-set by the standard segregation laws of that time. More to the point, the work was downright opposed and undercut by the common values of most southern farmers as well as the Klan itself.
However, there were a number of significant supporters among the white churches, notably Will Campbell and President Jimmie Carter, as well as numerous church groups throughout both the South and the North. In essence, what Clarence Jordan sought to do was to undercut the strangle hold the raciest people en of the south had on the lives and livelihood of black farmers. He and his cohorts continually sought for and applied techniques and programs that fought against the racist policies of Southern cities and states, as well as the Federal government. The evidence was then spirit-filled Government, whenever the racists policies contradicted those of Biblical Christianity.
One of the more well-known quotations from the pen of Clarence Jordan is: “Never did Paul or Peter or Stephen point to an empty tomb as evidence of the resurrection. The evidence was the spirit-filled fellowship.” It would seem clear that Dallas Lee, the writer of the book The Cotton Patch Evidence, used this quotation as the inspiration for the book title. Jordan himself, like many of those who chose to work with him, was something of an academic dropout, after having earned several theological degrees at more than one theological Seminary, several of which were Southern Baptist.
After many tumultuous years the Koinonia movement fell on harder times. It was then that it received a second breath of wind from a Northerner named Millard Fuller. Fuller revitalized the energy of Clarence Jordan and things became alive again. Things for the Community continued on until Clarence Jordan’s death in 1970. Indeed, it even continued on under fresh leadership and continues on still today In Americus, Georgia under various fresh leadership and with increasingly new products.