Tuesday, September 3, 2024 - Will your actions speak louder than your words today? How?

 To read the texts click on the texts: 1 Cor 2:1-16; Lk 4:31-37

Immediately after leaving the synagogue, Jesus works a miracle. This miracle is the healing of a man possessed by a demon, thus putting into action immediately the manifesto he had spoken about. This exorcism is the first of the four exorcisms in the Gospel of Luke. The unclean spirit The unclean spirit uses here the word Ἔα. (Ha!) which must be interpreted as an interjection of anger or dismay. Anger because of the presence of Jesus and dismay because it knows the end has come with the coming of Jesus. It refers to Jesus here as Jesus of Nazareth and as the Holy one of God, which is a title Luke has taken from Mark, since it does not appear again in the Gospel of Luke. Since the demon is aware that Jesus is the Holy One of God, it also knows that its end has come. Jesus exorcises the demon with a command. A single word suffices to heal the man. Though the demon throws the man into convulsions, it does not harm him. It cannot harm him because of the presence of Jesus.

It is interesting to note that the people who witnessed the miracle refer to it not as an action but as a teaching simply because there was never a separation between the words and deeds of Jesus, there was never a separation between what Jesus said and did.

Jesus said what he did and did what he said.