“The people retorted, “You Samaritan devil! Didn’t we say all along that you were possessed by a demon?” “No,” Jesus said, “I have no demon in me. For I honour my Father—and you dishonour me. … I tell you the truth, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die!” The people said, “Now we know you are possessed by a demon. Even Abraham and the prophets died, but you say, ‘Anyone who obeys my teaching will never die!’ Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?””
John 8:48-49, 51-53 NLT
The accusation that someone is possessed by a demon is only rarely heard in our Western cultures, if at all. Much was attributed to demon possession in Biblical days, society using it as a catch-all for a variety of unexplained physical, mental and behavioural attributes and conditions. To the crowd, heavily infiltrated by Pharisees and other religious leaders, Jesus’ counter-cultural claims and message were so unusual that the accusation of demon possession was, at least superficially in that culture, a logical choice. The crowd were doing what we often do – they tried to make sense of behaviours unexplained by any other cause. In our societies today we might conclude that strange and unusual behaviour is because of “learning difficulties” or some form of mental illness. But in Jesus’ day there was no reason why the crowd should level the accusation of demon possession at Him just because they disagreed with what He was saying. Jesus’ message was simple yet profound, and never the ravings of someone possessed. The dangerous thing for the people was that by levelling such accusations at Jesus, they were at risk of committing the unpardonable sin. Mark 3:28-29, “I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. This is a sin with eternal consequences”. Imagine the scene before the “pearly gates” as one of Jesus’ intransigent accusers arrived and tried to gain entry. The realisation of what they had done would have preceded a quick journey to a place where they would find out what real demon possession was all about!
To a crowd steeped in a religious culture that claimed salvation through obeying the Law of Moses and the plethora of rules devised by generations of rabbis, someone who claimed otherwise would have been most unwelcome, to the point that they might become associated with the devil, who, by definition, was anti-God. To a sincere law-believer of that day, such a person as Jesus was in danger of destroying their entire belief system, and their first instinct was to protect what they had. But the sad thing was that religious people of Jesus’ day had replaced God’s loving plans with a liturgy that excluded relationship with God and exchanged it for a life style devoid of the life that God intended.
In 21st Century Western societies, people only rarely display anything that would warrant the claim or accusation of demon possession. But things happen that display the same stubborn behaviour in the face of messianic claims of a new way or alternative explanation. The ideological clashes between groups of fanatics over issues such as the climate or gender are perhaps a modern day demonstration of the same refusal to change demonstrated in the crowd before Jesus and such behaviour is still very much part of the human psyche. The same crowd who accused Jesus of demon possession would perhaps deny the holocaust ever happened in the mid-twentieth century. Or they would make other outrageous claims all in the name of their own particular “religion”.
How do we pilgrims cope in the face of new claims and better ways? We do what countless others have done – we turn to the Word of God. There we find truthful nourishment for our souls. And rather than accuse the ideological fanatics of demon possession, we reach out to them with a message of hope straight from the throne of God. They will probably reject both us and the message, even screaming accusations of demon possession, but, like Jesus, we patiently and lovingly repeat what we have said and then move on, leaving the consequences of their denials to the mercy of God.
Father God. Please help us to stay close to You and listen constantly for Your voice in all we think and do. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 