What would you pay?
Would you pay $250 for a signed piece of sports memorabilia? If you would, I have my four finger glove I used when I played softball for the Happy Pipers 4-H club. I would be glad to sign it. We were a team of some note. We won Polk County B league championships in 1954 and 1957. Still won’t bite? Then perhaps the Kurt Warner signed St. Louis Rams helmet that I saw in a store at the mall is more to your liking. Furthermore, it’s priced just right. Not $250, but the low, low price of $249.99.
The second temptation provided by the devil in the gosp0el lesson for this Sunday is similar. Matthew reports that the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain. Luke, however, writes, “And the devil took him up.” I never noticed that before. It solves the problem of finding a mountain high enough to see all the kingdoms of the world. If that kind of thing is a problem. In Luke, the devil simply, simple for Jesus and the devil, took Jesus up. Does Luke mean into the air where they could hang suspended and view the whole world? We have a TV channel that gives us a satellite view of the world rotating below. If they just kind of hung out in the stratosphere that presents other problems. Jesus was not only the Son of God, but also the son of Mary. He needed oxygen and he since he was flesh and blood he would have frozen solid. Perhaps Fred Danker is correct. Mountain may not have mentioned a mountain because mountains are sites for God’s revelations.
In any case, the devil showed him all the wonders, power and glory of the world in a sp.lit second. Then he makes Jesus an offer. The devil’s words are similar to words that Caesar spoke, “When Mars has done this work, I am the one with power to give what kings and nations now possess.” Later, Nero said, “I have power to take away kingdoms and to bestow them.”
The devil claims to have power “as god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) to hand out kingdoms to whomever he will, provided they pay the price. Jesus can have it all for the bargain basement price of switching sides from his Father to an underling, the devil. After all, Jesus is the son of Adam who was the first son of God. If the devil could get the first son of God to barter away his life for a piece of fruit, then why not try the same gambit with the second Son of God? All Jesus had to do was recognize the devil’s supremacy. Of course it was a bogus promise, based on a bogus certificate of ownership.
What the first Adam could not do, remain faithful to God his Father, the second Adam would do for us and for our salvation. The only one truly worthy of such adoration is heavenly Father who created the first Adam and set him on the earth and sent his own Son, the second Adam, through the womb of Mary to save all creation from the misstep of Adam I.
A hymn verse we sang this morning is a fitting prayer.
Though parched and hungry,
Yet you prayed
And fixed your mind above;
So teach us to deny ourselves,
Since we have known God’s love. (LSB 418, 3)
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