Demons

 Mark 7:24-37

Jesus casts out demons many times in Mark. This is the main healing Jesus does for people. We have tried to explain it away, how it might be someone who has diseases which hadn't been diagnosed as yet. There may be another way to look at this though as well. How do we grapple with evil? We like to think its out there away from us, or sometimes we think it is really real and close to us. Never within us or never as close to us as we would like to think. Casting out demons may be something we have to do for ourselves though. They may be within us.

My dad had something he would say to us kids when we were younger. At some point in our lives he would tell us we had to slay our own dragons. Now I didn't understand what that meant at the time, now I do. It is having to find the things within yourself which are hard to understand and speaking them aloud and letting their power in you and over you go out. It's like this: just a few weeks ago I had to have my second COVID test. I didn't know which test the health center was giving and I was preparing myself mentally for having another invasive long test. Well, that's not the one I got, but at one point the nurse said, this doesn't hurt at all and it was uncomfortable probably because I had a sinus infection that wouldn't quit. 

A few days later I texted a friend, the friend immediately texted me back asking if everything was okay and if I needed to talk we could. So I called her. I told her how out of sorts I had been because of this test, how I had prepared myself for the invasive one because the first time I had the long COVID test the nurse didn't tell me what was going to happen. It hurt and when she got done she said, this is why we don't tell people because it hurts so. Well, being a survivor of abuse means this is not the correct answer. I need to be told what you are doing and why you are doing it. Preparing myself mentally for being violated once again, and I do mean this, when you don't tell someone what you are doing might work on some people, but not for me. This is the slaying of the dragon. I needed to say out loud how I felt, how it makes me feel, and to realize what this might connect to in issues with my past. This is casting out demons at its best. 

See demons are more than just this evil we conjure up in our head. Usually demons are within us and ready to render us incapacitated because we don't name what it is. Ignorance is bliss, but not for the people who live with us because all the emotions we are hiding or trying to bury will eventually come out in different ways. So casting out demons shouldn't be a foreign thing to us or one we try to explain away. Maybe we ought to look more closely at these and try to see our own demons being cast aside. What are the ones which bind us and make us silent? Might we be able to find the connection to what it means and break free once again to live life fully and more grace-filled towards others dealing with the same things? May we lift them up to Jesus and find we are set free. Amen.