Bible
Study: Joel 1, 13 to 15, chapter 2, 1 to 2. And Luke 11,
15 to 26.
Someone
once said: “There are only two days the whole world would speak well of you, the
day you were born and the day you will die. In between, you just have to
manage!” This saying is so true that it even applies to Jesus Christ himself.
See how people mercilessly criticised him in today’s Gospel passage, accusing
him of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub.
Reading
through this passage again and again, I have had to reflect on so many points
that are worth taking note of:
1. GIVING
POWER TO POWERLESS CREATURES.
Do you
realise that the average person you know fears demons more than God, the angels
of sacramental items of worship? Do you know that we tend to respect Satan more
than we adore God? Why? The answer is not far-fetched. It is the fear of the
unknown, whatever we do not understand, we approach with deep fear.
If you
take the word ‘fear’ and add a few letter to it, it would become ‘defeat.’ Fear
always leads to defeat. Whatever we fear, we surrender to. What we do not
realise is that whenever we fear something, we are indirectly giving power to
that thing. By our fear of Beelzebub, we surrender power to him.
Another
way we empower demons is by ascribing our will power to them. Each time we
commit a sin and accuse the Satan for being responsible, we are unknowingly
transferring power to him and belittling ourselves before him. Satan has no
power on his own other than the power we ascribe to him.
2. GOD IS
BIGGER THAN WHAT WE OFTEN IMAGINE.
How I
wish, God would one day open our eyes to see who he really is, how majestic he
is and the full extent of his power. I have had people say things like “am I
going to eat prayers?” meaning to say, what is the point spending time in
prayers? Can God really help my situation? While at the same time, they also
believe that Satan’s offer is sharp sharp.
Again, by
accusing demons or enemies for being responsible for every single calamity we
have, we simply empower these powerless creatures. We transfer power to them by
making them responsible for our woes. Even if we spend all night praying
against witches and wizards, as long as we still believe a witch is capable of
making something bad happen to you, your prayers and night vigils are useless.
This is why you can almost notice the same persons attending the same crusades
again and again. With their lips, they profess faith in God but in their
hearts, they profess faith in the power of demons. Some people spend their
entire lives pursuing shadows not knowing the witches and wizards they are
fighting only exist in their minds.
No witch
or demon has the power to spoil your day even for a second. You are under the
power and watchful protection of God. If something bad happens, face it head on
and find solutions to it. See it as a challenge and an opportunity to be
creative, to think better and to pray more.
It is an
irony how we ascribe failures to demons but never do we ascribe our successes
to God. We love to claim glory ourselves when things are going well. Yet, when
they do not, we start blaming invisible forces as if these forces now have a
greater power than God in preventing God from making good things happen to you
all the time. To say, it was a witch that prevented you from passing an exam
even when you read well is to say that that witch has the power to stop God
from making you pass the exam.
3. LET
THEM TALK.
Yes, there
is nobody who likes it when people say things that are not true about him or
her. Even Jesus must have been moved to sadness and pain in his heart when he
heard that people were calling him a prince of Beelzebub. But if Jesus could
not stop them from running their mouths, who are we to do so? So let them talk.
Notice
that Jesus did not call down fire from heaven to destroy his critics. He
listened carefully to them and responded to them by attacking the issue at hand
rather than the persons involved. He went straight to say “if it is by the
finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon
you.” He did not say something like; “a group of idiots are accusing me of…
CONCLUSION.
If our
faith is shallow, if we refuse to seek first God’s kingdom and believe are
children of that kingdom where nothing ever happens to us without God’s
foreknowledge, then we are making a hug mistake. No wonder Joel in our first
reading today tells us to return to God with sackcloth and lament.
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus,
help me to fear you more than I fear demons. Amen.
Good morning.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you.
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