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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are less than one month away from the scheduled release of the new movie “Ghostbusters”; the remake of the 19‑84 classic has been called this summer’s most-divisive movie. But, whether you might like the older or newer one better, those who see either might be able to picture the male or female protagonists’ “busting ghosts” more easily than we all picture Jesus’s in today’s Gospel Reading “busting demons”. Hollywood has given us images of “Slimer” and “the Stay‑Puft Marshmallow Man’s” getting caught by “proton-packs” and being held in a “containment unit”, but Hollywood has not, at least not that I am aware of, given us images of thousands of demons, in thousands of pigs, rushing down a steep bank into a lake, and drowning. The “Ghostbusters” movies and today’s Gospel Reading may have supernatural demon possession in common, but the movies are fantasy, and the Gospel Reading is reality. Nevertheless, I adapt the movies’ title for this sermon on the Gospel Reading, titling it “Demon-buster”.
By Divine‑inspiration, St. Luke tells us how Jesus came to the country of the Gerasenes and met in a hostile, military-like confrontation (ESL #5221) a man who had quite a number of demons and lived among the tombs. We are not told why God permitted the man to be possessed in the first place, nor are we told why Jesus permitted the exorcised demons to destroy the pigs. But, regardless of God’s reasons, we can hardly escape reflecting on the people of the surrounding country’s asking Jesus to depart from them because they were seized with great fear.
We might identify both with the loss of a pig, pet, or other possessions to which we are emotionally attached and with the anger that can arise towards the person or people we might think to be responsible for the loss. But, something more than that anger over a loss seems to be behind the people of the Gerasenes’s asking Jesus to depart from them. In today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 65:1-9), the Lord describes a rebellious people, who do such things as sit in tombs, eat forbidden pig’s flesh, and arrogantly say to the Lord, “Keep to Yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for You.” Quite the opposite of that last item was true: the Lord God was too holy for the people to whom He spoke through Isaiah. The Lord Jesus likewise was too holy for the people of the Gerasenes. And, apart from our repentance and faith, the Triune God is too holy for us, who not only are sinful by nature but who also actually sin in thought, word, and deed, and so who deserve to depart to the lake of eternal fire and brimstone prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:15; 21:8).
Miracles such as Jesus’s “busting” the demons in today’s Gospel Reading were intended to cause people to fear God, at least in some sense, even as earlier in St. Luke’s Gospel account a miraculous catch of fish prompted St. Peter to confess his being sinful (Luke 5:8). But, that fear is not supposed to lead people to order Jesus to depart, as St. Peter did, or to ask Jesus to depart, as the people of the Gerasenes did. Rather, that fear is supposed to be combined with love and trust in God above all things. Truly God calls and enables us to repent of our sin and to believe in Him for the forgiveness of our sin. In today’s Gospel Reading, when the demon‑possessed man saw Jesus, he fell down before Jesus and cried out with a loud voice, begging Jesus not to torment him. Similarly, we fall down before Jesus and cry out with a loud voice, begging Jesus not to torment us but to grant us mercy. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 3), we cry aloud to the Lord, and He answers us from His holy hill; He arises and saves us, for salvation belongs to the Lord, and His blessing is on His people.
Whatever Jesus’s reasons were for His giving the demons permission to enter the pigs, we might say that Jesus gave the demons just enough rope to hang themselves. The demons might not have known that the herd of pigs would rush down the steep slope into the lake and drown. The same might be said of the demons’ master, the devil, whom God permitted to bring about Jesus’s betrayal, suffering and death on the cross, all for us (for example, Luke 22:3). The demons and the devil knew Jesus was the Son of the Most High God, but they may well have not realized just what they were doing by bringing about His death (Arndt, 242). For, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Galatians 3:23-4:7), when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, to redeem us. We are justified, forgiven, by grace through faith in that God‑man Jesus Christ. When we repent and believe in Jesus Christ, then God frees us from our chains, shackles, and bonds of sin.
God cares about each one of us as individuals, and so He comes to us individually, although He comes resistibly through His Means of Grace, and so allows us to reject Him. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus asks the demon‑possessed man his name, but the legion of demons answer. At the Baptismal Font, our unclean spirits are cast out to make room for the Holy Spirit. There we are given our names and God’s Name is put upon us. In Holy Baptism, with water and the Word, God works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. We are baptized into Christ, and so we put on Christ, and we are adopted as children and made heirs of His Kingdom, all in Holy Baptism. After our baptisms, there is no place where God deals with us more‑individually than through the pastor in individual holy Absolution following private confession. And, that individual Absolution clears us to come here, to the Sacrament of the Altar, where we eat bread that is Christ’s Body and drink wine that is Christ’s Blood, are united with Him and each other, and receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
In today’s Gospel Reading, the man from whom the demons had gone begged that He might be with Jesus, but Jesus sent him away to declare how much God had done for him. Made holy by repentance and faith and so able to come into God’s presence, we also might want always to remain in Jesus’s presence here as now, but right now that is not God’s will. In His wisdom, God permits us to go out and to come back in. God also permits us to suffer, in order to refine our faith and to draw us closer to Him. God uses the suffering that we experience to enrich us and so also to enrich our declarations to others of how much God has done for us. To be sure, the time is coming when we, will rise from the grave and with glorified bodies be in Jesus’s presence without interruption for eternity. For, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, and nothing can separate us from that love of God in Christ Jesus, our “Demon-buster” (Romans 8:37-39).
By calling Jesus a “Demon‑buster” and mentioning “Ghostbusters”, I certainly do not intend in any way to trivialize Jesus’s work of salvation for us. Even though the “Ghostbusters” movies are fantasy and the Bible is reality, the “Ghostbusters” movies and the Bible share a supernatural world view—that is, they hold that the supernatural is real. As St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, we wrestle against the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). If Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), I suppose Satan could appear as “Slimer” or “the Stay‑Puft Marshmallow Man”. Yet, no “proton‑pack” will trap Satan, and no “containment unit” will hold him. Thanks be to God both that in Jesus Christ He has conquered Satan on the cross, and, that, through God’s Word and Sacraments, He gives us, who repent and believe, that victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +