Tuesday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 5, 2023

Luke 4, 31-37

Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee. He taught them on the sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out in a loud voice, “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 rebuked him and said, “Be quiet! Come out of him!”  Then the demon threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him any harm.  They were all amazed and said to one another, “What is there about his word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.” And news of him spread everywhere in the surrounding region.

In this Gospel Reading, St. Luke reports that the Lord Jesus went to the larger town of Capernaum beside the Sea of Galilee after he was rejected and nearly killed at his hometown of Nazareth.  The two towns were about twenty hilly miles apart, but were worlds apart in that Nazareth was landlocked and relatively isolated and Capernaum sat by the sea and on a trade route.  It was also situated within easy reach of other towns and cities.  And while at Nazareth “he wrought not many miracles there, because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13, 58), at Capernaum “all the city was gathered together at the door” (Mark 1, 33).

“They were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority.”  The Greek word translated here as the fairly mild “astonished” means the stronger “astounded” and “thunderstruck”.  When the Pharisees taught, they backed their teaching, however misguided, with quotes from the Scriptures.  The Lord preaches in a different way: “Matthew 5:27–28 (D-R): You have heard that it was said to them of old: You shall not commit adultery.  But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5, 27-28).  He teaches on his own authority, for he himself is the Lawgiver.  This directness shocked the people, and the fact that he was “unlearned” in the Law and not a Pharisee added to this effect.  But they listened.

“In the synagogue there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon.”  We can read this both as a historical fact and as Luke’s summary of the rejection of Jesus by the Jews: the unclean spirit of the Pharisees, the chief priests, and the elders dwelling within the Jewish world, resisting the Son of God who has come to cast them out and save the people.  We might ask how an unclean spirit would permit the individual it possessed to enter a synagogue or church.  Among other reasons for this, demons are driven towards that which will conquer them due to their self-destructive nature.

“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!”  The demon speaks in the first person plural as the spokesman for several demons that are present with it.  It claims to know who Jesus is and names him as “the Holy One of God”, indicating that all it knows is that Jesus does the works of God.  The devil did not know until quite late in the Lord’s life that he was the only-begotten Son of God.

“Be quiet! Come out of him!”  Elaborate rituals, often involving sacrifices, were used in ancient times to drive out demons.  Here, the Lord demonstrates his power with two brisk commands.  “Then the demon threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him any harm.”. The Lord permits the demon to throw the man down in order to make manifest some token of the demon’s power, but the man is protected and is able to side up unhurt.  We should notice how cleanly Luke describes the scene and the dialogue.  He does this in order to keep the focus on the main point of the event: the Lord’s power over evil.  But we should think about how this actually played out, with the demon contorting the man and driving him back and forth through the synagogue, then hissing and crying out in turns.  The very appearance of the man during the demon’s encounter with the living God would have terrified any onlooker, the eyes bulging, foam dripping from the mouth, his whole visage wild.

“They were all amazed.”  Those who had witnessed the exorcism would never have seen or heard of anything like this before, and it happened very quickly.  “What is there about his word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.”  The Lord commanded the demon to depart with his own words and by his own authority.  He did not resort to long prayers and involved rituals.  His word drove the demon out.  But where did the word’s power come from?  Where did his authority come from?  For this was the power and authority of God alone.  In Luke’s telling, this began a virtual torrent of miracles that day.  It was as if Jesus had barely restrained himself through his life until this moment to pour out his healing into the world.  This is a sign of how passionately he wished to die on the Cross for our redemption.  He waits until the moment ordained in his Father’s Providence, and then devours the work the Father appoints to him.

We should cultivate through prayer and meditation on the Cross this same zeal for doing the Father’s will so that we might become more and more like his Son.