"The Greek historian Nicephorus, reports that Salome, the dancing daughter of Herodias, passing over a frozen lake, the ice broke, and she fell up to the neck in water, and her head was parted from her body by the violence of the fragments, shaken by the water and its own fall, and so perished; God having fitted a judgment to the analogy and representment of her sin."  

 Casting out demons

Sometimes you can't.....

“…also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out.” - Luke 8:2

“And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.” -Matt 10:7-8

The ministry of driving demons out is a complex issue to wrap our minds around today. 

How does one read these passages in one hand and hold the realities of mental health, disease, abuse, addiction and trauma in the other?

Some Christian circles deny the presence of demons in postmodern life, others see them in everything. 

Science has thankfully dispelled much ignorance, superstition and exposed the error of worldviews that trust in magic and sorcery. 

Yet, the gospels reveal clear teaching from Jesus that there is a reality of evil that is at work in the souls and bodies of humans too. 

How do we navigate such complex and personal stories and experiences that doesn’t ignore scripture but doesn’t mishandle or incorrectly diagnose people’s ailments, sufferings and ongoing battles?

Some are satisfied with very simplistic answers that quickly define situations with a black or white response. I’ve never been comfortable with the self-assurance of either extreme. 

Jesus' stories reveal moments that reflect the reality of people’s lives that I witness. Immediate manifestations of evil, lifelong testimony of troubles, horrors and tragedies that have roots in demonic influences. Ministry moments that end without deliverance, healing or satisfying conclusions. Particular facts that involve the numbers of demons involved. Admonitions that certain “kinds” require more spiritual action and the element of time. In some situations Jesus rebukes unbelief and others he doesn’t mention faith at all. 

Sometimes even Jesus kept praying for people until the healing fully arrived: 

“He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.” -Mark 8:23-25

When I’m working with people I allow all these examples to undergird my expectations and conclusions. I rest in the directives and limits of the unfolding restoration of lives. I rejoice in immediate breakthroughs and long mendings. I trust in power, truth, medicine, doctors, good food, exercise, sleep, fresh air, and ongoing relationships to be part of people’s rescue and recovery.

I allow room for my own inability, lack of spiritual insight, faithfulness or maturity. 

“And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.”” -Mark 9:14,16-18

I recognize that the trauma and drama of people’s lives have histories and deep roots that only Jesus fully knows. I also rest in His ability to put the puzzle pieces together in His timing and in His way. We are never the last word in anyone’s story. 

“And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”” -Mark 9:20-29

Did Mary have every devil leave at one moment? I think so, since it was Jesus doing the word and work. But I’ve also seen people evict devils from the rooms of their house as they discover them. 

Are there “possessed Christian’s”? I can’t come to that conclusion from the evidence of Scripture, but I can see matters of truth and time at work in some scripture references. That leads me to believe that recovery is complex and I don’t have all the facts in every situation. 

A claimed by Christ soul is a freed soul, we are given the keys of the kingdom to liberate captives, even when we are those captives. These keys are the truth of God’s word and ways. The Holy Spirit is active in leading people into the full and abundant life Jesus has purchased for them. Some slaves seem to not know they have been liberated and equipped with the keys to their prisons. Some have never encountered the truth that can set them free. Some don’t want to “get well” and linger in the same habitations of their bondage unwilling to obey or respond to the commands of Christ. 

I choose to see the sons and daughters and the parents around me as precious and perilous souls in need of the truth and power of Jesus. I choose to continue to seek a greater understanding of the keys Jesus has put into my own hands. I seek to drive out anything that reeks of devils and deception. Compassion and gentleness is my posture with the suffering and faith and conviction with the dark powers at work in people's lives. 

In the end I trust that Jesus knows how to rescue, redeem, release and restore every Mary I meet. Because His love is greater than anything that separates us from the love of God in Christ. 

Roman’s 8:38-39 “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below, indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Pastor Eric. 

 

”Her hands are busy spinning thread, 

her fingers twisting fiber.“

-Proverbs 31:19

"She sat there quietly knitting in the church row, a practice that looked like prayer taking form. She was making a blanket and it was ocean blue. A perfect covering for a woman living in a crisis shelter where the comfort of the Holy Spirit embraces worried and wearied hearts, minds and bodies.  

Her story threaded into words as needles and yarn rhythmically connected her inner world to the outer one. She said knitting helped her do something with the thoughts and feelings she didn’t know how to process. It put them somewhere. She smiled as she spoke, part oracle, part survivor clinging to her yarn like a life preserver

As she confessed, emotion began to well up like a deep swell in the waves that sea watchers know in the Pacific Northwest. The ocean crescendos are nature affirming our depths, our dark deeps with forces of swirl and push that turn expanses of water into breaking and crashing displays of sound and sight. It’s the weeping of waters that draw people into healing trances or cathartic resonance on sandy shores. 

She wove and wept.

That blue sea on her lap was becoming Neptune’s Trident. She was knitting her deliverance, weaving her wounds into a gift for someone. Her pain found a purpose, even if it was a desperate craft born out of a woman afraid of drowning. 

Holy power silently rescuing and restoring life easily overlooked as simple craft that was actually magic and miracle happening right there in the sanctuary.

I witnessed a Proverbs thirty one woman knitting and this is her praise at the gates." 

Eric Blauer, Artist: Marcela Bolívar

 All of my sons, as well as myself, work in urban Missions. 

This is "ground zero." 

Here is a peak inside that world that my oldest son, Pastor Eric wrote today. 

"Mary Magdalene had seven devils, knowing this gives me hope.

“After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;” -Luke‬ ‭8‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭

Many people have a fascination with ghost stories. They enjoy being scared, terrified, spooked and unnerved. Some like horror movies, anything full of the frightening, gruesome and macabre. 

