Sermon for 3rd Lent

In Dante’s Inferno, the Italian poet’s lurid imagination has created special circle of hell as a
punishment for thieves: because they are sinners who did not distinguish between what was
their own and what belonged to someone else, they are punished (in Dante’s imagination) by a
blurring of the lines distinguishing their own bodies and nature from those of something else:
monstrous lizards chase them down as they run in terror, and when they catch up with them,
they jump onto them, clasp them with their four legs, and fuse their lizard bodies together with
their human bodies, producing a horrific human-lizard hybrid. It is one of the creepiest and most
disgusting punishments in the Inferno, and when I read it, my skin crawls.

A similar revulsion is evoked by parasites. My fellow American missionaries in the Philippines

used to joke, whenever they came back to the United States and got a stomachache, that it was
caused by their Philippine parasites becoming unhappy with American food. My wife has seen a
pregnant woman cough up a five inch worm, still twitching. I could multiply examples, but
you get tbe point: parasites are uniquely disgusting because they violate our bodies and live
inside us against our will.

Demon-possession is like this, except that the violation is even more severe: a malevolent and
powerful spiritual entity dwelling within a human being, controlling his speech and actions,
his mind and body, against his will. This sort of parasitism is subtly implied in an oddity of the
language in Luke 11 :14: “And he was casting out a demon, and it was mute.” Who was mute?
The gender of “it” is neiter, which matches demon, daimonion. Yet the very next sentence says,
“So it was, when the demon had gone out, that the mute spoke.” Do you see how the properties
of the demon are the properties of the man it possesses?

This should make your skin crawl. It's very evil. The sorts of frightful scenes of violence depicted
in the movie The Exorcist are not actually far fetched in comparison with the actions of
demon-possessed persons in the Bible: cutting themselves, breaking chains, attacking people and
“prevailing against them so that they flee naked and wounded”, speaking with other voices,
throwing the possessed person into fire or water.

No wonder the Jews wanted to get rid of demons. One of the marks of a great rabbi was that
his teachings were authenticated by miracles, including the exorcism of demons. This was a
popular piece of Jewish wonder-working. Acts chapter 19 speaks of “vagabond Jewish exorcists”.
The historian Josephus tells how such people operated:

“I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people
that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and
the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this: He put a ring that
had a Foot of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac,
after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils; and when the man fell down
immediately, he abjured him to return into him no more, making still mention of
Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed. And when Eleazar would
persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set a little way

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 off a cup or basin full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to
overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man.”

– Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews.

By contrast with this, Jesus simply commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. There is
no struggle; when demons see that Jesus has arrived, rhey normally beg for mercy before he even
says anything. And it is interesting to hear the language they use. In Luke 4,

“Now in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon. And he
cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of
Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are— the Holy One of
God!”” (Luke 4:33-34)

and again, in Matthew 8:

“And suddenly they cried out, saying, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of
God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”” (Matthew 8:29)

Before the time. These demons know that they are doomed (so their wickedness is also
deliberate sin against knowledge), and what's more, they know there is a scheduled day in history
when they are to be destroyed. What's surprising to them is to discover that that day has
suddenly come forward and is upon them already in the person of Jesus. It is very much like the
exchange between Martha of Bethany and Jesus when he comes to raise Lazarus in John
11:23: “Your brother will rise again.” “Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the
resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who
believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” The expected future resurrection — that event
“at the last day” — turns out to have a human face, and he is here now, in 33 AD.

33 AD. Anno Domini. Jesus, from the moment of his baptism in the Jordan river, began to
announce that He was himself the fulfillment of the OT’s prophecies of the coming kingdom of
God. His healings and driving out demons; his parables and commandments; His baptism and
transfiguration — everything spoke of His office as the Messiah, “a savior, who is Christ the
Lord”. When John’s disciples ask Jesus, “Are you the coming one, or do we wait for another?”,
He had no need to plead his own cause and use persuasive arguments to convince them of His
messiahship. His answer is “Go and tell John the things that you see and hear: “The
blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up
and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” That is to say, His actions already matched the
job description that Israel knew from the prophets, especially Isaiah. His vanquishing of demons
was a sign with the same meaning as the others: behold, your King. And yet we are told by the
fourth gospel that Jesus “came unto His own, and His own did not receive Him.” So we are
confronted with the question: Why did they refuse to believe in him?

