The Very Lutheran Project

14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, 15 said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” 17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” -Matthew 17:14-20 Two things are true. First, not every problem is caused by demonic activity. We create plenty of problems on our own, such that even if the devil and his angels were cast into the lake of fire this very moment we would not see much of a change. Second, a whole lot more problems are cause by demons than we would like to admit. Evil spirits are capable of causing great misery, and more than just in the spiritual or emotional sense. The man tells Jesus that his son is plagued by seizures. The boy has been burned, drowned, and beaten by his affliction. What is behind it? A demon. Full of malice, the wicked spirit cares about nothing but hurting the child, and is so stubbornly attached to its singular goal of harm that the Apostles cannot exorcise it. When researching the topic of evil, you may hear about a distinction between moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is the result of free will, with people making evil choices and thus hurting others: drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps, and serial killers are all examples of moral evil. Natural evil on the other hand is more about *disaster,* the type of evil where there is no identifiable agent behind it: hurricanes that destroy houses, cancer, locust plagues, etc. Natural evil is unfortunate, but we most often chalk it up to living in a fallen world as we pray for deliverance and restoration. Demons throw a monkey wrench into that distinction. Anyone today seeing a child get a seizure would assume that it is natural evil which is occurring - but what if it isn't? What if an unclean spirit is attacking the poor boy? The same could be said with various mental conditions, natural disasters, accidents, and more. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that the vast majority of instances where "natural evil" occurs, demons are behind it trying to make our lives miserable. "Natural evil" is hardly ever natural. The trouble is, we do not know when they are behind it or whether casting a demon away even changes anything. If an evil spirit causes an accident that severs a man's arm, casting out the demon will not result in his arm growing back. The boy in our reading may still have suffered from seizures, just not the kind that threw him into the hearth or pond. Jesus shows us the way forward. Faith as a mustard seed, faith in Him especially. We fail to even comprehend evil, let alone fight it adequately: we cannot even tell when a demon is behind a disaster or not. But trusting in Jesus - who CAN discern these matters properly and can cast away all wickedness - will yield great benefits. Herein such faith brings us to union with Him, participating in His strength through Communion. He becomes the keeper of our souls who shall not let us perish, and our Protector against all demonic power. It is by this union that we have access to the power that Christ has - He who can move mountains. If our faith is in line with His will, then nothing is impossible.