Parasites

Christmas is over, and now begins the journey toward Lent....

In today's gospel, we find Jesus preaching in the local synagogue and wow-ing His listeners with His tone of authority - something that they were, evidently, unaccustomed to hearing from the pulpit. It's probably not coincidental that St. Mark places a story of Jesus driving an unclean spirit out of a man within this same scenario - no doubt to showcase that authority that the Lord's listeners were so taken with.

Two things struck me about the story. One, whenever we hear about unclean spirits or demons in the Bible, they've always taken over some person's body - moved in and taken possession - the demon is now the 'I'. The person who was living in that body is now a prisoner. The demon is just like a parasite, 'living' (demons don't really live - they're from hell, where there is no living, only eternal dying) only because they're sucking out all the resources from their host. It occurred to me that, even though most of us aren't possessed by an unclean spirit, we still have sin in our lives, which are the parasitic offspring of those spirits. And only Jesus has the authority and the power to remove them from us.

The other thing that came to my mind was: why was this man, possessed by an unclean spirit, hanging around the synagogue? You'd think that the spirit would have tried to stay far away from a place where the word of God was being proclaimed - unless, of course, it knew that it had nothing to fear.... I wonder if this is the case in many of our churches and synagogues today - that they have become 'safe spaces' where evil spirits are no longer afraid to go. A disturbing thought - but when I consider what I hear coming from the lips of some of our religious leaders, it seems like there's reason to be disturbed.

All of this changes very quickly when Jesus comes on the scene. The unclean spirits recognize Him for who He is immediately - and they are forced to submit to His authority. When He speaks, evil must simply shut up and leave.

Let's pray for Our Lord to drive out the parasites that may be living in us.