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 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”

This is why the ascribing of Jesus’ miracles to the devil is unforgiveable — not that it is especially
worse in seriousness than, say, blaspheming against the Father, but that it removes the possibility
of salvation. If you mistake the fireman for a bad guy, you’re not going to let him remove
you from a burning house.

16 Others, testing Him, sought from Him a sign from heaven.

These people are “testing him” – the same verb used of Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the
wilderness, and indeed, their request for a “sign from heaven” is a renewal of Satan’s suggestions
that Jesus should perform a gratuitous miracle to force people to believe in Him. Let’s remember
that He has just cast out a demon. So they are asking for another miracle to authenticate the first
miracle. What end will there be of such doubt? If miracles could compel faith, these people
would have believed already.

Jesus’ reply has three parts.

His first response is to point out how illogical it is to imagine that Satan, whose goal is to oppress
human beings and subject them to demonic power, would sabotage his own work by freeing
anyone from demonic power.

His second argument is even more pointed, and to understand its full force we must recognize
the echo of the OT and the narrative situation that echo calls up. He asks them,

“If I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they
will be your judges. But if I cast out demons with the finger of God (ἐν δακτύλῳ θεοῦ),
surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

This is a very direct reference to a prominent Old Testament passage, Exodus 8:17-19. It is near
the beginning of the ten plagues. Already Moses has inflicted two plagues on Egypt: he has
turned the water to blood, and he has brought forth frogs on the land. Amusingly enough,
Pharaoh’s magicians did so with their enchantments — with the result that there was even more
water turned to blood, and even more slimy frogs hopping around Egypt.

Walter Brueggeman explains that Pharaoh’s administration kept the Israelites in bondage not
only by physical whips and brutal oppression, but also by projecting a spurious aura of
competence and knowledge, so that they have a wise ability to control events. We see this in our
own day, when the Federal Government has so thoroughly persuaded everyone that it can
save us, that when a hurricane strikes a coastal city, there are people who blame FEMA and the
government for not doing more; when evil people shoot schoolchildren, the government must
“do something about it”; and our diets must be dictated to us with a food pyramid based on

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scientific research; synthetic pharmaceuticals must be prescribed for every ailment according to
the wisdom of scientists. These wonder-workers are able to put a man on tbe moon; how, then,
can we doubt their wisdom. Do not even imagine that there is another way, or another truth.

So it is in Egypt bedore the Exodus. As in our day, so in Egypt there was a “ fascination with
wisdom, which, in addition to imitating the great regimes, represented an effort to rationalize
reality, that is, to package it in manageable portions”. In our day, this wisdom is technological,
statistical, scientific. In ancient Egypt it was priestly and magical. And so, even though it means
more water turned to blood, and more frogs on the land, Pharaoh’s magicians must by all means
show that they can replicate the miracles of Moses. The wizard’s duel is crucial to maintaining
the supremacy of Pharaoh’s regime. He has the best magicians. Anything Moses can do, they can
do too. But then, something happens:

Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth, and it became
lice on man and beast…Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring
forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast. Then the magicians
said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”

Brueggeman comments:

“The Egyptian empire could not! The gods of Egypt could not! The scientists of the
regime could not! The imperial religion was dead! The politics of oppression had failed!
That is the ultimate criticism, that the assured and alleged power of the dominant culture
is now shown to be fraudulent. Criticism is not carping and denouncing. It is asserting
that false claims to authority and power cannot keep their promises, which they could not
in the face of the free God, [the God of Moses]. It is only a matter of time until they are
dead on the seashore.”

Jesus’ words, “The finger of God” call up in his listeners’ minds the contest between Moses
and the magicians of Pharaoh. Jesus’ accusers are failing to recognize that He is in the position of
Moses and Aaron. They and their “sons” — that is, disciples — are in the place of the magicians
of Pharaoh. By whom do they cast out demons? Oh, that's right, they don't. They cannot do
what Jesus has done, so they are discredited as judges — and this in the Biblical sense of the word
(think Samson, Deborah, Barak). They cannot save.

By connecting his actions to Moses’ miracles in the Exodus, Jesus is implying that He is the agent
of a new Exodus; that the time of salvation has come. Those who oppose that salvation and
ascribe His work to the devil are in the position of Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s magicians: not only
are they powerless to do what He does, but they are actually opposing God’s salvation.

In all this, the fundamental conflict is between God and the devil. And Jesus is claiming that his

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deliverance of the mute, demon-possessed man is actually an instance of that basic conflict, and a
preliminary step to the ultimate conquest and final defeat of Satan. He compares himself to a
violent house-robber who has defeated the strong man guarding the house; and he contrasts that
image with the ineffectual efforts of others before him.

A friend of mine once had bats and squirrels living in his attic. By careful use of humane traps, he
eventually got rid of them, and raccoons moved in. Once that happened, he decided the time for
gentleness was past, and he got his .22 and a dog. Just like that, Jesus suggests that the house of
Israel has been cleansed of its idolatry, but it is now suffering something far worse: nowhere in
the OT do we hear of anyone possessed by a demon. But demons are seemingly lurking
everywhere in the gospels: Jesus encounters them frequently. Jesus describes this state of affairs as
a sort of national demon-possession. Past cleansings of Israel have been ineffective, like a
situation where seven worse demons move into a man who used to have one. Jesus’ intention —
for those whom he drove demons out of; for his people Israel; and ultimately for the world, is a
permanent and effectual pest-removal.

But notice the scenario that Jesus describes:

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. 22 But
when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his
armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. 23 He who is not with Me is against Me,
and he who does not gather with Me scatters.

This is the prelude to a thorough plundering of all of Satan’s dominion over this fallen world.
Remember when Satan tempted Jesus? He took him up on a mountain and offered him all the
kingdoms of the world if he would bow down and worship him. It is a real estate transaction: that
is the significance of taking Jesus up on a mountain and showing him all the kingdoms. God does
a similar thing with Abraham, telling him to look at the land of Canaan, “for all the land which
you see I give to you and your descendants forever.” (Genesis 13:15) Likewise, before Moses dies,
God commands him to “Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land
of Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a
possession;” (Deuteronomy 32:49)

Satan was offering to trade Jesus the kingdoms of the world. Jesus refused, because he does not
make bargains with Satan. His intention is to defeat him, and disarm him, and take away his
dominion.

And the Bible shows us how that happened:

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a
great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and
Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut
him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand
years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.”
(Revelation 20:1-3)

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The Gentiles are no longer under the domination of demons. No one is
worshipping Thor or Zeus or Baal anymore. And when Satan is released one last
time, it is only so that he can be thrown into the lake of fire after he shows how
unrepentant he is.

So, with the house cleansed, what happens now? God has got rid of the demons, and
He intends to dwell in this house Himself. Our gospel lesson closes with Jesus’ response to
a woman in the crowd who calls his mother blessed: “Blessed is the womb that bore You
and the breasts which nursed you!”
Mary is certainly blessed. But that blessedness was not merely a matter of giving birth
to Jesus. Remember that Mary responded to the angel, “Behold the maidservant of the
Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” Mary, as a symbol of faithful Israel,
submits herself to God and His purposes. The result is that God honors her obedience by
coming to dwell within her. So too with us. “Blessed are those who hear the word of God
and obey it,” for God dwells with them.