While in Capernaum one Sabbath day, Jesus and the disciples
entered the synagogue and taught. Synagogues were set up
around Israel so folks didn’t have to travel far every week to
Jerusalem to worship and sacrifice at the temple. Although, they
did have to go to the Jerusalem three times a year for the feast
days of Pesach(paysock), Shavuot(shavooa), and Sukkot
(sucoat). Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacle. So while in the
synagogue, scripture says “Just then” or “suddenly”, “a man with
an unclean spirit…cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus
of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are,
the Holy One of God.” Jesus commanded the evil spirit to come
out of the man and it did. He became clean again. I don’t know
about you, but in every scary movie I saw, when I was a teenager,
the church was the sanctuary to run to where evil spirits couldn’t
get in. People would run to the church, close the doors behind
them just in time. Just when you were lulled into a sense of calm,
safety and security, the shutters and door would rattle and shake,
but evil could never got in. So how was evil able to get into the
synagogue?
On another occasion during the Passover festival, Jesus entered
the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the
temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and
the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is
written,‘My house shall be called a house of prayer (for all
nations),’but you are making it a den of robbers.” This wasn’t the
‘ol tye dye t-shirt selling at Otisville. Folks were cheating pilgrims
who came from afar. Scales were rigged, prices were gouged,
your animal would be denied so you had to purchase their animal
for sacrifice… all of this under the watchful eye of the religious
leaders. On top of all of this, they were doing it in the section
called the gentile court. This was the only place in the temple
where non-Jews were allowed to worship God, but how could
they with all the animals, noise, buying, selling, cheating and
commotion going on? What would you think about this religion
as a fledgeling believer? Would you feel invited or turned off?
In the book of Isaiah, it says about foreigners “these I will bring to
my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my
altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all
peoples”.
Jesus once said to the temple leaders “ Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a
single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a
child of hell as yourselves.”
When confronted with the truth, they always became angry. How
did the God’s people, how did temple worship get this way?
Both needed a deep cleansing!!
There’s an old tale of a shepherd who was watching over his flock
of sheep when a wolf came along. He was on high alert ready for
any attack. The wolf did not come close but stayed at a distance.
This went on for many days. The wolf would sit on a large rock at
the edge of the field and just watch the sheep. Slowly, the
shepherd began to let down his guard because of the non
threatening patience of the wolf. From a distance, he started to
see the wolf as a large sheep dog. He was lulled into thinking it
protected the flock from other bad characters, a.k.a. wolves,
lions...One day, the shepherd had to urgently leave for home and
left the flock in the care of the wolf. When he returned, he found
that the wolf had eaten most of the flock. The shepherd said to
himself “it serves me right for entrusting the welfare of my flock to
a wolf”.
As the false intentions of the wolf crept closer and closer to the
heart of the shepherd, he was lulled into giving up his protective
authority.
Similarly as the shepherd, we are lulled into giving up our
protective authority to temptation, sin, and evil intentions. We
allow ourselves to believe it’s ok to keep them at arms length by
making false rationalizations and think that nothing will happen.
We have to keep in mind that “we do not wrestle against flesh and
blood, but…against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly
places.” So any time you give the devil a chance to penetrate
your protective layers, he will take it. In the book of Job, God
asked Satan “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the
Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth
on it.” In 1 Peter it says “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy
the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to
devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith...”. Satan’s goal is to
turn us away from the love and protection of God and away from
life to death. Before Caine killed his brother Able, God told him
“sin is crouching at your door;” , just like the wolf, “it desires to
have you, but you must rule over it.”
What is the door?
The door is to the temple we call church. The door is to the
temple we call our bodies that houses the spirit of the Lord. Paul
writes “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit within you...?” The wolf, temptations, evil spirits, our sins
can be in the form of addictions, starting rumors in the church,
pornography, adultery, power grabbing, stealing, keeping others
from coming to God, lies, racism, greed, lust, anger, jealousy...
you name it. The church cannot allow these things to creep
closer and closer to it’s doors less they devour the flock. We
cannot allow these things to creep closer and closer to our hearts
less we get swallowed whole. It would seem impossible to rid
ourselves of them, but thanks be to God that we have redemption.
We were bought with a price. The blood of the Lamb, Jesus,
who gave His life as a ransom in order for us to be free from the
power of sin, death, and temptation. Do you believe this?
Remember what scripture said about Jesus in the synagogue? It
said while He was teaching, the man with an unclean spirit “cried
out”. The words of God, the words of truth, the words of life are
too convicting to evil spirits. Scripture says “ The voice of the
Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders…The voice of
the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The
voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of
Lebanon. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The
voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the
wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to
whirl and strips the forest bare, and in his temple all say, “Glory!”
I can hear Jesus say “Come out of them” to cleanse His children.
I can hear Jesus say “Come out of them” to cleanse the Christian
Church. You need only to bring your sins, your grievances, your
doubts, your frustrations, your fears, bring your worries and
anxiety about Tuesdays election, bring your wondering about how
far your next paycheck will go or what bills to pay this month,
bring your sadness and pain of losing a loved one, lift up your
sickness to Him, bring your misunderstanding, your
misinformation, your misconceptions of othering God’s loved
ones, bring your mindset of scarcity to Jesus and He will show
you the abundance God has planned for all people. All these
things, God will bear up for you if you take it to the Holy One in
prayer. Scripture says “I bless the Lord, who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always
before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also
rests secure. For you do not give me up to Sheol or let your
faithful one see the Pit. You show me the path of life. In your
presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures
forevermore.
Let all God’s people say glory, hallelujah (3x) and Amen.
by Edgar Hayes