In Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, the devil is depicted as a grey, humanoid, slithery creature with malevolent eyes, lurking at the edges of the scenes of Christ’s passion and death. He is there in the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus confronts the agony he is about to endure and even dares to wish he might be spared before once more laying down his will before his heavenly Father. He is there as Jesus is paraded down the streets of Jerusalem, and on the hillside where Judas commits suicide. Was Jesus constantly having to do battle with him?
At the end of his trial in the wilderness, Jesus seems to have bested his foe. But Luke writes these fateful words, “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” You can just about hear the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
We don’t know whether or not the devil was constantly seeking to trip up Jesus – we do know that Jesus saw much of his work of healing, forgiveness and deliverance as directly setting people free from the power of Satan. So one can imagine his enemy would have been riled up.
But what about for us? Do we need to worry about the devil – in whom many modern Christians profess not even to believe? One of the most challenging theological disconnects for me is the the one between our doctrinal assertion that Jesus has vanquished the devil, and his seemingly unfettered destructive power still very much with us in the world. The devil may not be behind our temptation to eat more ice cream than is good for us, but wherever evil is done, violence perpetrated, terror wrought and destruction unleashed, we can be quite sure that some person has lost a battle with temptation. If God has given human beings the free will to choose, that must mean that God will not protect us from making choices. And much of the pain we suffer and inflict comes from choosing the wrong instead of the right.
So yes, he continues to snap at the heels of Christ’s beloved, and often to dominate those who say they believe in nothing. We should be aware of the choices beneath the choices of our actions. But we need not fear. As Martin Luther wrote so memorably in his hymn, A Mighty Fortress, “His craft and power are great…” but “One little word shall fell him.”
That word is simply the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only protection we need. When we feel tempted to despair or to try to control a situation or to impose our will upon another, or find ourselves beset by negative emotions, or up against evil in a more clear and threatening way, we need only remember whose we are and say, “Thank you, Jesus, for being my shield and protector.” As St. James wrote, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)
Jesus did win the war. And the more people know and believe that, the less foothold the devil has in this world. Now, there’s a reason for sharing our faith.
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