Epiphany V B [Mark 1:29-39] (4-Feb-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In our reading today, we follow on from where we left off last week, where we read about Jesus preaching in a synagogue in Capernaum and then he cast out an unclean spirit from a man. And we read at the end of our reading from last week that as soon as he had this, at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee. This sounds like this was something that might have happened over days or weeks, but we read later in our reading, that news must have spread among many people within only a few hours.

We read in our reading today about very specific times when things happened in the day which followed this event. We read at the beginning of our Gospel reading today: And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. After having gone to the synagogue, we read that Jesus went around to Peter’s house, probably for a meal. Then later in the reading we read: That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. So let’s say Jesus went to Peter’s house in the afternoon, now we read about what was happening in the evening, where Jesus was healing people. Then later again in the reading it says: And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. So here we read about what Jesus was doing in the very early hours of the morning of the next day. And that really summarises what’s going on in our reading today. So we’re going to look at three things in our reading today:

I.                   What Jesus did on Saturday afternoon.

II.                 What Jesus did on Saturday evening.

III.              What Jesus did on Sunday morning.

So let’s come to our first part, where we read about

I.                   What Jesus did on Saturday afternoon.

We read: Immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. And what does Jesus find at their house when they get there? Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay in bed with a fever, and immediately they told him about her.

Here we find a wonderful encouragement about how we should deal with our family and relatives as Christians. Many Australians have all kinds of troubles with their families. There are many families who have people who don’t speak to them. Sometimes people are easily offended, and they blame their parents for all kinds of problems. Sometimes people just don’t know how to solve their problems without yelling in each other’s faces. It’s a great thing if people are able simply to sit down and talk about difficult issues without being personal, without attacking, without yelling.

But families are a gift, and we have all kinds of people in our families, and people with all kinds of different opinions about religion and politics, and all kinds of things. But also, even though our families can be people who are quite different from us, we find ourselves connected to them in a particularly special way, even if there’s some kind of estrangement and people are not really talking to each other much anymore. In our reading, Peter’s mother-in-law is in trouble: she is particularly sick. She is laying ill with a fever. And what does he do? He and the other disciples with him simply tell Jesus about her.

This gives us such a wonderful example, because when our relatives, our parents, our children, our spouse, our parent-in-law, our grandparents, our grandchildren, our aunties and uncles and our cousins are in some kind of trouble, what should we do about it? First, simply tell Jesus about them. We often don’t have any power to help them, but Jesus does.

And so we read in our reading: And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. These words are so simply, it almost sounds like this was just so normal and natural for Jesus, the kind of thing he could easily do every day with no fuss or bother.

Now, we pastors often go around visiting people, and praying for people. And it’s very common if we ask people what they’d like us to pray for that they say to pray for good health. Now, good health is a good thing. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: Give us today our daily bread. And good health is part of what we need to do our daily tasks for each day. But sometimes we can make a bit of an idol out of health, and we can carry on as if it’s the most important thing in our life. It’s not. It’s a wonderful gift, but it’s not the most important thing. Even more important that the health of our body is the health of our soul. At the beginning of John’s third letter, he writes: Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.

And so what are the things that are good for our soul? Sometimes people say a good walk or a good cup of coffee is good for the soul. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the word of God. In order for our souls to survive, we need the word of God. The word of God is that thing that we put our trust in, that when we hear it and believe in the gospel, that we have a saving faith created in us, and God looks at us and sees not us and all our sins but he sees his Son Jesus and his righteousness completely covering us over. God sees our faith in the word of God—that word of God which never lies, and that word of God which shows us our Saviour—God see that faith and he counts it to us as righteousness. Even if our lives are completely full of sin, it is the word of God in the Scripture preached in its truth and purity that has all the power in it to create a new heart and a living faith in us, because this is the word from God’s own mouth himself.

And so we should pray for the Holy Spirit for ourselves that we would hear the word of God and understand it, we should pray for our pastors that they would also preach the truth in the power of the Holy Spirit, and we should also pray for the members of our church to receive the Holy Spirit and believe the word so that we may also be drawn together. We should also pray for unbelievers that their hearts would be converted by the power of that same word and the Holy Spirit.

All these things are more important than physical health, because even if we ever find ourselves in hospital, or having chemotherapy, or coughing up blood and phlegm, or hooked up to a dialysis machine, or generally be “as sick as a dog”, we can always continue this holy Christian work of bringing the needs of our friends and our fellow Christians and the world to Jesus.

However, even though the things of Christ’s kingdom are more important than physical health, it’s not as if physical health is not important. Christ healed many people, who would go on to die. Even when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus died again someday. So what was the point?

