Things are not always as they seem. Sure people are being healed. The poor are receiving the good news of God's Kingdom. Hope is springing forth in the midst of the us...but things are not always as they seem!
Jesus' opponents not only wanted to reject the very difficult message he was preaching, they wanted to place him in league with Beelzebul so they could launch a counter-attack. So Jesus points out that these people are not only not with him, they are full on against him.
Who is Beelzebul? Beelzebul was a common nickname for the personal source of evil. When a person is unclean, a sinner, they were trash so it is that they are ruled by 'the Lord of flies' which is roughly what 'Beelzebul' or 'Beelzebub' means. This guy is in league with the devil they were saying...a witch!
Jesus simply points out that if the satan is against himself, his kingdom will not stand, so why would he be binding and casting out his own? This was also a jab at them since by now there were great divisions between the different sects of Judaism and they were constantly at odds with themselves, working against one another. Jesus however knows he has to deal with the source of the problem, the root, otherwise its just going to keep coming back. He will ultimately do this at the cross, but this is his way of dealing with things. There is a lot of Wisdom in that. Here, Jesus takes them back to Moses with the phrase 'finger of God' and in this way not only sets himself up as one with the authority of the Father, but shuts down any further attempts that they may make to put him in cahoots with the likes of Pharoah's magicians. No, Jesus says, if he casts out demons by the finger of God, then the Kingdom of Heaven has come upon you!
Jesus then takes it from the personal and brings us up to the bigger picture. He has had an initial triumph over the satan in the wilderness and now has authority over all his minions. Let us not forget that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, his goal was not just to heal people, but to launch God's Kingdom on earth as in heaven for the sake of Israel first and ultimately, embodied in his Church, for the whole world.
Jesus tells us about his binding of the strong man, satan, and then this evil spirit that leaves and then comes back, with seven more evil spirits. Israel had had several messianic movements and been cleansed, not least the Maccabean movement, only to end up worse off than it was before. The point is that unless God becomes King and dwells in your midst, it'll end up worse than before. Jesus came doing and saying the things that only YHWY did and said, for him the Messiah is the Son of God and so he was the embodiment of the return of God to his people. If they rejected him and his message, surely they would come to utter ruin.
Then some lady in the crowd cries out in praise and applause for Jesus. He rejects this and makes it clear that he is unconcerned with this type of thing, 'when the Word of God is at work, what is required is not applause, but obedience.'
May we overcome the satan and his 'world' by faith that we might be cleansed of all evil and become a dwelling place for the living God in the midst of the people, carrying forward his sovereign, healing and loving rule into all the world which our Father so loves. May he who prayed that we not be taken out of the world, but rather be kept from the evil one, may he be blessed by grateful obedience, forever and ever glorified. Amen
Good word, friend.
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