“KEEPING THE WORD OF GOD”
Saint Luke 11: 14-28
Oculi: 24 March Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
“Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”
That Word can be Holy Scripture. Your sinful self does not “keep” it, if by keeping it one means obeying God’s commands. Your fallen nature spends a whole lot of time morphing “commands” into goals or suggestions. Your “old Adam” even struggles at times with the idea that Scripture really is Holy—i.e. perfect: inerrant, infallible, and inspired. If you perfectly believe Scripture is God’s will for you, then why don’t you practice it. Why don’t you “keep it?”
You are sinful. That means you are unclean.
You have a blackened heart—the old self—and you have a blackened environment—the corrupt world—and you have a filthy ‘tar-like’ arch-enemy—Satan. The devil wants you to stay filthy; to become unbelieving; to be damned. The devil wants you to be “dumb.” Yes, he wants you to be dumb in the sense of ignorant, not “knowing” the Person and Work of Christ; of not trusting and relying that The God/Man’s life, obedience, passion, and death, are “FOR YOU,” for the forgiveness of your sins. But, the devil also wants you dumb in the old sense. He wants you quiet—not speaking—not confessing the faith, The Creed, The Cross, The Resurrection of all Flesh, for Jesus’ sake.
All hail and well met the true and greater Saint Patrick, the heal of the Blessed Trinity, Saint (Holy) Jesus Christ, God-in-the-flesh, Who would crush the serpent’s head. We all like a fight like this…the greater David slaying the infernal, metaphysical Goliath. And yes, every one of Christ’s physical and spiritual exorcisms of demons, hellish spirits, legion, are battles of victory that elate us and inspire our attention. But that tends to glory. That can lead us to a view of The Faith that is militant only in smashing success and vanquishing of the apparent foe. The crown and laurels of our God who ends up looking for like Caesar, or, Moses triumphing over the heathen Canaanites, or King David.
Your sinful self is James and John: “Lord when You come in your kingdom, let us sit on your right and left hand.” His answer to them and you is “you will indeed be Baptized in My Baptism.” That’s the Cross; that’s suffering and trials; that’s martyrdom and finishing the faith with Saint Paul. That is “hearing the word of God and keeping it.” Not that you obey the two tables of the Law, but that by the power of The Holy Spirit, through The Word that Is Christ’s Absolving Forgiveness, and Sacramental Forgiveness, you “keep Him” by Having/believing Him keeping you. You in Him + (Baptism) and Him in you (Eucharist).
James and John were sent out with the other ten, two-by-two, to cast out demons and devils. So too, were the 70 future presbyters. The Lord God may have defeated the venom and death of the fiery serpents in the Arabian desert by His Mercy and Power, but it was through “means.” It was through Moses His servant, His pastor, and by way of the brass serpent on the pole—The Cross of Christ via earthly means. Jesus defeated Satan at Calvary but Jesus defeats Satan and his brood, NOW, through His Pastors, His present servants, by way of The Word. Jesus’ washing of new + life. Jesus’ serving of Holy Body and Precious Blood—God’s own soul and divinity, His Body and Blood in Sacramental Union with bread and wine.
It all flows from the cross, though to be sure, events such as happened in this morning’s text, are exciting. Christ simply “cast out” that man’s devil by His own word, the word of God. Jesus is the voice of God, The Word made flesh, and the Finger of God…the mover, shaker, lifter, doer of all commands and all receiving of punishments due to your not keeping the word.
Jesus did not just toss Satan down like he did to the deaf and dumb spirit; He did not drive him out as quickly and as serendipitously as He did for the “man of the tombs.” Jesus defeated the “purported” strong-man by becoming, willingly, the weak man. Jesus became the weakest of all men by joyously becoming the second Adam in perfect submission to His Heavenly Father’s plan and will. The Lion of Judah let Himself be shorn of His regal and glorious man of Divinity. He took on, not just your flesh and blood, but He took on the humiliation of suffering and death. He the Strongest Man, The God/Man became the Agnus Dei: The Lamb of God. A silent, non-complaining, passive sacrificial beast---laden with the filth of all of us.
The “weaker” Man despoiled Satan of all his infernal armor by letting those wearing Roman armor strip Him of His robes. The “weaker” Man has redeemed back from the devil the spoils of war—all of you—by letting all that He had be taken from Him. You are unbound, loosed, freed, from the prison house of Satan because Jesus let Himself be tightly bound by Caiaphas’ band of cutthroats and even more tightly bound by the Legion’s nails and spikes—and then bound and sealed in an earthen tomb. That is the price of your freedom. The Freeing-One kept the Word. He nursed once at the breast of His mother. You now are fed by Him in His Church, your Mother. This is how He keeps you. Blessed are ye.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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