Jesus: Master of the Demons
Friends in Christ, just yesterday we read about Solomon and his great wisdom. He had been very blessed by God, but we see today that despite all those blessings, he did not remain faithful. He had married many wives from many nations, but they brought into his life, their pagan ways.
In order to please them, he had shrines constructed to these gods; most shocking, he built a shrine to the most horrible of them, the god Molech. It was to Molech, that people offered their own little children in sacrifice. A bronze statue of Molech had outstretched, metal arms. A child was placed in those arms, and the statue was heated to red-hot. Men beat drums in order to drown out the sound of the screams.
This is the world, without Jesus Christ. It shows the levels to which humanity will descend without the True God. This horrific child-sacrifice was practiced by a number of pagan groups, including the Cannanites.
In 1804, the artist William Blake made a painting called ‘The Flight of Molech.’ Christians believed that false gods were nothing but demons, and so in the painting, the demon is fleeing away. And present, are parents who are crying; but then a child is seen walking out from the burning statue, unharmed.
William Blake presented this event, the Fleeing of Moloch, as taking place at the moment of Christ’s birth, when Our Lord conquers the demons, and brings real life to the world. He who is, ‘the way, the truth, and the life.’
And so today we meet Jesus in the gospel – he is in the land of the Canaanites, a place where this demon Molech was once worshiped. A Canaanite woman, whose child is possessed by a demon, she seeks out Christ: the True God of Life. She comes, begging him to drive a demon out of her daughter. Our Lord sees how earnest and sincere her request is, and so he complies, and the child is free.
Our own world is falling back into the ways of Molech; an anti-life – a child-destroying world, worshiping at the altar of so-called ‘freedom.’ The world needs help. Even many we know, need help. With only a word, Christ can drive out any demon; but as the Canaanite woman shows us, we have to ask him to.
