Intervention

Luke 4:31-37

Do we believe in unclean spirits?

Photo by Stefano Pollio on Unsplash

He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, "Let us alone! 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." But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, "What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!" And a report about him began to reach every place in the region. - Luke 4:31-37

Today, we would probably call them mental health issues rather than unclean spirits. And we would probably say some were not unnatural conditions at all.

But in Jesus' day, people associated out-of-control behavior with possession. No matter what we call it, Jesus showed he could heal these people.

In life, we don't like to think of such things as demonic in origin, but we love them in entertainment media. The images of good and bad battling each other are universal storylines, and if we personify them as angels and the devil, all the better.

For those who are new to the faith, such talk can be disturbing and even off-putting. It makes us believers sound strange.

And today, with our aversion to qualifying such conditions in a negative light, we turn people away even faster.

In many miraculous healings that Jesus did, the person, or someone speaking on their behalf, asked to be healed, but here, the man is saying he doesn't want Jesus to come near him.

Should we try to help someone who doesn't want to be helped?

Interventions are against the will of the troubled person. Is Jesus showing us it is right to act when the person says "No!"?

This is a tough one. Today, there would be some of us protesting this approach, and perhaps there was in Jesus' day as well. The people questioned his authority.

Helping people is at the heart of our faith. Yet we disagree on the best way to help or whether help is even needed.

Where do you stop intervening?

As science and technology continue to make ground-breaking strides, we will have to come up with an answer to that question.

Do we try to "cure" what we view as a difference rather than as a disease?

Jesus was acting like God here, and that's okay because of who he is, but what about us?

More to come...

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