Because We No Longer Believe in Demons

Despite her reputation, nowhere in Scripture does it say that Mary Magdalene was a whore.  The Pharisees remarked that if Jesus were a prophet, he would know "what kind of woman was touching him," and we of course conclude from that statement that she was a loose woman.  What Scripture tells us, however, is that Jesus cast out seven demons from Mary Magdalene.  Those two images -- one of a whore, one of a woman controlled by demons -- present completely different understandings to us. 

In the first case, most of us would believe that she was somehow a "sinner" and that her love for Jesus converted her from a shady way of life.  In the second interpretation, we see someone whose life was out of control because of the demons that inhabited her and who dictated her thoughts and actions; we see a miserable, suffering person.  With this interpretation, we can better comprehend the scene where, at a public meal, at the house of a Pharisee where she would surely be scorned, she openly wept and washed the feet of Jesus in gratitude.  Who of us in her situation would not be so grateful to the One Who released us from a lifetime of mental illness or slavery.  For once, she was free to be "Mary," the one Jesus loved so much that He appeared to her first after the Resurrection.

But we no longer believe in demons; we believe instead in labeling mental illness in all its various forms.  We no longer believe that we can be inhabited by seven demons -- or even one, for that matter.  The story of all the saints, however, is the story of people "out of control" in one way or another until they meet the only One Who can deliver them from evil -- Jesus Christ.  Mark's Gospel is the Gospel of Power; from beginning to end, it shows the power of Jesus Christ to deliver from the power of demons, from the power that evil exerts over all of us.

We are all "sinners" and "saints," if we have allowed Jesus Christ to expel from us the demons of anger, lust, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, etc. (see Col. 5:19).  These are the things over which we have no control, once they have taken a foothold in our lives; indeed, these things control us -- whether you call them "demons" or not is irrelevant. 

When Peter protested that Jesus would not wash his feet, as a slave, Jesus replied, "Unless you let me wash your feet, you will have no part in me."  At this response, Peter, the great lover, said, "Then, Lord,....not just my feet but my hands and my head as well" (Jn. 13:9).  Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. ....(and in Chapter 15:3) you are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you."

Yesterday I wrote about how reading Scripture changed my mind and my heart, changed my whole life.  I would not hesitate to say at all that it "cast demons out of me."  Every single "saint," whether great or small, whether canonized or not, has had the same experience:  because of an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, his/her life has changed.  The Word spoken to us, in us, through us cleanses us from all unrighteousness, as both Paul and John have written.  And the process is ongoing; every day, our sins "are piled up higher than our heads," in the words of David, and every day, we must allow Jesus to wash our feet, to transform our unrighteousness into His holiness.  He does this by taking our sins (our natural man) to the cross and eventually burying our natural man, only to rise again in a new "body," a new form -- no longer controlled by sin, but by the Spirit of God.

Someone has objected to my writing about St. Augustine, because he lived with a woman from the age of 15 to 30 without marrying her.  To her, this was "abuse."  So why would we admire such a person?

At the age of 33, Augustine experienced a conversion to Jesus Christ and was baptized.  Like Mary Magdalene released from her seven demons, he spent the rest of his life in praise and thanksgiving to the One Who had released him from the control of lust, ambition, jealousy, etc -- all the demons who had controlled his life from childhood.  Without conversion, without allowing Jesus to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, we are all "abusers;" we all control others, whether we intend to or not, for our own purposes -- exactly the way demons do.  We are all sinners; there is not even one of us who is righteous.  But, fortunately, like Mary, like Augustine, that is not the end of the story. 

Peter, Paul, Mary, Augustine, Teresa of Avila, Francis of Assisi, ---anyone you can name--- know what is means to have their demons cast out.  From that point on, they worship in immense gratitude the One Who set them free.  I myself have know what it means to have my own demons cast out so that I am no longer controlled by them.  But each day, I still have to allow Jesus to cleanse me from the dust that I have picked up from the journey of the day -- if I don't allow Him to wash my feet today, the sins of today will allow the demons of yesterday to re-enter, and they will bring with them seven others.

The letter of I John tells us, "if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin....if we claim we have not sinned, we make him to be a liar, and his word has no place in our lives....no one who is born of God (has "had a bath") will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God."

Conversion only begins when we meet Jesus Christ; every day after that is a process of cleansing, of being released from the demons that control our lives -- but because we no longer believe in demons, we have also lost the immense gratitude of Mary Magdalene and of Paul and of Peter and of Augustine -- the ones who know the freedom of walking with Jesus daily and of having Him release their feet from the snare.