“OCULI 2023”
Saint Luke 11: 14-28
Oculi: 12 March Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Is not Jesus always casting out demons? He threw Satan and his brood out of heaven. He drove away the devil-filled Cain after the first murder; even as He sent Adam and Eve into a Lenten world after they had been possessed by demons. They were too were liberated, exorcised, redeemed.
You all had devils cast out of you when at the font, when you were deaf, dumb, impotent, and blind, you were re-born into the Kingdom of The Son!
When exorcized in Christ’s Body and Blood, when His Word makes you what He says it makes you, THEN, you speak and sing His praise; then you pray; then you Confess The Truth, the Way, and The Life. Or as King David wrote: “Lord open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise!”
Oh, but Satan is the master strategist, pastor, he can trick people by dividing his troops, by pretending to retreat, by, ah, ah, flanking maneuvers.
Stop watching and reading military tactics and hear God’s own words: “If Satan is divided against himself, his kingdom cannot stand.” The devil is a proud sprite. Satan hates to be mocked. He is cowardly and so puffed up with prideful ego he simply cannot wound himself—THE WORD OF THE LORD.
So, if Jesus casts out a demon, a devil, an infernal spirit, then the one who is freed is truly free. This is a sign of God. These miracles are proof that Jesus is no homeopathic herb healer; that He is not Ju Ju, dark-magic, pagan witch doctor, but that He is God. God in the flesh come to man to heal and save and forgive.
The devil only poses as the strong man. He is weak because one little word can fell him—LIAR. He lies and he retreats when resisted by The Word of God. You give your dogs medicines or special collars, to repel ticks. You are Baptized which bright light to cockroaches. You eat and drink God’s Body and Blood which is elixir of immortality—poison to the rats, wolves, and snakes of hell.
The strong man thought he had you all carried away into captivity—not to Egypt or Babylon but to the world, the flesh, and your own “old natures.”
But even as Abraham assembled his own men, his own private army, and went after Lot and all the others who had been kidnapped by the heathen kings; followed them until he found them and then slaughtered them in a blood battle to regain and redeem His own blood kin! So too, Jesus pursued Satan by letting the devil think that He, The Nazarene had been pursued; that He, the Righteous Rabbi, had been trapped, caught, punished severely, and then tortured to dead on a cross. When in fact, it was all God’s plan from the beginning. Pilate was right when pointing to the scourged and bleeding Jesus: “Behold The Man!” Yes, behold the bloody crucifix, behold The Suffering Servant, The True Strong Man, the God/Man as he overcomes sin, death, and the power of the devil by The Cross, by His own Body and Blood, shed and given. The devil’s armor, his skull—crushed!
You are free! I forgive you all your sins in Jesus’ + Name.
The Finger of God, The Holy Spirit has come upon you—tracing the cruciform of The Son onto your forehead and breast, and soon to place His Eucharist on your tongues.
Jesus is correct when He says “Yes, the womb that bore Me and the breasts which nursed Me are BLESSED!” And they are, the Blessed Virgin is greatly esteemed by her children. But more so, “blessed are those (you) who hear the Word of God and keep it.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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