There is an idiom that i find fitting for this Sunday: "better the devil you know than the devil you don't."
As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, we read from the book of the Acts of the Apostles that Peter stands in the house of Cornelius and testifies to the identify of Jesus, as the one "anointed with the Holy Spirit and power and went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil."
He was healing those oppressed by the devil.
Is the devil real?
There seems to be two strains of thinking and acting when it comes to the devil. Most people have no belief and some are terrified to the point of being paralyzed. What is the correct stance concerning the devil?
The correct stance is somewhere in between. The devil is real yet its presence should not terrify but should create in us concern and awareness as we live our life of faith.
Christianity is a militant religion. It is the original Jihad, Holy War, and the terrain and battle ground is the human soul.
Most people, when you ask them about faith, they tell you that faith is a good feeling or that it is consoling. Yet when you follow Jesus in the gospel it is important to note that Jesus speaks of perseverance, vigilance, and prayer long before he ever mentions consolation.
In fact the consolation only arrives after one has persevered.
As Christians, we are not on leave; we do not have a paid vacation from struggle; earth is not a resort that is all inclusive. No, there is a battle that rages.
From the beginning, already in paradise, in God's good creation, man is snared by an astute and seductive enemy seeking to abduct us from God's grace and lead us to peril all the while telling us it will be okay..."you won't die, you will be like gods."
At the end of the bible we have a picture of the final battle, a war between heaven and the demonic, where the history of humanity is completely caught up.
Like it or not, we are involved. We may not want to admit it or we may even seek to deny it, but history has shown that evil lurks amongst us. We are all on the front lines...there is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counter claimed by Satan, the devil, the one Jesus calls the father of lies, a murder, as St. John tells us he is a sinner from the beginning.
The battle is and it rages in every age, in every nation, in every human life, in every choice, in every decision, in every action. We can choose our side; we can't choose not to choose; not choosing is a choice.
We cannot be spectators. In fact being a spectator is exactly what the devil desires most.
The devil wants us not to care, not to be concerned, not to believe; the devil wants us to simply get on with our life, all the while he remains hidden and seductive and divisive.
What is the devil?
The devil is not the opposite of God. God has no opposite. God is perfect goodness, there is no perfect badness. God is omnipotent, all powerful and infinite. The devil is finite, he is limited, he is a creature.
He was created naturally good. He was given an opportunity to use his freedom to choose to be with God and yet the church teaches he turned away. Because he is pure spirit, his knowledge and freedom were absolute and therefore his decision to turn from God was irrevocable which has led to his depravity. There is no repentance for the fallen angels like there is no repentance for us after death.
The devil is or can be considered the opposite of the archangel Michael if anything. Yet, as i mentioned he is limited, finite, a created thing.
The devil loves to be hidden and given no mind. He likes to be subtle. He can seduce, entice, allure and tempt; he can propose images, thoughts, and get into your head. But the one thing he cannot do is bend your will.
The devil works on your intellect but what he wants is your will, your consent, your decision.
He seduces but we decide to follow.
He is the master marketer. He can only distort. Before he destroys he must first deceive. He must convince us to squander our inheritance as children of God by making the pleasure of the world seem more appealing than the security of eternal reward.
His power is limited by our choice.
How does he work?
The devil is like a great hunter. Think about hunters for a moment, especially as we wrap up deer season. Hunters are very sneaky and very deliberate. They start hunting long before hunting season begins. They set our feeders to allure the deer. They set out blinds that allow them to get close to the prey. They wear camo and mask their scent with pheromones. Then they sit and wait quietly for the right moment for the opportune time and then boom.
The devil starts by trying to twist the truth and get you to doubt God's plan; he insists that God is suffocating you with rules and regulations and that what you really need is a life without rules.
He suggest that God is limiting your freedom. Thus, he wants you to doubt God's love, God's concern, God's mercy, God's forgiveness, God's presence. He wants you think you could do better on your own; he wants you to take matters in to your own hands.
He wants division in your family so works on the embers of the lust and domination. The greatest workplace of the devil isn't in caves or dark corners of the world or prison but it is in the comfort of our own living rooms and bedrooms. This is where he does most of his dirty work: think about the number separated families and divorced realities and abuse and neglect.
He entices the addictive side of life, what's one more drink or one more smoke. What's a little fun.
He presses on the pleasure principle of the desires of the flesh. He uses thoughts and images and suggestions that weakens us. He wants us to get frustrated and angry. He wants us not to care.
The devil is more concerned not so much with what is put into our minds but more concerned with what is kept out of our minds.
He attacks us at our weakest and hounds us all day long.
Then he convinces us to postpone confession. He suggest that we are not worthy of forgiveness or that we do not deserve it.
He studies our hungers and presents alluring and appetizing solutions: riches then he presents easy money/success then he presents a short cut/ pleasure then he suggest a mistress or an affair and justifies it.
He convinces us to forsake Goodness itself in order to possess fleeting and imperfect reflections of goodness in created things.
He blows on the embers of our weaken nature then steps back and lets the fire rage.
And what are we to do?
Well, we must remember that the devil doesn't play fair and yet at the same time we have the upper hand. It was Jesus who healed those oppressed by the devil.
The power of Christ flows through our spiritual veins. In Baptism, when we are washed we have access to that same power. We are inserted into the mystical body of Christ. We are plugged in. Through the sacraments we stay connected, we stay juiced by God's life and grace.
The devil is no match for God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. The one thing that the devil wants is to get us to abandon the church, abandon our faith. We leave the church and we leave our faith then we are lost.
In Christ we are victors. We must maintain the connection. In today's gospel Jesus goes to pray after baptism. It is in prayer that we feed our strength. In baptism, we becomes sons in the son, which means we have a voice that is heard. We enter in Jesus' very communion with the Father; we have entrance into his prayer experience, his inner dialogue with the Father for all eternity.
We enter into the infinite love exchange of the Father and the son and anything infinite is stronger than anything finite and limited.
At baptism we are anointed with the oil of salvation and washed in the waters of baptism, which means we are made slippery to the hands of the devil. He has no power here.
The only way he can have access to us is if we choose to let him. The devil is allowed to rule in in a very democratic way. Only by our vote does he come in.
But we must choose to say yes to God.
We must stay connected; falling on our knees in prayer sharpens our instinct and helps us recognize the tempter when he calls. We must pray consistently and devoutly. Listening to the church and heeding her teaching and guidance. We must receive communion every Sunday and go to confession often on regular basis. We must know ourselves and our weakness and invite the redemption of Christ to strengthen what is weak on a daily basis.
When the temptations and images and suggestions come, lookup to heaven and say "Lord, I am weak and I am in need of your strength." Then make the sign of the cross and invoke all of heaven to be your strength and watch the devil flee.
When we draw close to God the devil flies far in deed.
As Jesus tell us in the gospel of John, "Take care I have already conquered the world" and as John tells us the victory over the world is our faith.
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