Tag: demon possession

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Prince of Demons?

Now he was casting out a demon that was mute.  When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled.  But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beezebul, the Prince of Demons.”  Luke 11:14015

Most of the demons Jesus has encountered have been obnoxiously talky, but this one is mute. Not only that, but it has bounds its host with muteness, so neither of them can hail Jesus as the Son of the Blessed One or beg him to go away.  So it was a quiet exorcism, as these things go, but the observers are duly amazed.  But there’s always a skeptic in the crowd—this time not identified as scribes or Pharisees, so they may just have been run-of-the-mill village atheists.  Wherever these observers are coming from, their observation is profoundly stupid: “Well, suppose he’s in league with the demons?  Ever thought of that?  He could be getting his power from Beelzebul!”

Logic-choppers usually forget there are real issues at stake.  And conspiracy theorists get so lost in their thickets of conjecture they lose sight of good sense altogether. Jesus is following the convoluted unreason in their heads and in their whispered conversation and knows it for what it is: not rational but rationalizing.  It doesn’t deserve a response (in my opinion), but he responds anyway.  Look, people:

Satan is not a myth or an abstract concept—he’s the enemy.  Possession isn’t a trick or a parlor game to him—it’s a battle tactic.  He’s in this to win.  But so am I.House Divided

A house, a family, a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand–correct?  Now, think: if a commander divides his troops and orders them to fight each other, how long will he last?  Let’s rule out that option, shall we?  And if we do, what’s left?

The kingdom of God has come upon you.

God’s counteraction has rushed upon this world and its uneasy, illegitimate ruler (Satan) and threatens to unseat him.  The invading kingdom is rattling the bars and picking the lock, and Satan—Beelzebub—looks a great deal less masterful than he did.  He clutches his most cherished weapon—death—upon his throne of human skulls, and waits for his opportunity to use it.  This is reality, people: The kingdom is upon you.

But—

Perhaps he turns to the formerly-possessed man, whose pent-up words are pouring out to his wife and children and neighbors.  Feeling that gaze, the man falls silent.

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’ . . .  The demons are defeated, but not destroyed.  It’s still around, that spirit who once dominated you, who squatted in your mind and held your tongue.  Do not suppose your soul is your own.  If the spirit of muteness is banished, you are subject to a spirit of excess.  If by God’s grace you have overcome addiction, you may fall victim to pride.  A house is made to be occupied; you can’t clean it up and keep it for a showplace.  Your locks and deadbolts are nothing to the spirit world; if God does not reign in your heart, Satan will.  Whether you recognize him, or not.

For the original post in this series, go here.

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Alien Country

Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.  When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons.  For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs.  Luke 8:26-27

It was his intention, remember, to go to “the other side,” where the Gentiles live—why?  No one appears to ask him.  They may still be a little shaken up after the storm; perhaps in their confusion they imagine themselves to be blown off-course.  But with Jesus one is never off-course.  They have an appointment, and as soon as their boat runs aground the appointment runs to meet them.  Screaming.

You have to feel some sympathy for the disciples (who remain strangely silent throughout this dramatic episode): barely recovered from the worst scare of their lives, they now encounter a human nightmare.  Or rather, an inhuman nightmare.  Demons have been running loose in Palestine, and they’ve seen how Jesus deals with them, but this is a special case.  It’s a whole welcoming party in one body.  For all they know, this is how the Gentiles do demon-possession: in multiples.

Try to see it as the demons do.  For years, they have possessed their host.  We don’t know how these things begin–perhaps he left an opening for evil spirit, and after it had kicked aside his normal affections for family and friends, there was room for more.  By now they’ve driven him from all human company and made him an object of terror and loathing, even to himself.  He lives among the tombs but they won’t let him join the company of the dead; he cuts himself, but is prevented from cutting too deep.  In a twilight world they carouse and brawl and gleefully fight off any attempt to restrain them.  Their host has the strength of ten, because they are Legion.

gerasene-demoniac

Then the Man arrives. They see his boat approaching, and somehow know who is on it.  They raise such an unbearable clamor that their hapless host tries to silence them by slashing at himself with a flint-sharpened rock (which never works).  They hurl him, tripping and stumbling, onto the rocky beach where the boat has scraped ground.

How easy it is to provoke terror in humans!  That’s a primary demonic pleasure, though at the moment pleasure is the last thing on their many manic minds.  He’s standing up, steadying himself with one hand on the mast (like any ordinary man!)—God with us, God against us—how can this be??  His eyes search them out.  He knows them, knows their origin all way back to the moment he threw them out of the Presence, but they never expected to encounter him here.

Come out, he says, with his eyes only.

Don’t torment me! they cry out through the raw vocal chords of their host.  It’s Jesus, they tell themselves—remember, we got the word?—Jesus, the one who—the one that—

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”

The other men are standing around, slack-jawed, keeping their distance.  It’s the kind of situation the demons crave: men approaching stealthily with chains or ropes, trying to sneak up and capture and restrain them.  The demons would have attacked by now, as so many times before—

But the Lord is climbing out of the boat (as awkwardly as any man; they can’t get over it!) with a depthless assurance beyond their experience of humanity.  They throw their host on the ground.  Stampeding over each other, they spin and thrash, screeching in multiple voices.

