General Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander for the U.N. Assistance Mission to Rwanda during that country's one hundred day genocide, and not provided with weapons to defend the victims, had to witness the deaths of more than 800,000 men, women, and children. He came home to Canada a broken, disillusioned, suicidal man. In 2003, Dallaire writes that during one of his many presentations on the genocide, a Canadian Forces priest asked him how, after all he had seen and experienced, he could still believe in a God. Dallaire, who had personally met with the chief architects of the genocide, trying to convince them to stop, replied
"I know there is a God because in Rwanda, I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him, and I have touched him. I know the devil exists, and therefore I know there is a God." (from "Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda," by L Gen. Romeo Dallaire.)
Today, Scripture scholars with scientific knowledge can find certain Scripture passages in which the author presumes that Jesus is casting out a demon when the ill person's symptoms suggest a medical condition instead. There is the boy with epilepsy, who has severe seizures that cast him into the fire; when Jesus heals him, the author suggests that Jesus has rebuked a demon which came out of him instantly. Today we would reason that in this passage, Jesus has miraculously healed a boy with a severe physiological condition rather than overcome an other-worldly foe.
But, as Fr. James Martin, S.J. tells us in "Jesus A Pilgrimage,"
"there are some Gospel stories that still, two thousand years later, do not lend themselves so easily to scientific explanations - stories in which the demon is able to identify Jesus as the Messiah at a time when others around him (including his closest followers) still have no clue; stories in which the demons speak of themselves, oddly, in the plural, as when they identify themselves as "legion;" stories in which the demons enable people to do frightening physical feats, such as bursting through chains. These accounts still have the ability to send a shiver up our spines, for there is something decidedly otherworldly about them. In our day, too, there are some credible stories of possession that defy rational explanations."
And so, Jesus, followed by his new disciples Peter, Andrew, James, and John, returns to his new home base, Capernaum, by the sparkling waters of the Sea of Galilee. Wasting no time, on the Sabbath he enters their synagogue to preach. Once again people are astounded, not only by what he says, but by the authority with which he speaks.
Suddenly a man enters the synagogue, sees Jesus, and cries out in anger and contempt "Who are you to us, you Nazarene?" The use of the plural is frightening; this man, like the Gerasene demoniac in a later chapter, seems to be possessed by many demons. Then the possessed man adds "I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Have you come to destroy us?"
The demons have intuited the essential reality of Jesus, who he truly is, far in advance of his new disciples and the crowd in the synagogue who are just beginning to know this newcomer.
Jesus approaches the man with quiet confidence. "Be silent, and come out of him." The spirit throws the man on the ground and comes out of him.
The crowd is amazed; the man who has preached with such authority has now backed up and underscored his preaching by using words to heal with authority. Rather than by using any complicated incantations or by using touch, Jesus has proved that his words alone are more powerful than the demonic. Throughout his ministry, Jesus will battle and overcome the forces of evil: sin, sickness, and death. These acts of power proclaim his ability to bring about the Reign of God.
The possessed man shouts "Who are you to us?" We could ask ourselves the same question: Who is Jesus to us? Are we sufficiently sensitive to how evil insidiously insinuates itself into our lives? Do we go to Jesus to ask for specific healing of our tendencies towards pride, envy, anger, lust, selfish egocentricity, addictions?
In "The Screwtape Letters," written by C.S. Lewis, the wily old devil Screwtape writes letters to his young nephew Wormwood, teaching him how to seduce souls into entering hell. He writes " Indeed, the safest road to Hell
is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. Your affectionate Uncle, Screwtape"
If the road to hell can wind slowly, gradually, so can the road to heaven. If we are persistent in prayer, persistent in self-examinations, we will find, over the years, that as we grow in psychological maturity and loving life responsibilities, our almost-overwhelming tendencies toward certain evils will gradually fade away. Although we still sin, we will come to our spiritual senses more quickly. Jesus will always enter our inmost soul-church, as surely as he entered the synagogue in Capernaum. And over and over, he will heal us, cast out whatever afflicts us. God, when invited into our hearts and souls, is always more powerful than evil!