 |
From: Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry |
Jesus gathered his first followers as He walked around the lake. He called them to follow Him and to be His collaborators ("I'll make you fishers of men."). I also follow Him and in faith I begin a new adventure, my Holy Journey.
Jesus stops at Capernaum, a large city, and goes to the synagogue. He's given permission to do the teaching; He's already known in town and people heard about Him and respected Him enough to invite Him to teach. We are not told what He was saying. Perhaps some of his radical ideas were already being preached; we know that people recognized in His words something different, something new. Jesus knows what He's talking about and His teaching, somehow, connects to life making it more meaningful, more bearable, more ... alive. This preaching is contrasted with that of "the other guys," who, according to what we know, just recited quotes and notes of other great Rabbis. Jesus' preaching is sees as fully of "authority" not because He was telling or ordering them what to do but because He was telling them how to live. As a preacher I find myself challenged to take a look at my form of preaching and do an "examination of conscience."
I am sure their preaching was interesting but apparently it didn't move anyone; in the midst of the congregation there is a man with an unclean spirit. What is an unclean spirit doing in a place of worship? Is it possible that he was so comfortable there? We certainly have to admit that evil is a reality and "it" can live in our midst, even in places where we think would be safe from its influence. Thinking that our Churches are off-limit to demons is foolish. The fight between good and evil has no demilitarized zone. Confronted with a life fully lived, the unclean spirit can't take it anymore and engages Jesus' teaching.
It's interesting to see that the evil spirit reacted only at the teaching and words of Jesus; this is another example of the power of the Word of God: it makes us aware of our "little demons," those ugly things we carry with us. The more we strive to live the Word the more Jesus gives us the power to face our own evil and eventually He takes our demons out.
This man was "filled with" an evil spirit. It's a spirit that stands against all that God desires for us. While Jesus has come to give us life, demons take our life and, although they promise to give us all that we want, we always find ourselves diminished, belittled and all together "less human" than we were before. Every time we are "filled" with our own pride, our own points of view, with all that goes against God and His vision for all of us, we have to question ourselves if we need to start again. We need to pray that God will allow us to see more clearly what fills our hearts....
"What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us?" How many times we also think that Jesus has nothing to do with us, nothing to do with our lives. We put Him somewhere on a shelf and expect Him to stay there until the following Sunday. But Jesus has a lot to do with us! A lot to do with our everyday life, and Yes! He has come to destroy all that our pride has created, all that separates us from others, from God and from ourselves.
"I know who you are...." Even the devils know who Jesus is. In the story of the Temptations, we learned that the devils even know the Bible. Knowledge by itself cannot do much, we need to live what we know. This is the difference between us and the demons. We can live the life of Grace. They can't.
Jesus takes care of the demon with very few words. "Be quite!" or "Be muzzled." Demons confuse us by making us think and talk too much. We need to "have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16). And we can only have it if we fill it with His Word and constantly meditate upon them and act accordingly. Falsehood is not defeated by arguing with it but by standing on the Truth. And the Truth for us is a person who left us His Word as the only guidance. As a Church, we collectively and individually, proclaim and live out the Gospel. Standing on this Rock, we will stand secure. But it starts with a choice... God cannot force us.
The destructive power of evil is mostly seen when someone tries to get rid of it. Sometimes we are so deeply involved with evil that liberation is physically demanding. Jesus is after the well-being of the host not of the demons. He's not influenced by the shrieks and convulsions of the man; it's part of what needs to happen in order to be set free. Freedom is worth a bit of suffering! Never give up, Jesus is there with His grace!
People are amazed; they have seen Jesus' authority changing someone's life. They have seen that His teaching is "integrated," it's not just words, theory, nice thoughts but something that can change lives.
Ever since that day in Capernaum, Jesus has continued to offer all of us freedom from the snares of evil. We can come to Him for liberation but we have to acknowledge his authority on us. Do His Words bind us? mean anything to us? They have the power to give us new life, but are we willing to take and use this power?
It's the beginning of a new adventure: a life lived in Freedom under the authority of Jesus. How do we respond?
No comments:
Post a Comment