“What is your name?” he sternly asks.

Their voices come together long enough to scream, “Legion!”—before tumbling into incoherence again, each voice shrieking its own terror.  The abyss is on their collective mind, the pit that waits for all of them where there will be no human meat to feed on; only themselves and the Wrath, forever and ever and ever—

Not yet! they cry.  Hold off! Not now!  In the clamor, one of them mentions the pigs.  Yes, yes—the pigs.  Send us there!  The chaos of voices gradually comes together: The pigs!  Let us go into the pigs!

Their host has become their prison.  He is standing right in front of them, doing what no man or number of men could do before.  They claw and scratch and strain—Will he let us out? Let us out! Out of this—piece of—this pile of—

“Go,” he says.

They nearly tear their host apart, getting out.  With one final scream they leave him, panting and bloody, on the beach.

The fiery air cools.  One sweet breath, then another.  The horizon comes together for him, a clean line separating water and sky.  Blood pounds in his ears, the sound of his heart.  His own heart.  He wills his fingers to move, and they do—his own will.  Knees, legs, arms respond to his timid desire to sit up.  Above his head, that voice says, “Someone get him some clothes.”

The voice seems to cascade around him like the soft, barely-remembered folds of a worn linen tunic.  It gives him back to himself; piece by piece, it puts him together.

For the original post in this series, go here.

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Authority

And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galillee.  And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching . . .   Luke 4:31

Word is, there’s a new teacher down in the synagogue in Capernaum.  He doesn’t seem to be a rabbi, at least not on the classic model (the argumentative type who sides with Hillel or Shammai, and can think of eighteen ways to call you a heretic if you don’t agree with them on every point).  He doesn’t argue; he unfolds the scripture in a way no one has ever heard.  Almost as if he wrote it himself!  Talking it over among themselves, trying to describe what’s distinctive about his teaching, someone says, “I think . . . I think the best word is authority.”

That’s the best word, indeed; the teacher proves it when the demons barge in.

demon_possessed

That morning

Oh yes, the word has spread even among unclean spirits, and they’ve been kicking up a ruckus lately.  More demon activity than anyone has ever seen—what’s up?  Word is getting out among them, that’s what.  Satan himself has encountered the Man-not-like-any-other-man and has issued some warnings and dispatches.  The local demons send a scout on a mission: check out this fellow.  Obediently, the unclean spirit wrestles his hapless host from his keepers, marches him down to the synagogue and drops him onto a bench.  There they—both demon and host—listen quietly for a few minutes.  That voice, those words—the one inhabits the other and sends a shiver through the listening spirit.  Or rather, a quake.  It’s as if he, the possessor, is possessed, with confusion and a fear like he’s never known.  He can’t help himself; he cries out in a voice that shakes the synagogue: “What is it between you and us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to DESTOY us?!”

The moment seizes; the company freezes.  It’s as if they recognize each other, the foul spirit and the teacher.  The spirit, accustomed to casing the place everywhere he wanders, seeking souls to ruin, is now aware of nothing else but The Voice.  The Voice answers him, reaching out to grab him by the throat, squeezing as the host squawks helplessly, like a chicken.

“Come out!”

The demon has no choice: he comes out, howling, throwing his host on the floor.

That afternoon

After that exciting morning, the teacher enters a house belonging to Simon the fisherman.  (Imagine the muttering in the background from local rabbis and scribes: You’d think we could offer enlightening comments on the day’s events, or at least ask intelligent questions!  Why does he accept the invitation of a workingman who only shows up at synagogue once a week and can’t wait to get out?)

Turns out, though, it’s not a good time.  Sickness reigns, and Simon’s wife has interrupted meal preparations in order to attend to her mother, who was taken with a violent fever only hours ago.  Jesus stands over the woman and rebukes the fever.  Speaks to the fever, mind; you in the 21st century, take notice.  A smackdown with a demon is one thing, but communicating with microbes is something else again.  The fever departs; the lady’s eyes open and the first thing she sees is him.  He smiles.

“Get up.”

The lady has no choice: she gets up, smiling back.

That evening

And word gets out, of course.  By sundown Peter’s house is like a triage center because everyone within twenty miles has dragged their relatives or their aching, limping, festering selves to the house in Capernaum.  Demons, too, both whether dragged or dragging. The word has spread among them like a plague.  After dinner (served on the roof by an amazingly spritely grandma), the teacher comes down to the leveled ground outside Simon’s front door.  It sounds like a barnyard, with all the groans and howls.  It’s been a busy day, but he takes time.  His hands reach out.

His hands . . . first here, first there, on leprous sores and misshapen bones and feverish wounds, they all feel his touch.  And immediately they close up, straighten out, cool off.  The sick feel his hands; the demons feel his voice as though they were all the way back in the garden with curses raining down on their snaky heads.  One by one, they recognize him:

You are the Son of G–!

You are . . . !

You are the Son . . . !

One by one, he silences them.  This is not the time, especially with the residents of Capernaum clamoring for him to stick around.  Stay with us; be our teacher and healer!  They want to define the mission for him.  It’s ironic: his hometown kicked him out, his new town clutches him fiercely.  Both are wrong.

For the original post in this series, go here.

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