Choosing Life
Automakers have always offered their models with multiple powertrain options and at multiple price points, but the difference seems more profound these days. You can buy a Ford Mustang with 300 horsepower or 760 horsepower, or basically anything in between. Buying a new Porsche 911 could cost you anywhere between $100,000 and $300,000. A new C-class could be a comfy sedan that takes you safely to church or a fire-breathing coupe that’s ready to send you directly to jail for breaking the speed limit.
For 30 years and counting, the Mercedes-Benz C-series has been an official nameplate, and the current generation truly offers something for everyone. Options include:
The Mercedes-Benz C300, with a 241-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder engine and a base price of $43,000.
The Mercedes-AMG C43, with a 362-horsepower turbocharged V6 engine and five drive modes (but, crucially, no “race” or “competition” mode).
The Mercedes-Benz C63 S AMG, with a 503-horsepower twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8, only available with rear-wheel drive.
Any of these options offer the same gorgeous dual-screen interior that debuted in the S-class in 2017. They all have naming conventions that make no sense. And they all attempt to quell buyer’s remorse by offering you plenty of satisfaction in the highly specific market segment they occupy.
In Deuteronomy, the Israelites were moments away from finally entering into Canaan, The Promised Land. It was a culmination of generations of promises, expectations, and hype. The Israelites experience was no different from the human experience: Everyone anticipates some specific blessing or pleasure – something that will make their life feel good: What will we grow in Canaan? What will we wear in Canaan? How will we hang out and party in Canaan? Since the Israelites didn’t have a great track record with managing change, freedom, and temptation, Moses painstakingly spelled out God’s law a second time and breathlessly urged them to make the necessary choices that lead to life in God:
“See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess… This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19-20)
With the mandate to “choose life,” a person’s decision-making process becomes completely reordered. Think of The Promised Land as your Promised Life, and God’s directive through Moses becomes applicable to you: Your Promised Life becomes a place where your pursuit of life is centered on purpose, not pleasure. Disputes become opportunities to determine how you and your community can value and esteem all life, not an opportunity to gain something at someone else’s expense.
“The life I yearn for” turns into “The life God yearns for me to yearn for.” “The things that bring me pleasure” become “Things God uses to bring his pleasure into my life,” and “My pursuit of high standards,” which is what brings faithful Mercedes-Benz buyers into showrooms, becomes “My sober pursuit of values that reveal God’s perfection and help me explain God’s perfection to people in my life.”
After all, this fifth book of the Bible captures the pure, simple essence of the first four: love. Martin Luther summarized Deuteronomy’s 34 chapters as pure expression of faith and love. “Yet this explanation in the fifth book really contains nothing else than faith toward God and love toward one’s neighbor, for all God’s laws come to that.”
Choose life. With faith in God, love for your neighbor is possible, and decision-making that celebrates life is purposeful and beautiful.
There’s nothing “6.3” about the C63 S AMG. Nothing mechanical could have any measurement, in any unit, arriving at 6.3. The number hearkens back to the massive 6.3-liter V8, first used in the Type 600 “Grosser Mercedes” of 1963 and later in the 300SEL 6.3. These models invented the ‘Bahn-burning, rocket-powered living room aesthetic that the best Mercedes-Benz products have embodied ever since. This makes the C63 S AMG like a reiteration of the Law of Mercedes-Benz, and choosing it is like choosing to honor the life of one of the greatest car companies of all time.
