Many people today who have heard of Jesus think He is a good
chap. “He did lots of good things for people, didn’t he?” they might say.
Indeed our Lord did many good works. He healed the sick, He taught the ignorant,
He forgave sinners, and He restored lepers. This much most people are willing
to accept as evidence of a good man. (In acknowledging this much they are of
course conveniently ignoring that He also raised the dead, He exorcised demons,
He disturbed as well as comforted, He angered some people until they hated Him,
and He also claimed to be divine!)
Christ’s good works were not done however because He was a
nice chap. They were signs. His mission was not to eradicate earthly evils:
hunger, injustice, illness and death. Jesus performed messianic signs. He came not to abolish all evils on earth, but
to free men from the greatest slavery, sin, which thwarts them in their
vocation as God’s sons and daughters. The slavery of sin is the root cause of
all forms of human bondage (Jn 8:34-36).
We need as Christians to appreciate that there are two
kingdoms. One kingdom is of injustice, hunger, illness, misery, bondage and
death – this is the kingdom of Satan. The Good News is that there is another
kingdom – the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is justice, generosity,
health, blessed happiness, freedom and life eternal. The kingdom of Satan
enslaves and it does so through sin. People cannot just merely choose not to do
unjust things etc.; they are enslaved into thinking that some things are good
when they are actually evil in God’s eyes. They are also enslaved by habits of
thinking and habits of deed which cloud their vision and make it difficult to
change.
So Jesus performed messianic signs pointing to another
reality, but He called on people to repent, and He forgave sins. In some cases
He performed exorcisms which freed some people from the domination of demonic
powers.
It is therefore no good just battling against injustice, or
hunger, or any particular evil, because if one does not go to the root of the
problem they will continue to spring up over and over again. The battle we wage
as Christians, in Christ’s name and in Christ’s power, is against the
principalities and powers of the kingdom of Satan, and it is against sin. We
Christians work most of all to free people from their enslavement to sin, and
consequently their blindness to what is actually evil. It begins of course with ourselves, for if we are not free how can we free others?
Fr Ian
