Lent III

 
Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.
St. Luke xi.
 
In last Sunday’s Gospel, we read about the kind of humility and faith that find freedom from the Devil. A Syrophoenician woman besought the Lord for the healing of her daughter, who was grievously vexed with a devil. (St. Matthew xv. 22) In confessing who and what she was, the good lady expressed that faith that secures the redemptive power in Jesus Christ. She confessed herself to be a dog in relation to God’s people. Her humility and faith revealed her need for God’s Grace. Today, our faith becomes situated more soundly in God’s Grace as we begin to understand the true nature of our demons.

In this morning’s Gospel, we read that Jesus had cast a demon out of a dumb (or mute) man, and the dumb spake. (St. Luke xi. 14) The Devil controls those who are deaf and mute. Yet no sooner had Jesus healed the dumb-mute man, than a crowd of bystanders exclaimed that Jesus had cast out the demon through Beelzebub the chief of the devils. (Idem, 16) The Ancients believed that physical handicaps were divine punishment for demonic possession. That some who witnessed the miracle judged that Jesus was in league with the Devil should not surprise us. If healing could not be proved to come from God alone, Ancient Man concluded superstitiously that the Devil was up to his old tricks. Men who disbelieve and do not understand God’s power tend to blame everything on Satan.
        
The problem is that most men do not understand the nature of prayer. Most men live on the outside of themselves and thus judge a world around them without giving much thought to the spiritual world in relation to their souls. Unlike last week’s Syrophoenician woman, they never come round to seeing themselves as strangers to God’s Promises and unworthy of His Grace because of their sin. Unlike today’s deaf-mute man, they do not so much as pray to God in secret that the God who seeth in secret shall reward them openly. (St. Matthew vi. 4) Most men never ask that they might receive, seek that they might find, or knock that it might be opened to them. (St. Luke xi. 9) As a result, they are unaccustomed to God’s Grace. So, in today’s Gospel, as absurd as it might seem, they demand a sign from heaven, or another miracle, to prove that God alone is in Jesus casting out our demons.
        
The Syrophoenician Woman of last week’s Gospel becomes today’s deaf-mute man. Because the deaf man cannot hear, he cannot speak. His impediment separates him from the world of words. Unlike last week’s Syrophoenician Woman, he can neither confess that he is a dog nor reveal his need. His suffering and prayer are incommunicable to all other men. His fellow Jews judge him to be suffering because of his sins. Only when Jesus comes upon him to answer his prayer does the dumb speak, no doubt behaving like an infant child who rejoices when he is at last able to connect with the created order through newfound words.

The deaf-mute man’s prayer is heard by God. God responds to him in Jesus Christ. He is no sooner healed by Jesus than he senses some real opposition to the miracle, when the crowd says that Jesus must have been in league with Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. (idem) Next, he hears Jesus’ response.

Every kingdom divided against itself, he says, is brought to desolation. And a house divided against a house falleth. If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? (St. Luke xi. 17, 18)
 
No doubt, our liberated man understood nothing of what he heard. Jesus implies that the deaf man had been divided from God’s kingdom and lived in desolation. Because Satan was not divided against himself, with the help of his fellow demons, he ensured that this deaf man was separated from the civilized world. This man knew of his division from the world and spiritual desolation. That he had miraculously been carried into a world of potential goodness was no doubt the clearest truth presented to his newly liberated senses. Satan’s singular intention was to keep him deaf and mute. Jesus of Nazareth intends to free him. But though the healed man does not yet understand, he now hears and can begin to try to comprehend Jesus’ words.

With the miracle, our sufferer might have wondered why the bystanders were creating such chaotic and irrational confusion. We read that Jesus knew their thoughts. (ibid, xi. 17) Jesus confronted the irrational malice and envy of the crowd, who seemed bent on remaining deaf to Jesus’ part in the miracle.  If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges. (ibid, 19) If Beelzebub had cast out the demonic spirit, such goodness must have come from Satan. But why would Satan want to heal anyone and bring goodness to life? No, Satan is not pleased with the deaf man’s healing. So Satan, rather, finds new friends in the malicious and skeptical crowd.

But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. (ibid, 20) Christ insists that the finger of God alone enables a man to hear and then to learn language that will lead to understanding. So, the demons, united with Satan, would try to undermine the deaf man’s healing with confusion and division. If Satan couldn’t prevent the healing, he would fill the crowd with malice and ill will intent upon turning the deaf man against Jesus. The Jews who were deaf to Jesus and listening to the Devil were claiming that Jesus’ Spirit was destroying the deaf man’s soul.
But Jesus will show us that the deaf man, who was originally secure in Satan’s grip, was now being released from it.

When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. (St. Luke xi. 21, 22)
 
The Devil and his friends have desired that all fallen men should be deaf to God’s Word. Some will be literally deaf, like today’s deaf man, and others will be spiritually deaf, like the hard-hearted crowd. The Devil tries to convince all men that there is no freedom from his power. But Jesus here implies that a stronger than he has come down from Heaven and upon him. Satan is like a strong man who keeps his palace in peace, undisturbed and unchallenged. Think of how sin so often seems to have us in the Devil’s grip so that we don’t think that there is any way to be freed from it. But what if a stronger than he, Jesus Christ, has conquered him, taken away his armour, and divided his spoils? What if Christ has come into the world to free us from Satan the strong man where the Devil’s victory becomes his defeat?

The deaf-mute man has been healed by Jesus Christ. But what of the malicious crowd who could not hear Jesus? Jesus says that

when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. (ibid, xi. 24-26)
 
The crowd of Jews thought that they were purified and made clean by the Law that united them to God. For four hundred years their religion had gone unchallenged, and their spiritual house was swept and garnished. They had come to believe that they were more righteous than sinners, like the deaf man. Unlike the deaf man, the Jews didn’t think that they needed God’s strong man. They saw unclean spirits come and go. They walked through dry, empty places, sought rest, and finding none, returned to their own houses. They saw no good in the temptations that come to every earnest believer in the wilderness. So now, they were vulnerable to seven other spirits more wicked than [themselves]. The bystanders’ unclean spirits had merely gone out, preparing to enter yet again. The danger for the crowd (and religious people in all ages) is always much worse since they find no rest on dry and empty days in the wilderness. So, the last state of them will be worse than the first. (idem)

This morning the Word and Son of God made man, Jesus Christ, puts His finger on our problem, and desires to cast out all our demons. The true miracle we must seek today is that, with St. Paul, we realize that we were sometimes darkness, but now…are light in the Lord. (Eph. V. 8) With the deaf-mute man, though we don’t yet understand, we have seen the light. The goodness that Jesus brings to the deaf man should become our goodness, or what we seek out habitually. With the dumb-mute man of today’s Gospel, let us believe that Christ’s light alone can carry us out of darkness. But let us also be vigilant and conscientious about embracing God’s goodness. Whenever Christ delivers us from Satan, he exorcises our souls. Every act of Christ’s healing is a moment that should trigger our gratitude with determination to live and grow in His light and goodness, as we learn to say yes to His powerful redemption.
Amen.
©wjsmartin