a mountain top experience

Matthew 4:8-11

This is the last of the recorded temptations that Jesus faced at the beginning of the public ministry phase of his life. In this temptation, Jesus is taken by Satan up a mountain and is shown all the kingdoms of the world. Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms if he will simply make a small compromise and bow down and worship him once.
This would have been a huge temptation for Jesus, especially if (as it seems) he was aware of God's plan to ransom the kingdom's of this world: the cross with all its pain and humiliation plus the fact that Jesus, the sinless one, would take on himself all the sin of the world. Satan was offering him a short cut.
The temptation would have been even bigger because after all Jesus would go through, people would still have a choice to submit to him. Satan's plan would not only mean that he wouldn't have to suffer physically, emotionally and spiritually but that all people would have to submit. This was a tempation to be powerful.
Man, have we fallen for this temptation! Christians through out history, right up to the present (the moral majority, anyone?) have been seduced by the possibility of power and I have yet to see where it worked out very well. I remember as a young kid I wanted to become PM of Canada and make it a truly Christian nation but forcing everyone to either submit to Christ or leave. Take it easy on me, I was young and immature and didn't see the inherent contradiction between being Christian and using force. I've matured, I hope.
But maybe we haven't. I see it in the Western Canadian Evangelical churches voting predominantly Conservative because we've been told we will have a voice at the table. I see it in the states with the promises the Bush administration sold to gain the support of the Evangelical movement (and the catering to that base with the appointment of Palin as VP candidate). Have we learned nothing from history? Do we honestly think we'd do better with our power than the State churches of the Middle Ages and earlier? Are we that arrogant?
May Jesus be our model and our example of how to speak to the culture and stand up for what is good and right and just without being sucked in by the attraction of power.