The Holy One of God

I know who you are—the Holy One of God! (Luke 4:34c)

The "spirit" world was (is?) very real to the people of the Middle East. The people of Jesus' time believed that the world was inhabited by five different levels of beings. At the head of the order was God who was surrounded by the "sons of God," the beings we call angels. Directly below them on the ladder were the good and evil spirits who roamed the world creating mischief as well as good fortune. Human beings ranked below these spirits. They, in turn, ranked higher than the animal life. Middle Easterners believed that each level of the world's inhabitants was "controlled" or under the power of the rank directly ahead of them. Thus, they believed that evil spirits could and did sometimes take a human being captive.

At several points in the early pages of the Gospels, Jesus expels such spirits. Today's passage from the Gospel of St. Luke relates one of those experiences. The fact that Jesus expels the spirit may seem to be nothing more than a miracle of healing to us. However, for the people who witnessed the event, it would have much greater significance. If Jesus could expel such spirits, he ranked ahead of or had power over them; hence their astonishment voiced in these words: What is there about his word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. (Luke 4:36b)

If they admit that Jesus has such power, then they must allow logic to tell them that Jesus is not simply another human man. Of course, such admission is almost impossible for them, especially as this was the first time that they had been introduced to Jesus' power. Interestingly enough, it is the evil spirit itself which admits who Jesus is. While the Gospel does not specifically tell us that the onlookers heard the declaration by the evil spirit, the fact that Jesus tells it to be quiet seems to indicate that they did, in fact, hear the declaration of Jesus' identity.

We people of the Western World do not believe as Middle Easterners do. While we believe in the power of evil in our world, we do not ascribe that evil to roaming evil spirits. While I am not suggesting that we should look at the world in that way, people have also seemingly lost the ability to recognize who Jesus is. We have relegated Jesus to no more than an hour of our week in most cases. So the evil spirit's declaration in the Gospel today stands as a reminder that proclaiming the name of Jesus in our world is now our responsibility, a responsibility that we must not take too lightly.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator