Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Last week we heard in the Gospel that Jesus “withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon’” (Matthew 15:21-28). But Jesus did not answer her, so she kept following and calling out and she wouldn’t stop. She was from an area where they worshiped the demon Baal, and so her daughter had been taken captive by a demon. The disciples even begged Jesus to send the woman away because she would not stop crying out to Him.

 

In today’s Gospel reading there is a man who has been possessed by a demon. But he isn’t crying out after Jesus. He isn’t making any noise at all. The demon wouldn’t allow him to speak. It kept him mute. He wasn’t from the area where they worshiped the demon Baal, but when Jesus healed him and he was able to speak, some people said that Jesus “casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons” (Luke 11:15). They accused Jesus of working with the demons that the Canaanites worshiped.

 

It was an absurd accusation as Jesus Himself pointed out to them. If He was working with Satan to cast out demons, then Satan was not very smart. The Gospels are full of accounts of Jesus casting out demons from people who were possessed by unclean spirits. Some of the evil spirits even begged Jesus not to do it. He was clearly not working with or for the devil. He was triumphing over him. Jesus was exercising His superior might and authority in order to rescue, deliver, and heal people (men and women, old and young) from the horrible control of the devil and the fallen evil angels.

 

What a tremendous victory Jesus shares with us. On the First Sunday in Lent we heard how Jesus overcame the devil’s temptations in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11); last Sunday, the Second Sunday in Lent we heard how Jesus answered the prayers of the Canaanite woman and delivered her daughter from a demon (Matthew 15); and today we hear how Jesus delivered a man from the evil spirit who would not let him speak (Luke 11).

 

All that Jesus did in every sort of healing and even in all of His teaching was to overcome the devil and all that the old evil foe has done to us: throwing this world under the curse of sin, bringing disease and death into God’s lively creation, infecting all of humanity with an evil spirit that turns against God and tempts us to sin.

 

This great enemy of God and of mankind is powerful and strong and must be crafty also, in order to pull all of this off. And left to ourselves we would be forever lost and suffering, sometimes blindly not even knowing that we are under his malicious power, sometimes speechless, not able to call out for help. That is why the wondrous power of Jesus to cast out these demons was so baffling to many people, and is so precious to us. They knew that it was beyond the power of man to cast out the evil spirits.

 

Some didn’t want to admit that Jesus had the power and authority of God, so they accused him of being in league with Satan. They got it wrong and that is great and glad news for us. For it means that Jesus has overcome the power of Satan for us. By His almighty power, culminating in His suffering, death, and resurrection for the sins of the world, He has defeated the devil and has the power to undo all that the devil had effected by deceiving mankind to turn against God.

 

That overwhelming victory, Jesus gives to you through the gift of your Baptism. He has called you by name and put His promise of deliverance upon you. He has washed away all of your sins and filled you with His Holy Spirit. You are still possessed, but not by an evil spirit that turns you away from God. You are now the possession of the Holy Spirit who turns you toward God so that you may know His love and live under His kingdom of grace, and share in Christ’s victory over death to live forever.

 

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe;” (Luke 11:21). That is the way it is for the devil without Jesus around. He safely possessed that mute man, and the daughter of the Canaanite woman, and many others, all others in fact. He held all people of the world as his trophies. None of us were born free. We were all born infected with the poison that the devil had injected into mankind when he first deceived Adam and Eve. “One common sin infects us all” (All Mankind Fell in Adam’s Fall, Lutheran Service Book, 562)

 

But Jesus came. The Son of God became a man, in order that we might have a champion to set us free, one stronger than the devil to overcome him and take away his armour and plunder his palace (11:22f). Jesus has rescued us from the devil’s dungeons. This is the great and glorious gift that He has given to you in your Baptism, when He cast out the evil spirit to make room for the Holy Spirit.

 

When you are given a really great gift, like a bicycle or one of those little cars that children in my neighbourhood drive up and down the driveway and over to the park, what happens if you jump off of it and run off to do something else, leaving it sitting out in front of the house? Even if it isn’t stolen, that shiny new bicycle gets dirty and rusty. If you don’t take care of it, it will become unusable from neglect. Good gifts need attention. They need to be both preserved and used regularly.

 

That’s also the case with your Baptism. It is a wonderful and great gift, but it will do you no good if you neglect it and forget about it. It needs some attention, just like all your toys. It is completely effective and in perfect working order when you receive it. God gives you the whole of His work of salvation for you. Your Baptism is your full and complete victory over the devil.

 

But if you don’t make use of it: remembering that you are baptized into Christ to follow Him and listen to His Word, go to Him for forgiveness when you sin, and gather with all of the baptized to receive the body and blood of Jesus, then that divine washing that you received will not help you when the demons come back. Yes, they come back.

 

Jesus said that when a person is baptized and the evil spirit is cast out of them it wanders around looking for a new dwelling place. And it can come back to the person from whom it was cast out in Holy Baptism, finding that person’s soul clean and in order. And if that person has neglected their Baptism, that washing of new life that Jesus had given, then it can come back not just by itself, but bringing other evil spirits with it.

 

You have all witnessed this in the many many people who have been baptized but have neglected that precious gift of cleansing from the old evil foe. The evil spirit of unbelief has come back and brought company. They are not usually as dramatic as was the case with the Canaanite woman’s daughter or the man who could not speak. They usually manifest in the subtle and quiet effect of no longer believing that God has saved them. They fly under the radar because it seems like the normal course of the majority of people in the world.

 

But in addition to this foul spirit of unbelief, there comes with it a spirit of aversion to the holy Christian Church; and a spirit that makes them unable to speak a word of forgiveness; and a spirit that delights in profane jokes; and a spirit that gossips about other people; and a spirit that cannot stand to hear the Word of God; and a spirit of tolerance for abominable things like abortion and sexual perversions; and a spirit that creates a paralysis toward repentance. “And the last state of that person is worse than the first” (Luke 11:26).

 

Your house was initially swept and put in order at your Baptism into Christ. While that gift is treasured and utilized, the devil can attack all he desires, but he will not overcome the One who is stronger than he. He cannot take the victory back from the Jesus. But if you have neglected the gift of God that is in you, and you are not filled with the Holy Spirit but are empty, the demons find a nice swept and ordered place ready for them to return.

 

Do not neglect the great salvation that has been won for you by the incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. The hymn “God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It” (LSB, 594) will be sung during the distribution of Holy Communion today. It is a great hymn to help us remember the victory that Jesus has given to us in our Baptism. It is a victory over our weakness, over the wicked world in which we live, over our many sins, over Satan, over death and the grave. It is a hymn that reminds us that Jesus’ victory is ours in Baptism. And I quoted from it at the end of the sermon two weeks ago. Singing the hymn helps us to treasure the victory that we have been given.

 

But we cannot simply extol the past. We must live as the hymn says: “I am baptized into Christ,” not merely “I was baptized into Christ.” Those people who have been baptized and neglected the gift can say that much too. They can say they were baptized as they despise the Church and live with callous and cold hearts and turn away from God and His Word of salvation. They can sing that they were baptized as the demon and his company come back to occupy their hearts.

 

That is why Jesus made a little correction to the good-hearted woman who shouted out those pious words at the end of today’s Gospel reading: “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” (Luke 11:28). We also bless the Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord, as did the angel Gabriel, and her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1). But Jesus was quick to redirect the focus from the fact that Mary carried Him in her womb and nursed Him after He was born, to the fact that she humbly heard the promise of God and kept it in her heart.

 

Mary was declared blessed by Gabriel when he first greeted her, before he told her that she would be the mother of the Christ. He said to her, “Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you!... for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus” (Luke 1:28, 30-31). Mary replied, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (v. 38). She heard the Word of God and kept it with faith.

 

Elizabeth said, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (v. 45). When Mary heard the shepherds tell what the angels had announced, “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (2:19). And when Jesus was twelve and began to discuss things with the teachers in the temple, “His mother treasured up all these things in her heart” (2:51). She was blessed in hearing and treasuring the Word of God about Jesus and from Jesus.

 

That is why the Lord corrected the woman at the end of our Gospel reading and said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!” They are those who have not neglected the gift of God given in their baptism. The house of their heart was swept and put in order, but it was not left empty for the demons to return. The Holy Spirit resides with the Word of God as we gather to hear it and receive its promises in absolution and communion. He keeps you swept and ordered and free from the spirits of unbelief and malice.