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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion January 24, 2006 Jesus Casts Out Demons |
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Frontline Devotion for Tuesday, January 24, 2006 by Susan Hill
Demons. We know we have them – personally, individually, collectively, institutionally, nationally. They possess and haunt us the way the demons in today’s text take over the man who speaks out against Jesus. Those impulses inside us goading us to do what we don’t really want to do and know we shouldn’t, but do anyway, we might think of as our demons. Martin Luther called demons the devil’s minions; contemptuous, fawning followers of that Evil One whom he personified and named “the sum of all evil.” (Large Catechism, The Last Petition) Demons, according to Luther, do the devil’s dirty work in the war with God over our souls, and they are powerful. We are helpless in our fight against these workers of the devil unless we depend on God for support. Influenced by Luther’s description, I envision demons like germs that get into our systems and pervert our spiritual health and our better natures. They are like an incurable disease, except for the precious antidote of prayer.
Martin Luther King Jr., modern day prophet and sinner, helped define some demons of our time…pride, arrogance, violence, racism, oppression, injustice, and hopelessness to name a few. Like his namesake, King also taught that these kinds of dark spiritual realities misuse and violate God’s intentions for our good and have the power to destroy us. King exhorted his congregations and our nation to set aside our hatreds and our self-centeredness – our most basic demons – so that we might be fit to be people of God. He called us to center our lives in Jesus. It is in living by Jesus’ servant model, he claimed, that we can properly restore our health and well-being. In using our best energies to love others rather than our own egos, we may separate ourselves from the ways of demons. It’s in God’s Son that King finds the good news that assures our peace and our future.
It’s this same good news that the writer of Mark’s gospel seems so anxious to relay to his readers. It’s interesting to me that there is no record of Jesus birth story at the beginning of Mark, and only short descriptions of Jesus’ baptism and temptation precede many following chapters outlining Jesus’ ministry and teachings. It’s in Jesus’ power and authority that Mark finds evidence of God’s presence, and it seems like he can’t wait to tell about his discovery! Mark’s salvific gospel writing, echoed over the centuries in Luther and King and others says listen, believe, repent, and follow this Holy One. Here is your cure, your saving grace, your freedom from hopelessness, death, and destruction. The power of evil over us is finally broken. King and his people, deeply oppressed over many lifetimes by the demons of hate but uplifted and healed by this very promise, attached an addendum to their tears: “We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome some day. Deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome some day... Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I am free at last!” Live it!
Dear God of grace and power, when we confront evil, please stand with us and protect us. Lead us away from evil when we are tempted to forget your call to love and to serve. Help us recognize demons wherever we encounter them and exorcise them from our hearts so we may be free to do your will. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
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