Pentecost II (Proper 5 B) [Mark 3:20-35] (7-Jun-2015)

This sermon was preached at St Mark's Lutheran Church, Mt Barker, 8.30am, 10.30am.

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

How can Satan cast our Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, breathe out upon us all your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

Today our Gospel reading is a very strange reading, and it has many things in it that are strange to our ears. And yet, at the same time, it has some things that are very important for us. Jesus is speaking about Satan, but he is also talking about the Holy Spirit.

Now, as many of you know, during my time as a pastor, I have had the opportunity to be a pastor to African people from South Sudan. And many people often look to at African people, and think that their energy and joy is such a wonderful thing that they bring to the church. And that’s true. But there’s a very strong cultural difference that I noticed between Australian people and at least South Sudanese people (I can’t speak for all African people—that’s a bit like speaking for all Europeans, there’s so many different people.) And this difference is this: in general, most Sudanese people believe that the devil exists—it’s rare to find anyone who doesn’t believe that he is real. But in Australia, in general, most people don’t believe that the devil exists.

Now, you might think: But I believe the devil exists? Yes – there are plenty of Christians who think that the devil exists. But in general, many of the people in our community don’t. And this is so important, because if we don’t believe the devil exists, then we don’t know who we’re fighting. Now – actually, it’s Jesus who is the one who fights for us.

So who is the devil? Well, first of all, the bible teaches that he was created by God. Now – if it weren’t for the devil, there would never have been any death in the world at all. In the bible, we read at the end of the first chapter of the first book of the bible, Genesis chapter 1: God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

At this point in the bible, there was no death, no suffering, no tragedies, no accidents, no crying, no grief, no mourning. God did not create any of these things in his beautiful world. All of these things come from the devil.

We read in the bible that the devil was a wonderful angel like so many other wonderful creatures that God had created. And like human beings, God had created the angels with a free will. Love is never forced, worship is never forced, and service of God is never forced, and so angels and humans must have had free will to love God freely. And yet, the devil, we read, did not want to love God, or serve God, or worship him, but was hungry for power, and wanted to be like God and to replace God with himself. This greed, this lust for power meant that instead of praising God with all the other angels, the devil fell into sin and corruption. Then the devil dragged human beings into sin and corruption with him. And so, even though God had created this wonderful world, this beautiful world, the devil wanted nothing else but to stuff it up.

Death is not a creation of God, and death is not a beautiful thing. It is a terrible thing, and it is has come about because of the devil.

This is so important for us to understand. In our culture, and our society here in Australia, many people just don’t think that the devil exists. Yes, he exists—and he hungers after one thing: to destroy our lives and to mess them up, just as he tries to destroy God’s beautiful world and to mess it up. But we also know that Jesus has died and risen from the dead, and he has destroyed all the power of Satan, so that he can have no power over us.

So what’s our reading about today? Well, there are four things in our reading which people say about Jesus. And these things indicate that they don’t really believe that the words which Jesus are speaking are from the Holy Spirit. Instead, they don’t really know what he’s talking about—maybe, they think, Jesus is speaking the words of Satan.

So the first thing that we read is this: The crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”

Now, here are Jesus’ family—this is Jesus mother and his brothers. And they were embarrassed here about Jesus. They think that maybe he is going a bit crazy—and they think, “We’ve got to take Jesus home and look after him, before he says anything more that’s a bit crazy.” Now, they haven’t said that Jesus is speaking words from the devil, but still they don’t understand what’s going on. They just think that he is a bit crazy.

Now, this is important for us to think about too. Do we think that when we read the bible or listen to it that it’s all a bit crazy? St Paul writes: God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. Sometimes what we read in the bible at first seems crazy, foolish. But that’s not because the bible is crazy—it’s because we’ve got crazy. Because of sin, our understanding has been darkened, and we need Jesus to come and to shine his light into our minds.

And this is so important for us as Christians to understand today, when it comes to the work of bringing new people to faith. We simply speak God’s word, but it’s the Holy Spirit who then converts people. And so we also pray for people that their hearts would become open and receptive to God’s word, and not be hardened to God’s word. We pray that more and more people, and also ourselves, may never think that Jesus is out of his mind.

The next thing we read is that: The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul”, and “by the prince of demons he casts out demons”.

So first, we read that Jesus’ family think that Jesus is out of his mind. But now read that the scribes think that Jesus is possessed. And particularly, they say: He is possessed by Beelzebul. Now what does this mean? Beelzebul is a name which means “the Lord of the flies”. You might have read a famous book about a group of children on a desert island which is also called “the Lord of the flies”. This is where the expression comes from. Sometimes people say “Beelzebub”. We don’t really come across this word anywhere else in the bible, but it particularly refers to the devil, and gives the picture that he is in charge of a swarm of demons. And it’s quite a useful thing to think of the devil and demons like flies—they hover around rotting food, but they also, a bit like moths, are attracted to light.

