We’re nearing the end
of our sermon series on the miracles of Jesus. The miracle we’re
looking at today has to do with Jesus healing a man possessed by a
demon.
The
subject of demons and people being possessed by them is not one we
talk about a whole lot. Most of us are probably aware that the Bible
talks about demons. We’re aware that it talks about people being
possessed by them. But we don’t really talk about it much or think
about it much. The idea of someone being possessed by demons is kind
of a foreign concept to a lot of us. Even if we consider it
possible, most of us have never known someone we thought was
possessed by a demon. Because of that, a lot of us are not sure just
what to do with this story.
In
Jesus’ time, though, the idea of someone being possessed by demons
would not have been a foreign concept. It was something the people
of his day believed in as a present reality. The people of Jesus’
time would’ve said that only someone who was divine would be able
to drive demons out of someone. So, the people who first read or
heard about this story would’ve been really impressed by Jesus
being able to do that.
What I
want you to remember, though, as we look at this story today, is what
the purpose of our sermon series on miracles is. Our purpose is not
to debate fine points of theology, or even demonology. Our purpose
is to think about why these miracles are in the Bible and see what we
can learn from them. So, with that in mind, let’s look at the
story of Jesus healing a man possessed by a demon as given to us in
the gospel of Luke.
Jesus is
teaching the people, and a man comes up who’s possessed by a demon.
The man basically tells Jesus, “Go away! I know who you are and I
don’t want anything to do with you.” Jesus orders the demon to
come out of the man, and it does. And the people around them are
amazed at what they’ve just seen.
Now,
again, this story loses some of its impact on us because it seems
like such a foreign thing to us. Still, I think there are things we
can learn from it.
Think
about what happens at the start of this story. Jesus sees a man
possessed by a demon. The man sees him, too. And the man basically
tells Jesus to go away. He knows who Jesus is and what Jesus can do,
and he does not want Jesus anywhere near him. Think about that.
Jesus has the power to take the demon out of this man, and yet the
man does not want Jesus to even come close to him.
Now, maybe
you’re thinking, wait a minute, Jeff. The reason the man said that
is because he was possessed by a demon. It was the demon talking,
not the man.
Well,
yeah, but think about it. Yes, the man was possessed by a demon, and
it was the demon talking, but what does that mean? What does a demon
actually do?
It seems
to me that what the demon was trying to do here is what demons always
try to do. A demon tries to keep us away from God. A demon tries to
get in the way of our relationship with God.
Think of
the story of Adam and Eve. At first, they had a great relationship
with God. God walked with them in the Garden of Eden. They talked
all the time. God had told them not to eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, but Adam and Eve were fine with that.
Then the serpent came along. What did the serpent do? The serpent
got in the way of Adam and Eve’s relationship with God. The
serpent got them to disobey God and drove a wedge between them and
God.
Think of
the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. In Luke, that
story comes shortly before the one we read today. It’s in the same
chapter. What did the devil try to do to Jesus? He tried to get in
the way of his relationship with God. He tried to get him to disobey
God. He tried to drive a wedge between Jesus and God.
If we
think of it that way, as a demon being something that gets in the way
of our relationship with God, then the idea of us being possessed by
demons is not as foreign a concept as we might think at first. We
may not be possessed by demons in the sense of something physical,
something that can control our movements and change our voices,
something everyone can see. But all of us have things in our lives
that threaten to get in the way of our relationship with God. In
that sense, all of us have demons that we need to fight.
When
we think of demons in that way, when we think of demons as anything
that tries to get in the way of our relationship with God, we can see
that demons can take a lot of different forms. We tend to think
first of the obvious ones: anger, violence, that sort of thing. Or
maybe we think of things like drug or alcohol addiction. Those
things can be demons, of course. Those things can get in the way of
our relationship with God. But there are a lot more forms our demons
can take than that.
For
example, selfishness can be a demon. We can get so wrapped up in
doing the things we want to do and only caring about the things we
care about that we don’t stop to think about all the people God
wants us to help. Laziness can be a demon. We all need a little
time to ourselves, but we can come to treasure our leisure time so
much that it gets in the way of our relationship with God.
Sometimes
the things that get in the way of our relationship with God are not
necessarily bad things, but they can become bad things if we make
them more important than they should be. An example of that in my
life is my love of sports. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong
with being a sports fan, and in fact I think there are ways God can
use that for good. But if sports become too important to us, if we
give them a higher priority than we should, they can get in the way
of our relationship with God. If I’m not careful, sports can
become a demon I have to fight.
That can
be true even of things we normally think of as good things. I said a
little while ago that laziness can be a demon. Well, so can hard
work. Now, most of us were raised to think that hard work is a
virtue, and, in its proper place, it is. But if we focus too much of
our energy on our work, if we start neglecting our families and our
friends and our church because we’re so focused on our work, then
it can stop being a virtue. It can become something that gets in the
way of our relationship with God. Hard work can become a demon that
we have to fight.
Whatever
our personal demons are, whatever those things are that get in the
way of our relationship with God, we are just like the man in our
reading from Luke. We cannot fight those demons by ourselves, any
more than the man in our reading from Luke could. We need to have
Jesus help us.
Jesus
wants to help us. Jesus wants to get those demons out of our lives.
But too often, just like the man in our reading, we don’t want
Jesus to help us. We tell Jesus to go away. We know who Jesus is
and what Jesus can do, and we don’t want Jesus to come anywhere
near us. We know Jesus has the power to take our demons away from
us, but we don’t want Jesus to come too close so he can actually do
it.
We do that
for the same reason the man in our story did it. Our demon, that
thing that has gotten in the way of our relationship with God, has
taken us over. We know Jesus could take that demon away, but we
really don’t want Jesus to do that. We’d rather stay the way we
are than to have Jesus change us. We may know that we should change,
but deep down, we’re a little afraid to.
See,
a lot of the time, we’re pretty comfortable with the way we are.
We may know we’re not perfect, but we’re used to our
imperfections. Our demons really don’t bother us all that much.
If we got rid of them, if we let Jesus take those demons away from
us, if we had a really close relationship with God again, well, we
don’t know where that might lead. What if we got close to God and
then God told us to sell a bunch of the stuff we have and give the
money to the poor? What if we got close to God and then God told us
to go on a mission trip to half-way around the world? Or, what if we
got close to God and then God told us to go spend time helping the
Native Americans who live not very far from here at all?
It
takes courage for us to let Jesus come close to us. It takes courage
for us to let Jesus take the demons away from us. But notice one
other thing. Frankly, until I was writing this message, this part of
the story went right past me. I did not even notice it. But look at
what our scripture says. When Jesus ordered the demon to come out of
the man, it says, “Then the demon threw the man down before them
all and came out without injuring him.”
Luke
goes out of his way to tell us that the man was not hurt when the
demon came out of him. You and I will not be hurt when we let Jesus
take our demons away from us, either. Getting rid of all those
things that are getting in the way of our relationship with God will
not hurt us. Getting close to Jesus will not hurt us. Instead, we
will be the people we should be, and we’ll feel the joy that comes
from being close to God and living the way God wants us to live.
You
and I may not be possessed by a physical demon, but we all have
things in our lives that are getting in the way of our relationship
to God. Let’s let Jesus get close to us, and let Jesus get those
things out of our lives. Then, we can be the people God wants us to
be.
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