I am preaching on a passage in the gospel of Luke this week, where it is recorded that Jesus cast a demon out of a man in the synagogue in Capernaum.  It doesn’t happen in the Upside-Down.  It doesn’t happen in the ‘spiritual realm’.  It happens on planet Earth.  In Galilee, in the town of Capernaum, in the synagogue.  Real time.  Real place.  Real event.

Even as a pastor, I have to be reminded that there is more going on here than I have seen.  My science classes of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics didn’t do a very comprehensive job of explaining this world to me.  They left a lot of the dangers out.  There are diseases well explained in biology.  There are poisonous compounds and cancer-causing agents explained in Chemistry.  There are the forces of inertia that explain the uh-oh’s of sudden stops.  (Thanks for the lectures on vectors, Mr. Briggs!)

But I don’t remember ever hearing about the demons.  But they are here.  Malignant, sentient, personal, wicked, crafty, and opposing God and His people.  There is more going on in the world than we routinely take in with our five senses.  There are angels, demons, seraphim, cherubim, ‘living creatures’, and who knows what else out there in God’s created world.

And Jesus gives us just enough information to know that He is up for the task of protecting His people from the malign forces of darkness.  He responds in my text with one calm sentence to the demon that is oppressing a man in the synagogue; ‘shut up and come out.’  And the demon obliges.

There is no yin and yang of Eastern mysticism.  There is not an equal dualism in this world of darkness opposing the light.  There is the creator and the created.  There is the Holy and the fallen.  There is the One who is Whole and there are all the rest of us broken.

Jesus is the one who protects His people.  And in the gospels, he gives us the confidence that we need not fear the real darkness of this chaotic and sin-cursed place.  He will be close to those who are His.  He will protect, save, and rescue any who cry out to Him for forgiveness and deliverance from oppression.

But those who choose to shun Christ in self-confidence or the intellectual arrogance of the scientism of our age will remain exposed to the real darkness of this world.  These also choose to leave themselves vulnerable to the reality of that darkness.  The wicked spirits of this age are happy to blind the eyes of any who will allow them.  But my hope is that many will open their eyes to see that the darkness is real and personal, but the protection from that evil is also found in a person: Jesus Christ, who showed himself to be the faithful protector of His people by paying His life down on the cross for us.  Run to Him for rescue from the darkness.