This genre is complicated to understand. Taking pleasure in seeing someone descend to the darkest depths of human or inhuman experience and escape is cathartic in some redemptive way. Hells and horrors are part of the human experience. The human mind and heart have mythologized the ruin, rescue and restoration of human existence in art, story, theater, film and dance since humans started retelling life. 

Violence, tragedy, trauma and abuse are often the backdrop to some of the most profound testimonies of God’s saving work. The gospel story itself includes one of the most viscous and disturbing events of evil and it’s strangely termed the passion of our Lord. A crucifixion as the culmination of a brutal and barbarous series of tortures is profoundly disturbing as the center of a message called “The Good News”. 

When you work with people, especially those at the margins, death and devils make sense. The reality of wicked injury or self-perpetuating malevolence isn’t a hard truth to sell, something good conquering it, is. 

“My mother introduced me to porn.”

“I was raped.”

“I was sexually assaulted.”

“I tried to cut my throat.”

“I overdosed.”

“My parent was beheaded by a family member.”

“My brother was murdered by a gang, they cut off his arms, legs and head and sent them to my parents in a bag.”

These are people’s stories that I’ve heard. They are happenings that one has to find some place to put within oneself. What do you do with someone’s sufferings like these? It’s horrific to process. Many times I’m stunned and knocked off kilter in my heart and mind when such confessions are spoken. 

Humanity is truly tasting the powers of the age to come. People are full of devils and for many exorcism isn’t just a movie title, a supernatural thriller or titillating religious tale, it’s a life or death rescue mission. 

Mary Magdalene had a dark story too. I’m grateful for the knowledge that someone closest to Jesus had been possessed by Hell and horror. 

That is good news and the demonized need to hear it, maybe you need to know it. Jesus saves, delivers and heals. He is greater than whatever possesses you.

Jesus is the God-King who drives out devils."

 "Today on the streets of Downtown OKC,

I passed a man simply asking for change as he held out an empty shoe polish canister.

I had none, so I passed him and went on my way.

On my return trip to the office, I found him and this woman sitting together.

She did not give him change,

she did not drop off a hot meal.....

she sat down, cut her chicken wrap in half,

and shared it with him.

She did not leave, she sat and talked

and asked genuine questions that many of us would ask while out to lunch with a friend.

She did not treat him like a person to help, but a person to love.....

so whoever you are lady, you get it."

Credit: Darrin N Tory Hand

 

 "There are some of God's dear servants who walk in great maturity and they have a degree of clarity and divine knowledge 

more than we can discourse of, 

and it is even more certain than the demonstrations of geometry, 

they are brighter than the sun, 

and unfailing as the light of heaven.

But I shall say no more of this at this time, 

for this is to be felt, and not talked of; 

and they that never touched it with their finger, 

may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their heart, 

and be never the wiser. 

There is in the things of God, 

to them which practice them, 

a deliciousness that makes us love them, 

and that love admits us into God's cabinet, 

and strangely clarifies the understanding by the purification of the heart.

 

"In the mature Christian there is a higher degree of mediation, 

so exalted, 

it is a prayer of quietness and silence, 

and a mediation extraordinary, 

a discourse without distractions, 

a vision and intuition of divine excellencies, 

and a resolution of all our faculties into sweetness’s, affections, and staring’s upon the divine beauty; 

and is carried on to ecstasies, 

raptures, 

suspensions, 

elevations, 

abstractions 

and apprehensions beatifical.

They that experience these heights call them the secrets of the kingdom; 

but they are such which no one can describe; 

such which God hath not revealed in the publication of the gospel; 

such for the acquiring of which there are no means prescribed.

And a warning, let no man be hasty to eat of the fruits of paradise before his time 

or he runs the danger of losing all right sense of religion and prudence."

Jeremy Taylor 1600s.

This is my favorite poem about how to comfort someone with a great loss. This letter was written to James Whitcomb Riley’s best friend, who comfort him as he grieved for the loss of his wife Martha, who he called “Marthy”.

 

TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN

For forty year and better you have been a friend to me,

Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,

You always had a kind word of counsel to impart,

Which was like a healing' liniment to the sorrow of my heart.

When I buried my first woman, William Leachman, it was you

Had the only consolation that I could listen to—

For I knew you had gone through it and had rallied from the blow,

And when you said I'd do the same, I knew you ought to know.

But that time I'll long remember; how I wandered here and there—

Through the setting'-room and kitchen, and out in the open air—

And the snowflakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen glare,

And the neighbors' sleds and wagons congregating' everywhere.

I turned my eyes towards heaven, but the sun was hid away;

I turned my eyes towards earth again, but all was cold and gray;

And the clock, like ice a-cracking', clicked the icy hours in two—

And my eye’s had never thawed out if it hadn't been for you!

We set there by the smoke-house—me and you out there alone—

Me a-thinking'—you a-talking' in a soothing' undertone—

You a-talking'—me a-thinking' of the summers long ago,

And writing "Marthy—Marthy" with my finger in the snow!

William Leachman, I can see you just as plain as I could then;

And your hand is on my shoulder, and you rouse me up again,

And I see the tears a-dripping' from your own eyes, as you say:

"Be reconciled and bear it—we but linger for a day!"

The ways were devious, William Leachman, that me and you have passed;

But as I found you true at first, I find you true at last;

And, now the time's a-coming, close to our journey’s end,

I want to throw wide open all my soul to you, my friend.

With the strength of all my being', and the heat of heart and brain,

And every living' drop of blood in artery and vane,

I love you and respect you, and I venerate your name,

For the name of William Leachman and True Manhood's just the same!