So, do we think Jesus is possessed by the Lord of the flies, or do we think that Jesus is king of angels? Is he in charge of a whole lot of evil spirits that just buzz around, or is he the Lord of heavenly hosts?

The second thing they say is this: By the prince of demons he casts out demons. The people had seen when Jesus went about preaching that he cast out demons. Actually, we read that when Jesus first went into the synagogues and began preaching, that the demons recognised him. And they recognised him because they knew the great spiritual power that he had.

But the people here thought that the power that Jesus used to cast out demons here was evil power. So what do we think: does Jesus cast out demons by the prince of demons, or do we believe that he is the king of heaven? Does Jesus use evil power, the devil’s power, or does he use God’s power?

And the last thing we about what the people were saying about Jesus is that He has an unclean spirit.

Often in the bible, we read about the Holy Spirit, but we also read about something called an unclean spirit. This is a spirit that is not clean and pure, but one that has been made dirty and filthy by the devil. And so it is called an unclean spirit.

Now, Jesus has some things to say about these criticisms. We read: Jesus called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.

But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

So what’s Jesus talking about here. Well, what he’s saying is that even the demons know that have to stick together. Jesus is not coming as just another fly to chase away the other flies. If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. The devil is not going to send one of his own demons to destroy his own kingdom. What’s the point of that?

So Jesus says: No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

Now this is a very strange picture that Jesus uses here. He gives us the picture of a strong man being burgled by a robber. If the robber wants to rob the strong man, he first has to tie him up, and then he can rob his house.

So who’s the strong man? Is Jesus talking about himself? No – sure we see the devil tie up Jesus, when he’s going to the cross. But the devil doesn’t rob Jesus of his house. Jesus says: In my Father’s house are many rooms, and I am going to prepare a place for you.

No—the strong man here is the devil. And when Jesus has died and risen from the dead, he has bound the devil. He has tied him up. In fact, we even read that Jesus descended and went into hell. Now why? Was Jesus being punished? No—Jesus descended into hell so that he could give the devil a good kick. And so Jesus has taken all power away from the devil, and all the devil can do now is yell and carry on while is stuck in his chains. And Jesus says: Then indeed he may plunder his house. Jesus has tied up the devil, and now he can plunder his house. Jesus can rob the devil of all his possessions. Actually, the devil never had any possessions, but he had robbed them all from God in the first place. The devil wanted to grab us all for himself. But Jesus loves us so much that he came to die for us, so that he could win us all back to him for himself.

What an amazing thing that Jesus does for us! What a great thing it is that Jesus does for us in binding the devil and winning us back for himself. You see, the devil has more power in his little finger than any of us have altogether. The devil is a strong man. But even one of Jesus’ angels has more power in his little finger than the devil and all his army put together. And Jesus is in charge of all these angels. What an amazing thing it is to have a Saviour and a God like Jesus who constantly fights for us, and has won us for himself. We know that the words of Jesus are not words that empowered by Satan, but these are words that are full of the Holy Spirit, and bring to us all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And especially we know the wonderful gift that Jesus promises to us: the gift of the forgiveness of sins.

You see, the devil can use all of his power to accuse us—the devil takes all of our sins and rubs our face in the dirt. But Jesus forgives us our sins.

And just so that you know that this forgiveness of sins applies to you, he has baptised you, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus baptised us, he made us part of his family, and wants to lead us and guide us by the Holy Spirit. Jesus says: For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

Many people might think that Jesus is out of his mind: but in actual fact, Jesus sends us every gift of the Holy Spirit that we need so that we can be in our right mind.

Jesus is not possessed by the Beelzebul, but he is the Lord of hosts, and the king of heavenly armies.

Jesus is not empowered by the prince of demons, but he himself is the King of the angels, the king of glory.

Jesus does not have an unclean spirit, but he breathes out the living, Holy Spirit. Jesus is the one who builds up his church, he is the one who forgives our sins, he is the one who makes us part of his family, and he is the one who sends the Holy Spirit.

Let’s thank Jesus for these wonderful things that he does for us!

Amen..

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are much stronger that the devil, and that you have bound him up with chains. Send us the Holy Spirit and forgive our sins, and all those times when we worked for the wrong house and the wrong kingdom. Rescue us, and send us your Holy Spirit, remind us of our baptism, so that we may be useful for service in your house and in your kingdom. Amen.