Lent 3
Lk
11:14-28
2/28/16
“A house divided against itself
cannot stand.” Abraham Lincoln lived at
a time when the language of the Bible was part of American culture. Speakers could allude to biblical passages
and phrases, and expect that their hearers recognized they were doing so.
Lincoln’s words were based on what
Jesus says in our Gospel lesson, and in the parallel accounts in Matthew and
Mark. He spoke them in 1858 at the
Illinois State Capitol in Springfield as he argued that the United States could
not remain partially free and partially slave holding. The Dred Scott decision had declared that a
black individual was not a person who could be an American citizen, and
therefore couldn’t sue in federal court for their freedom – even if taken into
a state where slavery was not allowed.
It also stated that the federal government had no power to regulate
slavery on federal land that had been acquired after the original creation of the
United States. It is a helpful reminder
that yes, the Supreme Court does make huge mistakes. It is not some kind of infallible arbiter of
truth.
Lincoln made the speech as he
accepted the Republican Party’s nomination to run for the U.S. Senatoe. The speech launched his campaign in which he
ran against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln
and Douglas went on to debate seven times around the state of Illinois. The
third of those took place just south of us in Jonesboro. It interesting to note that while these words
are famous, the campaign they initiated failed.
Lincoln lost to Douglas – one of many failures in his life.
Lincoln was of course correct. The nation couldn’t remain divided part free
and part slave. He didn’t express
himself in the exact form that the words occur in our text where Jesus says:
“Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste.” However, this is certainly what
happened. In bringing about an end to
this division there were 1.1 million American casualties and at least 620,000
deaths. The south was the setting where
most of the battles and the movement of armies took place, and it was
devastated – a fate exemplified in the destruction wrought by Sherman’s march
to the sea from Atlanta to Savannah.
In our text this morning, Jesus
takes a point that is common sense and applies it to the spiritual reality of
what is happening in his ministry. He refutes the charge that he is in league
with the devil. Instead, the exact
opposite is happening. In his ministry,
Jesus is the presence of God’s reign that is overcoming the devil.
Our text begins by telling us, “Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone
out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled.” Now obviously it was not that the demon was
mute. Instead the oppression by the
demon prevented the man from speaking.
Jesus cast the demon out of the man, and when the crowd saw it, they
were amazed.
Luke’s Gospel emphasizes how Jesus
did signs and wonders, such as casting out demons and healing people. These miracles did two things. First, they freed people from a form of the
oppression that Satan and sin had brought into the world. And second, they bore witness to Jesus. Jesus performed the kinds of miracles that
the prophets in the Old Testament had done – especially Elijah and Elisha. They showed that Jesus was a prophet. But he
was not just any prophet. He was the
great prophet like Moses whom God had promised – the One to whom the people
were to listen.
The people were amazed. How could they not be? But we learn that some there said, “He casts
out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.”
Beelzebul was another name for the devil that was present in first
century Judaism. These people attempted
to discount Jesus’ miracle by saying that Jesus was actually cahoots with the
devil! He was some kind of spiritual
“double agent” who appeared to be working against the devil by casting out
demons, but in fact really was on the devil’s side.
Jesus immediately rebutted the
accusation and pointed out its absurdity.
He said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a
divided household falls. And if Satan also is
divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast
out demons by Beelzebul.” The argument was just plain dumb. The history of the ancient world was filled
with kingdoms that had been brought low because of internal division. Nobody intentionally fights against himself.
And then Jesus raised a different
possibility – the true one. He said, “But
if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Jesus used the same phrase that we hear in
our Old Testament lesson today. When the
Egyptian magicians were not able to replicate the miracle that Moses announced,
they knew that they had encountered something that was beyond them. They said
to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”
Jesus announced that if it was by
the finger of God – by the power of God – that he was casting out demons, then
there was one inescapable conclusion: the kingdom of God had come upon them. As
many of you know by now, when Jesus referred to the kingdom of God, he was not
talking about a place. Instead he was
referring to God’s action – to the
reign of God that was present in Jesus to free people from Satan, sin and death.
As the One who brought God’s reign,
Jesus had the power. And he was using
that power to overcome the devil. He
went on to say, “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his
goods are safe; but when one stronger than he
attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and
divides his spoil.”
The bigger, stronger man wins. We see this in football all the time. It is an impressive sight to see an offensive
line dominating the game as the team runs the ball again and again. They blow the defense off the line, and
linemen get down field to lay crushing blocks on defenders as the offense
marches the ball down the field and takes what they want.
Jesus says that he is casting out
demons because he is the stronger One. He is the One in whom God’s reign had
arrived. Jesus had been anointed with
the Spirit as his baptism. And then at Nazareth in the very first sermon in
Luke’s Gospel, Jesus read the words of Isaiah:
“The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me,
because
he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He
has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the
blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the
Lord’s favor.” And then he said, “Today this Scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus
came to proclaim release to the captives of sin and to make this freedom a
reality – to free us from enslavement to Satan.
The problem is that we have a tendency to forget what he has done … or
at least to overlook it. We get so busy
doing all the things we do in the world that we lose our spiritual
glasses. We fail to see that our
existence is lived in the midst of a winner take all spiritual conflict. You belong either to Jesus or to the devil. And though you have been freed by Christ, the
devil is making every effort to get you back under his control. He is working every angle – and our culture
today gives him so much stuff to work with. He doesn’t want you to think about
life in these spiritual terms because then you make for a much easier target.
On
the other hand, Jesus instructs and commands you to recognize this. He does so because he loves you dearly and
has paid an incredible price to free
you. I mentioned earlier that in Luke’s Gospel
we learn that Jesus is a prophet – the great prophet like Moses promised by
God. But here’s the thing about God’s
prophets in the Old Testament – they suffer and they die. Jesus had come to be the ultimate example of
this. He came to be far more than just a
prophet because he is true God and true man.
He came to be the suffering Servant – the One numbered with
transgressors in order to take your place and receive God’s judgment against your
sin. On the evening of Easter Jesus said
to the disciples, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should
suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that
repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
This
is what Jesus did as the anointed One to win freedom for you, people who were
captives of Satan and sin. And then in
Holy Baptism he delivered this freedom to you.
He caused you to be born again of water and the Spirit. He washed away your sins.
You
received God’s reign through baptism and the Word. It was by the finger of God that Jesus cast
out the devil as your lord because of his death and resurrection. And now, in the face of an enemy who still
wants to control you, you continue to
need God’s saving reign.
This
too is something that we are prone to forget.
God has given his Means of Grace.
He has given us the Word, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution and the
Sacrament of the Altar. Certainly God
could have given us just one. But
instead he has given us multiple Means of Grace. He has surrounded you with a variety of ways
by which he forgives sins and strengthens faith.
Yet
this abundance should also lead us to the recognition that God thinks we really do need it – we really do need
to be sustained in the faith. We live in
the ongoing struggle against the old Adam within in us. We face the continuing battle against the
devil and the world. The devil wants to
use every means at his disposal to separate you from Christ and bring you back
under his control. And you know
what? Most of those ways seem easy. They
seem pleasant and enjoyable. They are, after all, the broad path that leads to destruction.
It
is for this reason that God has given us all of the Means of Grace. He has given them to deliver the forgiveness
won by Jesus’ death and resurrection. He
has given them to nourish and strengthen us in the life of faith – to keep us
as his own.
And
it is through these means that the Holy Spirit leads and enables us to live as
those who are on the winning side. You
received the reign of God that Jesus Christ brought into the world. The power
of God’s reign has freed you from the devil. And now that same power is at work
in you so that you can seek to live like you belong to Jesus.
