The Bends
Again, the devil took [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” – Matthew 4:8-9 (NRSV)
The greater the pressure on your body, the more gas will be dissolved in your various internal liquids; likewise, less pressure, less gas. Move from high pressure to low pressure too quickly—from deep in the ocean to the surface, say, or from sea level to a mountaintop—and the change will cause so much gas to come out of your liquids that it forms bubbles. These bubbles will ruin your day, giving you a range of symptoms, from extreme confusion to debilitating pain.
The first time Satan tempts Jesus is roughly at sea level; soon, they’re at top of a mountain. Of course, they’re up there for the tempting view, but these heights are dizzying. What if the devil flew Jesus up there to so confuse and pain him that he would give in? What if he was trying to get Jesus to bend by giving him the bends??
Course it didn’t work. Jesus had been studying and reading, learning and memorizing and internalizing the scriptures of his people for his whole life. They’d made their way to his very core.
Decompression sickness is so painful, they say, that it doubles even the strongest people over in pain. But not even the bends could take from Jesus what he’d made his center. When pain and confusion stripped everything away and left him bent in half, what was left was the words and the Word. And at least this time, that was enough.
Prayer
So fill me with your Word and your words that not even the bends can take them away. Amen.
About the AuthorQuinn G. Caldwell is Chaplain of the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University. His most recent book is a series of daily reflections for Advent and Christmas called All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Learn more about it and find him on Facebook at Quinn G. Caldwell.