1 I think it is interesting and telling that the Gospels tell such a different story about evil than the Hollywood version that we’ve all been overly exposed to. Hollywood wants us to think that there is some kind of continual war between good and evil and the jury is still out about who is going to win. That is not what the Christian Gospel proclaims. In the Christian Gospel, unclean Spirits don’t stand a chance against the in-breaking, authoritative power of Jesus Christ. In our reading from this morning, the unclean spirit is so afraid of Jesus that the first thing he asks is if Jesus is going to destroy him. Jesus seems to view him as little more than an inconvenience saying “be silent, and come out of him.” To quote the Apostle Paul: In the Christian Gospel, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, [are] able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus is the Holy Presence of God on earth. When the Kingdom breaks in around him, nothing evil can stand in his way. In this story of the exorcism in the synagogue, Mark tells us that “no oppressive boundary will stand or withstand the [power] of Jesus. All that is demonic…will not survive in the face of the demon- tossing, [Holy] Spirit-possessed Son of God.”(Charles, Gary, Feasting on the Word Year B, 313). This story at the beginning of Mark’s gospel illustrates to us that in the New Kingdom Jesus was bringing to the people of Israel and to the world, “all things demonic are on their way out.” (Ibid., 311). Those who had been oppressed by evil 2 were now seeing great liberation. Those who had lived in fear now had nothing to fear because Jesus Christ had come to liberate them: to liberate them from their earthly oppressors and to liberate them from their spiritual oppressors. The same is true for us. The closer that we are drawn into Jesus’ powerful orbit, the more the things that oppress us begin lose their power. Jesus says “‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’” (Matt. 11:28). We all carry heavy burdens. We have all felt the crushing weight of evil in the world. We have all felt the fear that it instills in us, we have all wrestled with inner struggles, we have all seen a loved one eaten away by something inside. These things are not things to make light of or ignore, it’s just that compared to the almighty power of Jesus Christ, no power can stand against him, no curse runs too deep for him to undo, not even death itself holds sway over the almighty power that is Christ’s love for each and every one of us. In seminary, I had the good fortune of attending classes with some Anglican clergymen who were Pakistani and who served the poorest of the poor in the Urdu region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of the things that continually struck me about Fr. Altaf and Fr. Nazir was that they were some of the most joyful, gentle, servant-hearted people I had ever met. Eventhough they had seen just about every evil of war you could imagine, eventhough many innocent people in their congregation had been violently killed, they themselves were never violent. When I saw them sad or angry (which was rare), I never saw their sadness or anger consume them—they had a sense of joy and courage that was powerful and 3 infectious and their faith in the healing power of Jesus Christ was something I will carry with me for the rest of my ministry. Jesus unbinds this poor man in the synagogue and frees him from his oppressor and he does the same for us. Jesus enters into our hearts and destroys the forces that oppress us. Jesus comes to bring healing and wholeness to us. I have mentioned before that there is a deep connection between healing and salvation. In Greek, just as in English, the words for salve and salvation have the same root. In the gospel of Mark, 13 of Jesus’ 18 recorded miracles are healing miracles and 4 of those 13 are exorcisms. I think this truly demonstrates that Jesus was first and foremost about healing us and restoring us to God. None of us is free from the fallenness or the suffering of this present age, but in Christ, we are shown a new and glorious reality in which “…things which were being cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made…” I conducted a funeral on Friday for a woman who struggled with Alzheimer’s. She was a wonderful woman in life, but she had a tortured journey through Alzheimer’s. Yet as I was with her on the day that she died it was clear that she was given a sense of God’s peace—she experienced a peaceful and holy death after experiencing the unholiness of Alzheimer’s. After the funeral there was a lightness that passed through everyone and I had several people come to me and tell me how they felt that she had been freed, that she had been released. In the face of evil, we have a mighty advocate who will not let one of his sheep go astray. Who will continually seek, night and day until all have been restored to the 4 sheepfold. This is a glorious vision for those of us who have seen family members consumed with depression or alcoholism, anger or fear, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s or whatever other oppressor we have seen lurking in the shadows. We know that even if they cannot or did not reach healing and wholeness in this mortal life that Jesus can and will restore them to their true selves in the fullness of time by his good, powerful, and loving hand. Amen. .