Cleaning an old shed, or a garage, which hasn’t been cleaned in a long, long, time, is not only a dirty business, but sometimes comes with surprises. Dirt on the floor, dust everywhere, boxes stacked on boxes, some broken open, some fallen over. Junk. Lots of junk. Pick through it, one item at a time, remove the boxes and the junk, on thing at a time, remove them to the sunshine, to the lawn or the driveway, and then sweep the old shed clear, throw out what should be thrown out and re-box what should be re-boxed, and put it all back in nice and neat.
A lot of damage, typically. Things are broken, water damaged, deteriorated with time, torn. Just age or dampness or gravity. Not all the damage is like that, though. Some of it is more intentional. There is often evidence of animal activity, rats or mice or squirrels. This was chewed through, that was chewed up. Nests and animal waste and chewed up clothes and papers. You might get a surprise, too, if you disturb the wrong box. A family of mice which suddenly race in every direction! And there are other creatures too. I’m thinking of spiders, which don’t seem to make the junk but just seem to like junked up places. They’ll surprise you also. And they sometimes bite.
Jesus came to heal the sick and release the oppressed. Masses of people were brought to him, “all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many.” Luke 4:40-41). He did a lot of very rapid cleaning, that day! And notice: Many were brought to Jesus, and all of them were healed, and out of some of those who were healed burst demons. Not all the sick had demons, but some did.
Jesus healing these people was like cleaning out an old shed—and cleaning it quickly! There was a lot of junk in those lives, and a lot of damage too. A lot of it was caused by nothing more interesting than time and the deterioration time brings. But not all of it. Some of it had a more intentional cause, demons, which mean to do harm, or at least don’t care if they do, or which merely like to take up residence among the junk. Not that one causes the other, but demons and illness go together naturally. Cleaning as quickly as He was that day, Jesus surprised a lot of demons, and we see them caught in the open, and scampering to get away! “And demons also came out of many, crying, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.” Luke 4:41.
Here and there demons inhabit our lives and our world also. They are not always the cause of all our problems, and demons are not behind every illness. Our world and our lives are deteriorating too, all by themselves. But they are still lurking about, these demonic beings, and they like deteriorating places. We generally don’t see them. Sometimes we see the evidence that they were there, but we move too slowly and they scram before we can really surprise them out in the open. Sometimes they mean to do us harm, sometimes they merely don’t care if they do, and sometimes they just seem to like to take up residence among our junk.
Our deteriorating lives, and the demons that sometimes live and flourish among us, oppress us. Jesus will set us free from all this. He’ll clear the junk out of our lives, He’ll clear out our deteriorated lives like it was a dirty old shed, and He’ll cast out any demonic vermin that happen to be infesting it also. He will raise us up on the Last Day, and we will be free.