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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.
Summer officially started days ago, but we have been in Hurricane Season for weeks, with no named‑storms so far in the Atlantic, much less “the” Gulf, but a record five named‑storms this early in the Season in the Eastern North Pacific (USA Today). Most recently, Hurricane Erick came ashore Thursday at Category 3 strength, but in a sparsely‑populated area of Mexico between Acapulco and Puerto Escondido, leaving some 277-thousand people at least temporarily without power and one person dead from drowning (AP). Just after Jesus rebuked the wind and the raging waves on the lake of Gennesaret, usually called the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberias (Luke 8:22-25), in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus essentially cast‑out, of at least one man afflicted for a long time, many—perhaps thousands of—demons, or unclean spirits, who knew both Who Jesus was and the judgment that ultimately awaited them. Notably, the demons begged Jesus not to command them to depart into the abyss and instead to let them enter a herd of—perhaps thousands of (Mark 5:13)—pigs feeding nearby on a hillside, and, when Jesus gave the demons permission and they entered the pigs, the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. The mentions of “the abyss” and “the lake” are perhaps especially interesting to those of us participating in our Midweek Bible Study of Revelation, for in Revelation demons are initially let out of the abyss (Revelation 9:1‑12), temporarily held in the abyss (Revelation 20:1-3), and ultimately punished in the abyss, which apparently is sometimes also called the lake of fire that burns with sulfur, or “brimstone” (for example, Revelation 20:10; confer Brighton, ad loc Revelation 9:1, p.232, and pp.235-236, 446, 547-555).
Today’s Gospel Reading is said to be St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account’s “lengthiest” and “most dramatic” report of a miraculous exorcism (TLSB, ad loc Luke 8:26-39, p.1728). St. Matthew’s and St. Mark’s Gospel accounts also report this same event, but St. Luke’s account of this event is the only one of the three accounts that is appointed as a Gospel Reading by our Three-Year Series of Readings, and, interestingly enough, the appointment of any account of this particular event came to our congregations only with the revision of the Three‑Year Series of Readings in Lutheran Service Book some two decades ago. I do not know for sure why, but accounts of this event perhaps were not appointed previously because the Gospel Reading leaves us with some arguably unanswerable questions, such as, after the herd drowned, what happened to the demons? Regardless, a main point of today’s Gospel Reading is clear: “Jesus is victorious over demonic powers for people like us”.
Commentators debate whether the people who owned the pigs and tended to the herd were Jews, like those eating pigs’ flesh in today’s Old Testament Reading who were described as a rebellious people (Isaiah 65:1-9), or whether they were Gentiles, for whom the Old Testament dietary laws did not apply. Whether Jew or Gentile, the people were unable to bind the demon‑possessed man, no one had the strength to subdue him (confer Mark 5:3-4), and, instead of binding the man, Jesus set him free from the demons. The demons cried out Who Jesus was and knew the judgment that ultimately awaited them. They are more perceptive by nature than we are! Even if we are not demon‑possessed as was the man in today’s Gospel Reading, we by nature are still under satanic influence. We may figure out that we are sinful by nature and so that we are sinners who deserve temporal death and eternal damnation, but we need the Holy Spirit to show us our Savior from our sinful nature and our actual sin. Although we deserve it, the abyss, or the lake of fire that burns with sulfur, was prepared for the devil and his evil angels, not for us, for whom God from the foundation of the world prepared a Kingdom (confer Matthew 25:41, 34). So, God—out His great love, mercy, and grace—calls and thereby enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust Him to forgive us our sin for Jesus’s sake.
“Jesus is victorious over demonic powers for people like us”. The Gospel accounts of Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke all elsewhere also report Jesus’s teaching of a strong‑man who is bound by a stronger‑man who then takes his belongings (Matthew 12:29; Mark 3:27; Luke 11:21‑22). Despite His seemingly impotent death on the cross, Jesus is that stronger‑man who essentially binds the strong-man, the devil and all of his evil forces, and then takes us from them (confer 1 John 3:8; Colossians 2:15 with the reading in the margin). The demons knew that Jesus was the Son of the Most‑High God, even as the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that Jesus would be called the Son of the Most High (Luke 1:32, 35). The man in today’s Gospel Reading recognized God in Jesus, as Jesus told him to declare how much God had done for him, how He had had mercy on him (Mark 5:19), and the man went away proclaiming how much Jesus had done for him. Truly, as St. Paul wrote in today’s Epistle Reading, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law (Galatians 3:23‑4:7). With the Small Catechism, we rightly explain the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed regarding redemption in part by saying that Jesus purchased and won us from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil (Small Catechism II:4). The visions of Revelation may not happen as literal events, but the visions figuratively communicate what are certain truths. Jesus’s earthly ministry, His death on the cross, His resurrection from the grave, and His ascension into heaven all essentially bound the devil and all of his evil forces and delivered us from them (confer 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). The demons’ fear of their judgment and their knowledge of Who Jesus was did not save them, but, when we fear our judgment and trust in God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, then God does save us (confer, for example, Augsburg Confession XX:23). God saves us by forgiving our sins through His Word and Sacraments.
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, and God by His Word both created the sky in order to separate the waters above from the waters below and then gathered the waters below in order to let dry land appear (Genesis 1:1-2, 6-9). So, in today’s Gospel Reading, we have the lake of Gennesaret and the abyss, perhaps as water below the earth that connects the seas, in which the demonic spirits are confined (Marshall, ad loc Luke 8:31, p.339). And then, not surprisingly, in Holy Baptism, we see God use water and His Word to rescue us from death and the devil (Small Catechism IV:6; confer Ephesians 5:26). Unclean spirits depart and make room for the Holy Spirit (LSB: Agenda, 13), and we, who otherwise are naked and ashamed (Genesis 3:7, 10), as we heard in the Epistle Reading, as we are baptized into Christ, we put on Christ; we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness. We who are baptized by daily contrition and repentance drown our sinful nature so that our redeemed nature daily emerges and arises to live before God (Small Catechism IV:12). We who are baptized privately confess to our pastors the sins that particularly trouble us for the sake of individual Holy Absolution. And, so absolved, we are admitted to the Holy Supper, where bread is the Body of Christ given for us and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for us and so give us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Food and drink here in God’s house are far better both than the bread and wine that Melchizedek the priest of God Most High offered Abraham (Genesis 14:18) and than whatever the man of the Gospel Reading would have received when he returned home.
As Jesus told that man to do and he did, we also declare throughout our various communities how much God has done for us in Christ. Our confession of Jesus has particular weight among those who know us, but we are not responsible for convincing them to believe, only for speaking to them about what God has done for us in Christ. We can tell them that “Jesus is victorious over demonic powers for people like us”. We can tell them that we can rejoice already now, because the outcome is certain, even if we do not yet fully experience the victory. People like the man in today’s Gospel Reading do suffer for extended periods of time; Satan and his minions apparently will be permitted more influence before they are finally fully confined; and we do not understand all that God in His wisdom deems to be necessary and so says and does. But, in every season of life and even amid the literal and figurative storms of life, God has revealed to us that “Jesus is victorious over demonic powers for people like us”. As we sang in the Introit (Psalm 71:20-24; antiphon: v.3), He Who makes us see many troubles and calamities will revive us again, if necessary, from the depths, the “abyss”, of the earth, He will bring us up. Thanks be to God, now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +