Today’s Gospel lesson from Luke chapter 4 is one that almost seems too easy. It consists of one straightforward event immediately followed by what seem to be more straightforward events. It begins with Jesus teaching in a synagogue, where all of the listeners are astonished by His way of teaching – by the authority of His words.
It was typical to ask visiting rabbis to read the Scriptures and teach at the synagogues, but as these people at the Capernaum synagogue soon learned, there was nothing typical about the teachings that day of Jesus. When Jesus spoke, He wasn’t just repeating what other teachers had said in past years and past centuries. Luke never actually tells us what Jesus was teaching, but it obviously got everyone’s attention. We know from elsewhere in Scripture that even though Jesus frequently referred to the prophets, he most often said things like “truly, I say to you …” hose are words of authority, and the people who heard Jesus obviously noticed. His teachings excited them. His teachings astonished them. He spoke with authority – and they had never heard anything like it.
But even as the people are still astonished by Jesus and His teachings, Luke’s account takes a radical turn. The focus shifts to this man who, we are told, was already in the synagogue, apparently hearing Jesus teach along with everyone else. One of the great scholars of the early Church, an Englishman known as the Venerable Bede, once wrote that “the presence of the Savior is the torment of the devils.” It’s obvious here that just being in the same room with Jesus – just hearing His voice – drove the unclean spirit into a frenzy. Hearing the other rabbis talk about the Scriptures didn’t seem to bother him. But hearing Scripture delivered by Jesus, the Holy One of God – well, that was different. And for this unclean spirit, it was terrifying. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”
Then the unclean spirit unloads his big weapon, that sentence that seems to simple and so true. “I know who you are – the Holy One of God.” What’s so wrong with that? The words that the unclean spirit says are pretty close to the confession that Peter makes when he says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” When Peter makes his confession, Jesus blesses him. But when the unclean spirit says virtually the same thing, Jesus commands him to be silent. What’s going on here?
The problem is that Satan and the unclean spirits that follow him are masters at taking the truth and turning it, twisting it. They start out by speaking words of truth, but before you even realize what’s happening you start hearing half-truths. You start hearing distortions of the truth. Just look at what happened to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Listen to what God actually told Adam and Eve: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” But then Satan shows up, and he convinces Adam and Eve that God is holding out on them. “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” And they fell for it. They defied God’s command and ate the forbidden fruit. Their world – our world – was plunged into sin.
Since we are God’s people, we’d like to think that we’re smarter than Adam and Eve. We’d like to think that we’re smarter than Satan and his unclean spirits. We’d like to think that we won’t fall for those tricks. But you know what? We do fall for those tricks. We get suckered right into those temptations. When we hear an unclean spirit proclaim that Jesus is “the Holy One of God,” we might be tempted to think that perhaps – just perhaps – that unclean spirit isn’t so bad after all. Maybe Satan and his cohorts are just getting a bad rap. If they can tell the truth one time, then who’s to say that they won’t tell the truth again next time?
My friends in Christ, all of us – each and every one of us – know people who have fallen into that trap and continue to fall into that trap every day. We stop using words like “sin” and replace it with words like “personal choices.” So abortion isn’t a sin – it’s really just a reproductive choice. Sexual immorality isn’t a sin – it’s just a person’s choice of an alternative lifestyle. Assisted suicide isn’t a sin – it’s just allowing people the choice of ending their suffering on their own terms. In the world of politics, there’s nothing wrong with taking bribes and shaking people down for illegal campaign donations – for as our ex-governor said, those are choices that “all of us in politics do in order to run campaigns and win elections.”
Now you may very well tell me that you don’t do any of the things I’ve just mentioned – the sins of abortion, sexual immorality, murder, political corruption or others that might come to mind – and I would have to agree with you. But let me ask you this: how often – when we see someone blatantly and openly sin – do we decided to turn our heads, to avert our eyes and say nothing about that sin rather than rebuke the sin and proclaim the forgiveness of sins in Christ? How often do we decide that it would be better not to get involved? How often do we have both the reason and the opportunity to speak up – but never say a word? Is that what Jesus wants us to do – or is that what Satan wants us to do?
When the man with the unclean spirit spoke to Jesus in that synagogue, “Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent and come out of him!’” A more correct translation of the Greek text is that Jesus told the unclean spirit to “be muzzled.” Jesus didn’t just tell the unclean spirit not to speak – he didn’t allow the unclean spirit to speak. Jesus didn’t need and didn’t want the testimony of the unclean spirit. In this particular place on that particular day, the only one who proclaimed the truth about Jesus was an unclean spirit. And Jesus simply wouldn’t allow it.
Let’s pause now and take a second look at our Gospel lesson for today. Jesus preached in the synagogue, and everyone was amazed. Jesus made an unclean spirit leave the body of a man – and everyone was amazed. Jesus healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law of a high fever, He healed many more people of their illnesses and diseases, and Jesus drove out many more demons. Jesus showed His authority in His teaching and in his actions. Both His teachings and His actions gave evidence – gave proof – that He was the Messiah, the Holy One of God.
But what happened? The people were amazed. The people talked about what they had heard and what they had seen. Luke tells us that “reports about him went into every place in the surrounding region.” But what’s missing here? What are we not reading and not hearing about?
What’s missing is a simple – but all-important – matter of faith. Yes, the people at the synagogue were astonished, and what they saw and heard excited them, but nothing else happened. Jesus instantly became famous in a wide area, but we don’t hear about a single person in that area coming to faith in Jesus as the Messiah.
Not only did Jesus speak with authority, but he demonstrated – he showed – he proved – over and over that He has absolute authority over all things. But nowhere in these verses do we read that anyone had faith in Jesus. They recognized that He has authority, but this was just an intellectual kind of understanding. They had plenty of knowledge, but no belief. No faith. You see, knowing Jesus and knowing Jesus are two very different things.
What we’re seeing is a pattern that Luke develops – and indeed, all four of the Gospel writers develop – over and over again. Jesus does not want to be revealed as the Messiah by the testimony of demons. Jesus does not want to be revealed as the Christ merely as the result of his healings. Jesus does not want to be revealed as the Son of God by His obvious powers and His clear-cut authority over the heavens and the earth – of sinners and demons alike. In His infinite wisdom, Jesus reveals Himself as the Savior, as the Holy One of God, through His suffering, His death on the cross, and through His resurrection. He reveals Himself not through great displays of power and might – but through the agony and shame of death on the cross.
When Jesus reveals Himself to us through His death and resurrection, then everything that preceded those days comes into focus. Everything that happened during the years of Jesus’ ministry makes sense. Yes, the healings, the miracles and the words of that man with the unclean spirit point to Christ and His work – but with His death and resurrection, His work is completed. Our sins are forgiven. We know this not because we’ve read it somewhere or because we understand it as an historical fact – but because the Holy Spirit has brought us to faith. We know it and believe it because Jesus comes to us today and every other day in His Word. We know it and believe it because Christ promises and delivers the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Baptism and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Following His death and resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciple Thomas, the disciple who had no faith that Jesus had conquered death, and it was then – and only then – that Thomas confessed, “My Lord and my God.” And Jesus responds: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
My fellow believers, we are truly blessed because we have been brought to faith. We didn’t see Jesus perform miracles or command unclean spirits to depart from people who had been afflicted by them. We have not seen – and yet, we believe. None of this belief – none of this faith – is of our own doing, but is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has called us to faith, has called you to faith, has called me to faith. A lot of people know about Jesus, but they don’t truly know Jesus because they haven’t been brought to faith. And so we fervently pray that they will be brought to faith so that they, too, may truly know Jesus just as we know Him.
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