But when Jesus heals people, he shows a wonderful truth and a wonderful reality. Our bodies are his creation. He formed us in our mother’s womb, and our bodies were shaped and formed with his hands. But then after we die and we go to be with Jesus in heaven, we also have the promise in the Scripture that at the end of the world there will be a resurrection of the dead. Just as Jesus takes this woman who is burning up with fever by the hand and cools her down, so also he will gather all the dust and ashes of our rotted and decayed bones and bodies and he will raise them up with the same effortlessness as he does with the woman with the fever in the reading. And it won’t be as if he simply resuscitates us, so that we’re still the same ugly mob that we were on earth, but we will be completely transformed to be like Jesus. In Philippians, St Paul writes that Jesus will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. In 1 Corinthians it says: Behold! I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

So when we die, we believe that our soul will go to be with Jesus. Jesus said to the thief on the cross: Today you will be with me in Paradise. And St Paul says: My desire is to depart and to be with Christ. But also, our bodies are not simply the leftover bits. Sometime later there will be a resurrection of the dead, and those who believe in Christ will experience a complete and total healing of our bodies and a glorification and transformation of our bodies so that we will be like Jesus. Our bodies were created by God, and he will also redeem them. How we will experience the timing of these things once we die, we have no idea, and the bible doesn’t tell us these things. We leave that up to God.

So let’s come back to our reading. It says: The fever left her, and she began to serve them. When we or someone we know is sick, we should pray for healing. Even in James, we are told that we should call the elders of the church, and let them pray over us, and even have them anoint us with oil, as a special marker for committing the sick person to God, in the name of the Lord, and pray for us. Also, in the church, pastors also speak God’s word and bring the Lord’s Supper to people in their times of sickness. Whatever happens, whether we are healed now or not, we know that there will always be a miracle. At least we know that on the last day Jesus will completely heal and transform our bodies, because he has died on the cross and risen from the dead and forgives us all of our sins. There will always be a miracle. But whether or not we experience a miracle of healing in this life, on this side of the grave, is not promised to us. We should ask for it, but if we don’t receive it, that’s OK. We will wait for a more glorious time in the next life. What we read in our reading is that Peter’s mother-in-law began to serve them. If we do receive a great miracle of healing, the purpose is so that we can serve, and particularly to serve Christ and his disciples, his church, in his kingdom. But if we remain sick, the question is still: how has Christ called me to serve his kingdom here in my condition? How is God’s name glorified through this, whether I am healthy or sick? That’s the wonderful thing we learn from this event so very simply told to us in our reading.

So let’s come to the second part of our reading today, about

II.                 What Jesus did on Saturday evening.

After Jesus had cast out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue, the news spread fast all around the place. We read: That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

Last week, I spoke in detail about unclean spirits, and demons, and what exactly they are and how Jesus went about casting one out from a man. I won’t say it all again, but I’d like to make a couple of comments about our reading here. Two things are mentioned: diseases and demons. Jesus heals people with diseases, and the demons he casts out. There are two categories here—not everyone who is sick is demonised, and not everyone who is demonised is sick. Jesus deals with both situations.

But the reading tells us something specific about the demons. It says: He would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. The demons here have personalities, and they speak. And it’s a strange thing that at the same time as Jesus is revealed as the Holy One of God, and at the same time as Jesus begins his ministry, all these demons are revealed. All of a sudden there are all kinds of people with demons.

And the thing about demonic powers, and unclean spirits, is that because they are supernatural creatures and belong to the devil, they have some access to certain knowledge that normal people like us wouldn’t otherwise know. This is, for example, where psychic power comes from. And so, sometimes, the people with demons know something that people otherwise wouldn’t know, and sometimes these things are true. But in the reading, it says: [Jesus] would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. The demons knew him, but Jesus doesn’t allow them to share their secret, hidden knowledge. Even though they know the truth, they are not allowed to speak. The reason for this is that once the devil leads people along with something true, he starts to take the truth away by mixing in errors with it. The only thing that can silence the evil spirit is the word of God, which is the living words of Jesus. And we need to be so careful that we don’t mix in half-truths with God’s word. But this is what the devil does: he feeds on the word, and adds things in, but then ultimately he takes the truth away, and people are left with nothing but emptiness and lies. Proverbs 30 says: Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

So it’s a wonderful demonstration of Jesus’ love for us and his power that he comes into the world, and he deals with evil and silences it in its tracks.

Let’s come now to the third part of the reading about

III.              What Jesus was doing on Sunday morning.

We read: And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you”. And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogue and casting out demons.

