Section Six Take-Home Essay

The Temptation of Jesus (Luke 4:1-13) Jesus goes into the desert to fast and pray for forty days where he is tempted by the devil. The devil promises Jesus many things including "all this power and all this glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish." But, Jesus replied saying "You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test." Then when Satan had finished every temptation he left.
Jesus responded to Satan's temptations responding that the Lord is supposed to be your only God. Other than him you should not worship anything. Jesus rejected Satan's gifts never giving in to his wishes and never denying his own divinity or denying the Lord as his God. This put a huge amount of trust in what he believed in without giving in to Satan's temptations where he offered all of the power and money in the world. Shouldnt we try to live like Jesus did nowadays? Shouldnt we reject all the power and money that the world of the "Merchants of Cool" offers us and instead try to maintain ourselves and moral beings?

The Cleansing of the Temple (Matthew 21:12-17) Jesus enters the temple in Jerusalem and, seeing the large amount of selling and buying of goods going on in the temple, begins to overturn the tables of the exchangers proclaiming "my house shall be a house of prayer, but you are making a den of thieves." The scribes and the Pharisees see Jesus destroying the temple and are outeraged, but some young children cry out in praise: "Hossana to the Son of David!"
Jesus removes all of the materialistic bartering going on in the temple through force even though should not have had too. Jesus goes into an outrage over the lack of respect that the merchants have for the temple and the Lord it is supposed to hold. Through his actions Jesus reestablishes that worship is not based on how much money one is willing to give but how much spirit one puts into their prayers but how much one truly and actually worships what he has and what his blessings are that he received from God. Jesus reestablishes thankfullness for what God gives us as a key theme in Christianity.

The Question About Fasting (Mark 2:18-22) The followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees come to Jesus asking him why he and his followers do not fast like they do. Jesus responds to them in parables in metaphors. One being that of a bridegroom and wedding guests. Jesus said "can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken from them, and then they will fast on that day."
Jesus response to the Pharisees and the followers of John the Baptist shows that he has chosen to live a life of rejoicing. Jesus has chosen to rejoice for everything he has in the world and in turn allows his followers to do so too. Jesus' life of rejoicing is essential to his life of love. If Jesus and his followers did not rejoice everything about the world around them, would they really have been able to follow the commandment of love that is essential to their faith and beliefs? I believe that following God's commandment of rejoicing is important also for us in order for us to live happy lives where we can follow the Commandments of love of self, love of others, and love of God.

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