Jesus the Spiritual Ip Man

Satan is like the fighter with the shaved head in Ip Man. Before Jesus came, he overpowered any human being in temptation. Ever since the time of Genesis 3:1-7, humans have lost and kept losing against the Devil in "spiritual kung fu matches" (fighting against temptation) and could not successfully overcome Satan's moves fully. Any human, even Old Testament "hall-of-famers" like Abraham, Moses, and David, as devoted to God as they were, still failed and sinned. Satan, the "master" of evil-kung fu in tempting and seducing humans into sin, had 3000+ years of unstoppable victory overcoming every human and getting them to sin with his evil spiritual kung fu attacks. Likewise, the fighters of Fo Shan, Ip Man's town, were well trained in their martial arts. But this shaved head guy came to them and defeated them one by one. As good as they were, the shaved head guy fought and beat every one of them. It seemed like there was no one who could match him. There was no hope.

Until, one day, the shaved head fighter faced the Great Ipman. Likewise, one day, Satan "faced off" with master-Jesus when Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted by him (Matthew 4:1-10). Satan was probably cocky at the time. He had a winning streak of 3000+ years of successfully getting millions (perhaps billions?) of humans to sin. He was undefeated. Not even one could successfully defend himself/herself against all temptations and defeat his dark spiritual kung fu. Until one  day, Jesus was born. And he grew in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52) trained and learned obedience to God until he was "perfect"(Hebrews 5:8-9). Like Ip Man, when Jesus faced off with the great master-tempter Satan, he successfully defended himself against all powerful temptations of Satan and overcame his attacks. Satan had no hold on him (John 14:30), because he could never get him to sin. Jesus was so cool and awesome he overcame Satan. Finally humankind had a human who could defeat Satan's temptations, be perfect, and make Satan "lose face" and redeem the honour and image of God in humankind to God.

I suspect that each of the 3 temptations in those 40 days in the desert perhaps lasted anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. I used to browse the temptation of Jesus and think each lasted a couple seconds. But each temptation was probably an extended spiritual kung-fu match that took at least a few minutes, perhaps a few hours. It was epic. I can imagine "intense fighting background music". One on one baby. Before Satan made his move, I imagine Jesus in one corner, and Satan in the other, each making their own prepare-to-fight stances. Then Satan made his moves and Jesus defended himself against every one of them, embarassing the evil kung fu master Satan. Master Jesus is so cool and awesome because he defeated Satan. Since demons weren't used to seeing Satan lose, like how the shaved man's cronies weren't used to seeing their leader lose, perhaps a bystander demon had his mouth/jaw open like the guy in 3:10 of this clip.

So wicked.

Thank you Jesus, for being perfect in never sinning, always defeating Satan when he tried dark spiritual kung fu on you in tempting you, so that you could be the perfect sacrifice, redeem and save humankind, and teach us how to follow in your footsteps to increasingly overcome sinful temptations in our own lives!