Jesus gives us a wonderful example here. He has had a busy day the day before, and he has a busy time ahead of him. And so in between, he spends some time alone and prays. He debriefs with God, and he prepares himself with God. When something wonderful happens in our life, we should remember to spend some time to tell God about it and commend it to him. When we are about to do some difficult work, we should also ask him for the strength to carry it out with his blessing and power.

Isn’t it funny how Jesus prays? He created the world together with his Father and the Holy Spirit. Why would he need to pray? Because he is a true man, a true human being like this, and this is what humans were created for: to talk to God and to live in fellowship with him.

But then also when Peter finds him, Jesus tells him that he’s eager to go and do some more preaching, and says: for that is why I came out. What does he mean by this? Where was he coming from? Jesus is talking about the fact that he came down from his eternal glory with his Father and entered into this world as a tiny baby born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus had existed right from before the beginning of time, in eternity with the Father. And he came forth into, he came out from heaven into the world, took human flesh, for what purpose, that he could go out and preach. And we see how the kingdom of Jesus goes from one town to the next town, with Jesus preaching his word all the way. And this Jesus came down from heaven just for this purpose, and he is true God. And as a true man, he prays to his Father, drawing all his strength from him. We see here the wonderful mystery of the fact that Jesus is both true man and true God in one person. He is the same Saviour who has suffered and died for us, and risen from the dead for us. And even today he comes to meet us, to preach his word to us, to come to our home in the afternoon, to help in all our troubles and to look after us in all our sicknesses, to spend the evening with us, and even before we have even woken up and thought about him, he has already gotten out of bed before us and has committed us and our day to the Father. What a faithful Saviour we have! Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful way in which you look after us each day and at each part of the day. Teach us to bring our needs to you, and bless us so that we may serve you each day for your kingdom. Amen.

Epiphany IV B [Mark 1:21-28] (28-Jan-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Last week, we read about a specific message and a particular word that Jesus was preaching, where he said: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

Today we read: They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath [Jesus] entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.

In our reading today, we don’t read about what Jesus was saying. The text simply says that he was teaching. But we do read the kind of effect that it had on people, and why it had this effect. We read: They were astonished at his teaching. But why were they astonished? We read: for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. Jesus was teaching not with simply human authority, like the scribes that the people were so used to. It is one thing to be a scribe, and to check and double-check words and grammar—this is a good thing. But it is another thing to teach. When Jesus teaches, he is not simply teaching empty words, or rhetoric. He is not saying a beautiful or a clever or a funny way of putting things. He is not showing off his ability to communicate, or his skills in giving a speech. This is all human authority. But Jesus’ teaching has authority, because he is not only a human being, but he is also true God at the same time, in one person. And so Jesus’ teaching is crystal clear, it is completely and totally true, and there are no half-truths. Sometimes people say things in a clever way so as to say two opposite things at the same time, and they end up saying nothing. In actual fact, they just want to say something to keep people happy, and to be politically correct, or to be diplomatic. But this is not how Jesus speaks: every word that he teaches is God’s word. Proverbs 30 says: Every word of God proves true. Jesus prays to his Father: Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. He also says that the Scripture cannot be broken. St Paul also writes to Titus that God never lies. And because of this, we read in Hebrews that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And so when Jesus teaches, the people are astonished, they recognise the divine authority of Jesus, they recognise that there is something different about what he says that no one else has said to them before. They recognise that no-one has called them to repentance in the sharp, clear way that he has, and no-one has comforted them with the divine comfort of heaven in the way that he has.

But then, in the middle of Jesus’ teaching, something very strange happens. We read: Immediately there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him.”

First of all here, we are told that there was a man with an unclean spirit. An unclean spirit is another name for a demon, or sometimes it is called an evil spirit. Now what is an unclean spirit? One of things we often forget when we read the bible is that creation includes things that we can’t see. In the Nicene Creed, we confess: I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, or seen and unseen. The visible creation is what we see around us, and the creation of these things is describes right at the beginning of the bible, in Genesis chapter 1. Visible things include light, water, the sky, the earth, land, the sea, plants, trees, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the solar systems and galaxies, birds, fish, animals, reptiles, insects, and also, of course, humans. But then there are also certain things that God creates that are invisible: this includes heaven and hell, and also angels. Angels are spiritual beings, spirits that are created by God, that don’t have bodies, don’t have flesh and blood. However, like human beings, angels also were created with a free will. God commanded human beings to love him and serve him, and he created the angels to do the same. Loving and serving God means that we do it willingly—God does not have us like puppets on a string, making us love him by force. That wouldn’t be love.

