Daily Devotion for Lent - Day 7

Scripture Reading: Luke 4:31-44

Jesus begins to perform miracles of exorcism and healing.  It is interesting to note that earlier in the chapter, the devil makes the questioning statement, "If you are the Son of God" in verses 3 and 9 while we end the chapter with the demons shouting, "You are the Son of God!" in verse 41.  

These are the first miracles we see in Luke.  Earlier at Nazareth in verse 23, we understand that Jesus has not only been to Capernaum before but that he has already performed miracles there.

He does the first exorcism and heals Simon's mother-in-law of the fever on the sabbath which was frowned upon in that time.  This was prior to Simon Peter's calling which is about to occur in Luke.  When the sun goes down, and we see the masses show up, it is officially no longer the sabbath.

You never know when you
are going to need a good doctor!

At the end of the chapter, we see that the crowds track Jesus down in a deserted place (presumably to pray).  They want to prevent him from leaving.  It would be quite a feather in the cap of Capernaum to have a local healer and exorcist living among them.  Presumably, everyone had been healed already but you never know when something else might pop up!

What does it mean for us to hoard the healing energy of God?  There are others in neighboring towns who needed him now just as they had the day before.  But they tried to prevent him from leaving because of their future (not present) need.

Where is it that we do the same thing today in the church?

Where do our decisions turn inward toward meeting the needs of the members rather than outward at meeting the needs of the community?

It may be that we need Jesus the exorcist as much today as we did then!

Prayer of the day:

O Holy One of God, we pray that you would heal us of our illnesses that are physical and emotional.  But we also pray that you would exorcise those things which seek to block your spirit from moving through our lives.  Help us to see that as we remain in Christ, we are able to share you with the rest of the world in a wide variety of ways.  We pray this in the name of Jesus, the Son of God.  Amen.

Photo by Mike Kanert via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.