Demonic Disregard
Reflection on Matthew 12:43-45 — 11/18/2023
43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” — Matthew 12:43-45
“I will return to the house I left.” This is the language Jesus puts into the mouths of demons.
From this brief phrase we learn a lot about their regard for humanity. A human, to the demon, is not a person meant to be thwarted, but a space meant to be in-dwelt and corrupted. This is the perfect picture of using a person as a means to an end.
We don’t talk about demons much in the West, not unless it is the caricatured version that is seen in movies. But signs of demonic influence are all over the place. For the calling card of the demon is the objectification, devaluation, and dehumanization of a human being. And why not? A human is an image bearer of the God demons hates. What greater form of disrespect than to deface what God delights in?
You don’t have to look too hard to spot their defacing influence: slavery, pornography, classism, racism, Power Slap (a new form of entertainment where one human slaps another human until a KO happens)… the signs of their presence are legion.
Their goal is the complete opposite of what Jesus came to do. As he said in John 10:10, “the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy…” People of God must not live in blissful ignorance as to the source of the worlds ills. We needn’t obsess over them, but evil must be named, that it might be dealt with.
How is evil dealt with? The second half of John 10:10, “I have come that you might have life.”
The Spirit of Jesus also comes to indwell human beings, but not for their ruin; he indwells to restore. He comes to re-dignify us with his life, his abundant life.
This is why it’s not enough to just have demonic influences removed; no, the human is too great to be left alone, we must be indwelt by something greater, something that can lead us to a discovery of who and what we truly are.
As William Temple wrote, “We only know what Matter is when Spirit dwells in it; we only know what Man is when God dwells in him.”
This is what Jesus was working towards in his incarnation. First he dwell with us. Next, by his Spirit, dwell within.
We have seen what the demons can do when they get a hold of someone; it is a rather uncreative, repetitive and boring thing. When God gets a hold of someone, through his Spirit, he makes a unique masterpiece each and every time.
Father God, Creator of Heaven, earth and everything that dwells therein. You breathed into us your breath of life and made us living things. Through our leap towards self-sufficiency, we abandoned you and opened ourselves up to dehumanization. But because of your unfailing love, you sent Jesus to redeem and restore us. Grant that we, having been cleansed from the corruption of Sin, might be filled with your life giving Spirit. That we would be carriers of your dignifying life into to a world that has been undignified. In Jesus Name.
Flip Wilson was right! The devil did make him do it!