And so, we also believe that the devil decided to use his free will not for God and in service of God, but in hatred towards God, and in rebellion against him, and for evil. Then Satan tempted the first people into sin, and the human race became sinful too, because they listened to the voice of the devil instead of God, and also chose evil over good. But also, we read that the devil was not the only angel who fell into sin, but there was a large number, who form a kind of army with the devil as the leader.

In our reading today, we read that an unclean spirit had entered into a man. Now, in our culture, something has happened in the last two or three hundred years, which is called the Scientific Enlightenment. From this time onwards people have made all kinds of advances in science, which has been a very good thing. However, at the same time, people started to reject things in the bible that weren’t able to be proven by science, or weren’t measurable by science. People started to deny that there’s anything that exists that you can’t see. We can see this today, where many people don’t believe in the existence of heaven or hell, angels or demons, the devil, or even God himself. They look at the world with a set of rules that just completely does away with anything that they can’t measure or prove with science.

Many people in the church too have often read passages such as the one in our reading today in a scientific—or we might say a “rationalistic”—way. This isn’t to say that we don’t use our brains when we read the bible. Of course, we do.  But we shouldn’t use our brain and our reason to try and make the bible say something that it doesn’t say. Especially we shouldn’t try and make the bible say the opposite of what it doesn’t say! This is exactly what the devil did when he tempted Eve: God had said that if they ate the fruit, that they would surely die. What does the devil do? He interprets God’s word in such a way as to make it say the exact opposite of what God actually said. The devil says: You will not surely die.

And so, it is common for people to read a passage like this in our reading today and to say that this man didn’t have an unclean spirit, but that he had a mental illness. However, this is not what the text says. Mental illness does exist, and sometimes there are certain mental illnesses that have symptoms which look similar to demon possessions. But they are not the same thing. Later in chapter 1 of Mark, we read that Jesus healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. There are two things here: Jesus was healing people who were sick, and he was casting out demons. They were not always the same thing. So there are two mistakes that people make: sometimes they think that there is no such thing as demon possession, and that everything is mental illness. Sometimes people think that there is no such thing as mental illness and everything is demon possession. Both of these things are wrong. Sometimes a person can go to a doctor or a psychiatrist and be treated for their mental illness—no problem. However, there are also situations where medical treatment can’t help—the reason is that the person is not really mentally ill, but are spiritually troubled.

But let’s pretend that the man in our reading does have a mental illness. Let’s listen then to what the man says. He says: What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God. What kind of mental illness is able to recognise Jesus, and to speak hidden things about him that other people wouldn’t otherwise know? Also look at what Jesus does in return. We read: But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him.”

When we’re dealing with mental illness, we’re dealing with a person who is sick, and who needs treatment. And when anyone is sick, whether they have a physically debilitating illness or are mentally ill, we should pray for them, and they should go and seek treatment. And we pray that Jesus would bring healing to the person, either in a natural way through treatment or through medicine as God provides through a doctor, or in a supernatural way through a special miracle of God. We know that in this life, God may or may not give a miraculous healing. But we do know that for those who believe in Jesus, that he will heal us completely and totally in the next life and completely transform and glorify our bodies so that we will completely free of all of our sickness and troubles.

Sometimes people—especially some charismatics or Pentecostals—make the mistake of believing that when people become Christians, they become sinless. So every time they see and recognise sin at work in them, they think it must be an evil spirit. Now, it is true that because our heart is sinful, the devil has a close ally inside of us. But some people make the mistake of always wanting exorcism, when in actual fact, they need absolution, and forgiveness. They need to hear the words that Jesus has died and paid for each and every single sin and their whole sinful heart and their whole sinful condition, and even in the church today we can hear the words of forgiveness from God himself spoken to us. When we hear the words: I forgive you all your sins, the devil has no more power to make accusations. Jesus has pulled his teeth out, and the devil can’t bite us anymore! As St Paul says in Romans: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When we’re talking about demon possession, we’re talking about two beings: one is a human being, a man or a woman like you and me, and the other is an invisible being, a demon or unclean spirit, who has entered in and joined itself to the person. This unclean spirit can take control of the person, like in our reading, where it uses the person to speak its own words. In our reading the unclean spirit uses the person and says: What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us? The unclean spirit even gives the person a special insight into hidden things that the person otherwise wouldn’t know. In our reading the unclean spirit says: I know who you are—the Holy One of God. Notice here that the demon tells something that is true, but the means of know that truth is not right. The words are true, but the authority is not right.

And so we might ask the question: how did this man end up like this? Well the text doesn’t actually tell us. However, Jesus does say to his disciples: I am the way and the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me. We know that outside of Jesus and his kingdom, life is a dangerous mess, and people are open and susceptible to all kinds of spiritual danger. However, in our reading, when Jesus is present there in the synagogue, and begins to teach, the unclean spirit is exposed.

Now, we read in the Scripture where God the Father’s voice comes down from heaven and says: This is my beloved Son: listen to him. This happens at the Transfiguration, when Jesus’ face and clothes began to shine with bright, white light. In the Old Testament, Moses had already spoken about the coming Messiah, and said: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. All throughout the New Testament, we read various passages that confirms this prophet to be Jesus, and even God the Father says: listen to him. Moses had said centuries before: It is to him you shall listen. But on the other hand, in the same passage, Moses says some other things. He says: There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.

So, do you hear that the nations listened to fortune-tellers and diviners, and lists a whole lot of occult practices that people did. All through the history of Israel and the kinds, we see that the Jewish people often mixed in the practices of the nations with God’s law. And so, what this passage teaches us is that fortune-tellers and diviners are not speaking with the voice of Jesus. Jesus does not use fortune-tellers and diviners to speak, but they use a different spiritual power. Moses says: Don’t listen to fortune-tellers and diviners. But God the Father says about Jesus: Listen to him.

In our culture, many people recognise that there’s more to life than what we can see. But then the mistake that people often make is that they think that everything spiritual is good. That’s not true. The truth is that the greatest good is spiritual good, but the greatest evil is spiritual evil. You can’t make use of a fortune-teller, or a psychic, or a clairvoyant, or a medium, and think that this is the Holy Spirit—it’s not. God has specifically said in his word that listening to Jesus Christ and listening to fortune-tellers and diviners are mutually exclusive things. And so when people open themselves up to these kinds of false ideas and false practices, and particularly occult practices, they also open themselves up to unclean spirits.

In the bible, an unclean spirit is also called an evil spirit or a demon. The bible speaks very negatively about them. But outside of the church, people use positive-sounding ways of speaking about them. People might say: I have an angel who speaks to me. Or: I have a spirit guide. Or: I try to hear what the universe is trying to say to me. Or: I communicate with my higher self. Even sometimes people can be mistaken and deceived for thinking that they are talking directly with God or the Holy Spirit, even when they reject and go against what the Holy Spirit has revealed in the Scriptures. All these things are examples of people trying to make contact with the unclean spiritual realm.

Now, the amazing thing about our reading today is that Jesus deals with this man very simply. We read: Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” The word “be silent” means to “get muzzled”. Jesus speaks to the unclean spirit like a noisy dog. And we read: The unclean spirit, convulsing him and was crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. Even in Luke it says that the man was done no harm. Jesus, being true God and true man in one person, knows exactly how to separate an unclean spirit from the person standing in front of him. And with his powerful and authoritative word, he simply casts the unclean spirit out.

And we read: And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” And at one his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

What is important here is Jesus’ words, and his authority. There is no spiritual wrestling match that goes on. Jesus is not addressing the unclean spirits as equals. He has complete and absolute authority over them.

In the church, Jesus has spoken his same authoritative word of power to you when you were baptised. And when we are baptised, we make a clear statement against the devil and say: I renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways. We confess the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, and we renounce the devil. This is who we are as Christians, and our whole life is a lesson in renouncing the devil and confessing Jesus Christ. In ancient times, when a person was baptised, they would rebuke the unclean spirit, and this excellent practice has been reintroduced into our churches in recent years to emphasise the power of Christ’s work against Satan in baptism. It’s no accident that as less people in our society are baptised, spiritual and demonic trouble have increased for people. In baptism, our Lord Jesus with his powerful word forgives us our sin, rescues us from death and the devil, and gives eternal life to all who believe this. Baptism is a wonderful defence and shield against all the attacks of the evil one, because we can continually look to Jesus and his promise to defend us from all evil. And when we are bothered and attacked by the evil one, we can simply say: Be silent! Get out of here! You don’t belong here!

Jesus is the one who has power over all spirits, and all the authority belong to him. We have access to his great authority because we have his authoritative word, which is a word of power. We are weak, but the word we speak is the word of Jesus. St Paul says: My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. So every time we speak the word of God in its truth and purity, and preach it, and sing it, and read it, the devil is cleared out. The devil knows his time is short when the word is in play, because these words are the words of the living God and the living Jesus who has risen from the dead. We cannot do anything in our power and authority—Jesus is the only exorcist. We pray to him, and ask him to work together with us, and to use us where he sends us. As the people say in our reading today: He even commands the unclean spirits and they obey him. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for your word of authority and power. Protect us from all the power of the evil one. Amen.