FAST FOOD AD 2025: Twenty-First Helping

                                                                 

FAST FOOD AD 2025: Twenty-First Helping

From the prior FAST FOODS and from what is seen in the news of the daily activity of governments across the planet, it should now be apparent why Jesus, when tempted by Satan in the desert with the offer of power over all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, rejects the offer in no uncertain terms, “Begone, Satan!” What is being offered is a chance to be a big time agent for bringing hell and its powers and spirits into the human situation. The human being Jesus, however, who has extraordinary empathy for His fellow humans, could reasonably foresee and be tempted by all the wonderful changes that those hellish powers, which Prof. Carl Friedrich shows without which the state cannot exist, i.e., “violence, deceit, betrayal, corruption and propaganda,” could do so much good in the right hands. Almost any compassionate man or woman seeing the suffering in the human condition would be tempted to go to the use of the sword or the gun or one or another of the powers of hell to change the situation. The Gospels say that Jesus was also tempted along these lines. They also communicate that while He was tempted to fight the powers of hell with the powers of hell to help people, He rejected the temptation to correct wickedness by the use of wickedness, because that would require that He would have to become an agent of hell and a servant of its diabolical master, Satan. Hence the conclusion of the Gospels temptation narrative: “Begone, Satan. For it is written, ‘You must worship the Lord your God, and Him alone must you serve.‘”

In order to illuminate the meaning of the temptation by Satan in the desert that offers to Jesus the power of the kingdoms of the world, the Catholic Biblical scholar, Rev. John L. McKenzie created in contemporary parlance the temptation dialogue between Jesus, called by his Hebrew name, Yeshu, and Satan called by his nickname, Old Nick. It reads in part as follows:

Nick: Yeshu, I have plans for mankind so big you could not understand them, smart as I think you are…[But] it takes time; it takes work and it takes good people; that is why I am here. I want you.

Yeshu: You do not want a simple village carpenter from Nazareth. Whoever came from Nazareth that amounted to anything? If you want a smart Jew, you will find plenty of them in Alexandria or even a few in Jerusalem.

Nick: Do not worry; I can give you anything you need except talent, and you have that from Adonai. Think of it, Yeshu; it is the biggest thing a man can get into, he can do more for more people, and it will last longer than anything else you could do. Yeshu, a man like you ought to think big; I can make it possible for you to do big…You will commit a sin by letting your God-given talent rot in this rat hole of Palestine.

Yeshu: And I suppose it will also give me a chance to enrich myself and make the world a better place for me to live in?

Nick: I make opportunities, and it is for you to realize them. People who work for me have to work very hard, and many of them find that success is pleasure enough…

Yeshu: Nick, I am not as smart as you are. I am just a country boy. But in Nazareth we think that no one, even a man wearing a fancy Roman toga, ever comes along and offers us something for nothing. What is your game?

Nick: All right, I will lay it on the line. What I want from you is complete and undivided loyalty, the same thing I want from everyone who works for me

Yeshu: The late king Herod—did he work for you?

Nick: Not one of my outstanding employees—but yes, he did…But I expect far more from you than I got from Herod; he had a bit of a heavy hand—no finesse, shall we say? Augustus—there was a man of whom I am proud—said that it was better to be Herod’s sow than his son.

Yeshu: Did Herod’s son and grandson work for you too?

Nick: Please do not mention those swine; I got rid of them. I demand a certain level of competence in my employees.

Yeshu: Suppose I did not want to do the kind of work for you which Herod and Augustus did—and I suppose Tiberius, the present Caesar, works for you too?

Nick: He either works for me or he is not Caesar.

Yeshu: Get lost, Nick!

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

.www.emmanuelcharlesmccarthy.org

https://www.youtube.com/@emmanuelcharlesmccarthy3292

“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Love.

Heaven and earth are full of Your glory!

Hosanna in the highest!

 Blessed is He, Who comes in the Name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest!”