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January 27, 2018"What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!" (Mk 1:24)
Today, Jesus enters the synagogue and is confronted by anger, fear and defensiveness. The man with an unclean spirit cries out – in Greek, anekraxen – an ugly sound, almost a croak, coming forth from a desperate soul. The cry bespeaks isolation, loneliness, alienation. It verbally rejects the very goodness which could soften its stony heart and bring about communion with everlasting love.
Love is somehow threatening. How could love destroy? Perhaps it is the narrowing of horizons, the shrinking in upon oneself for safety, the tense grip and the illusion of control that makes love’s expansiveness seem like death.
The unclean spirit and its cry is like the wolf at the door of the wound, to borrow a phrase from Jean Vanier. The presence of holiness makes our wound smart with guilt cloaked in anger. Reverence offends, piety disgusts and kindness burns.
How are we to be set free? How is our temple to be cleansed? By the Word of true authority. By the presence and action of Christ. His love in enough.