Come Out

Come Out!

Good News - Part 3

Sunday, January 21, 2024
Mark 1:21-28

The people were amazed by his teaching, for he was teaching them with authority, not like the legal experts. Suddenly, there in the synagogue, a person with an evil spirit screamed,  “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the holy one from God.”

“Silence!” Jesus said, speaking harshly to the demon. “Come out of him!”  The unclean spirit shook him and screamed, then it came out.

 Mark 1:22-26 CEB)

Listen to this Week’s Sermon here:

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When we get too close to Jesus, our inner demons cringe.  They make excuses for us to stay away.  They remind us of our faith and our church involvement.  They tell us that we wrote our prayer needs on cards at church so others will take care of them for us.  They remind us of all the good things we’ve done so we don’t feel too bad when we neglect the good we know we should do.  They remind us of all those church services, Sunday school classes, and Bible Studies we’ve sat in on so that we can take a well earned break from our devotions.  They make us feel good, so that we will never know how sick we really are.

So long as we keep our distance from the Son of God, our inner demons are comfortable and they will do everything they can to keep us comfortable.  So long as we keep our distance from the Holy One, our Un-holiness doesn’t look so bad compared to others.  So long as we keep our distance from the Truth, it’s so easy to believe the Lie.

People experienced healing and wholeness when they came close to Jesus in faith because the demons could not remain in His presence.  When the light is turned on, the darkness disappears.  If the darkness remains, either the light is burned out, or we are not close enough too it.  Since the Light of Christ burns eternally, we must not be close enough if darkness continues to cloud our lives.  Imagine yourself in a pitch black room when a spotlight comes on and shines in your face.  You cringe and shut your eyes in pain.  It would be easier to go back to a dark corner than to look into the light.  But we must keep our eyes on the light no matter how hard.  We must take up our cross, surrender our will, and follow him even unto death.

We say we believe, but what does it mean?  Of course we have faith.  We believe in God the Father, Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and in Jesus Christ His Only Son Our Lord.  Many of us recite it week after week. 

But I wonder if our inner demons have more faith than we do?

Demons fear God… demons recognize the Son of God… demons obey the authority of the Spirit sent from the Father through the Son.  Do we? 

People stare in amazement as the demons flee at His command.  They experience His healing among them, yet they still question His identity.  Jesus Himself silences demons so they don’t reveal it.  Does Jesus’ teaching, healing power and authority have more impact on the devil Himself than on we who claim to be His disciples? 

What darkness is holding on inside of you, trying to keep a safe distance from the Light of Christ? 

What are the things that control you, that consume your thoughts and life, that Jesus wants to cast out? 

What do you fear losing if you truly surrendered every part of your life to Christ? 

How would your life look different?

#BeUMC - From Fear to Freedom

From Fear to Grace

#BeUMC - Part 2

Sunday, July 2, 2023
Romans 8:1-17

You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.” 

Romans 8:15 (CEB)

Listen to this Week’s Sermon here:

The sound of crashing metal echoed through the dark cavernous sanctuary as a stream of light flickered on a small collapsible screen. A reel-to-reel whirred from the back of the room projecting gruesome images of human flesh run through with huge rusty spikes. Screams of agony drowned out the film reels and the clanging hammer, followed by a few guttural words in some foreign language I would later come to know as Aramaic.

 “Father, forgive them,” the dying man cried as he was hoisted up on a cross. “They know not what they do.”

In all honesty I don’t remember the words first hand; only the graphic sounds and images flooding the consciousness of my seven or eight-year-old mind. It wasn’t until middle school that I even began putting the pieces together, but the jumbled nightmarish images haunted me for years with little to no real meaning.

My childhood experience in the Catholic church left me with the confusion of mixed moral messages and a general fear of God and religion.  Looking back, I can appreciate many things about the Catholic faith, especially its positive influence in my grandmother’s life as one of the most devout prayer warriors I know.  Attending an occasional mass or Catholic funeral as an adult, I am struck by their rich heritage and their overwhelming reverence for the Scriptures. I am even moved on occasion to go and light a candle for friends who are grieving the loss of loved ones. But in elementary school, I did not have the wisdom or discernment to separate the anxiety of my personal experience from the whole of the Catholic church or even the whole of Christianity. 

The film we watched on the death of Jesus did not even come close to the graphic depictions of Mel Gibson’s, “The Passion of the Christ”, but at the time I felt as if I were actually there in Jerusalem, cowering away so the blood would not splatter on my face.  Like Peter, I would likely be huddling by a fire in the courtyard, unwilling to admit that I even knew the unrecognizable man on the cross.

I made straight A’s in school. My intelligence and imagination always ran high. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I could not wrap my brain around why this man would have to suffer the way I saw that night. I couldn’t rationalize how anyone could inflict such a horrifying punishment on anyone, not even a mass murderer. 

Still reeling from the shock of it all, I heard the nun explain that Jesus died because of my sin.  The horror I had just witnessed was all my fault. OK, maybe not ALL mine, but I couldn’t stomach the idea that I needed forgiveness as much as the ones who nailed him to that cross. I never even had a poor conduct mark in school.  How could my wrongdoing cause this man to die nearly 2,000 years before I was even born? 

I don’t remember hearing anything about resurrection or the hope of eternal life. Maybe they taught it later on, but after that night, I was too scared to hear anything else.  Being a good kid would never be good enough anymore. I had to be perfect. I couldn’t live with his blood on my conscience but I didn’t understand how to remove the stain. I couldn’t even figure out how I ended up being responsible in the first place…

… and so begins my journey from fear to freedom...

For the rest of the story, listen to this week’s sermon here.

Also be sure to check out Rev. Tangela Cameron’s UMC story as shared at Shiloh on June 25th to kick off this series. You can see the video here.