The seventy-two came back jubilant. "In your name, Lord," they said, "even the devils submit to us."
He replied, "I watched how Satan fell, like lightning out of the sky.
"And now you see that I have given you the power to tread underfoot snakes and scorpions and all the forces of the Enemy; and nothing will ever harm you.
"None the less, what you should rejoice over is not that the spirits submit to you, but that God has enlisted you for His kingdom." [I have changed the wording slightly, from "your names are enrolled in Heaven"-- to de-emphasize the pie-in-sky interpretation & bring out something closer to what I think was meant...]
4 comments:
The "watched" of "I watched Satan fall.." is imperfect active indicative case (no, i am not aGreek scholar--I looked it up). It would then denote continuous action in the past--"I was watching Satan fall.."
This is not the witness of the cosmic pre-existent Christ who saw some pre-creation event called the fall of Satan. This Jesus, claiming he saw Satan falling as his disciples cast out devils in his name. Our faithful action NOW is the kingdom/kin-dom of God made manifest NOW.
A good note on the imperfect.
"And now you see that I have given you the power to tread underfoot snakes and scorpions and all the forces of the Enemy; and nothing will ever harm you.
A mouthful. A heartful.
I like the word change here – ‘enlisted you.’ Quite helpful. I’m going to use that.
Can’t resist another feeling. One of my favorite passages in Luke comes next. Jesus rejoices greatly. With the weird (uncommon-sensical) reason that the Kingdom is hidden from some. The wise. There’s a secret element. There’s more to Jesus’s rejoicing than this secret. But the secret is a part of it. More on that later.
Just a note to say how funny and odd this passage feels without it connected with the next passage of Jesus rejoicing. I’m glad for the feeling of disconnect that comes from the way the text is clipped for this post. I had to re-read this limited section a few times. Because I kept thinking that I simply missed that part about Jesus rejoicing. As if it must be right here in this text. As if I just missed it. I had to go back to my bible to learn that this portion comes next.
I’m glad for this clipped segment because I’m feeling an uncomfortable check against my over-familiar readings. I like this jolt of the text stopping right here. And leaving out my favorite part.
Isn’t it weird? – how familiar readings take on a life of their own? – how passages that do have their own intrinsic value seem disjointed because favorite parts are clipped out? – even in memory too? What is it about over-familiar readings? Isn’t it weird that I found myself racing to the missing passage and neglecting the meat before me?
Hey, been missing you two!
(But then I've been missing me! Anne & I put in Friday night attempting to sleep in the first night of the San Diego branch of the Occupy occupation. No rest for wicked persons, especially with so much bright young person energy all fired up & playing music (pretty good!) and talking all around us, far far into the late early morning-- the nearest bathroom (because of a last minute change of site) being 2 1/2 blocks away, me being one of those men lifelong blessed with that hormone that wakes us up to pee several times/night-- something about always having someone in the prehistoric camp out peeing in the bushes, an old Science News article once conjectured, the better to discover/dampen any enemy person/critter attempting to sneak up on the group... No enemies found, just a lot of cops being friendly, so far.)
Anyway, my bod feels like it's been slept in! Or something. I hope to be on to the next passage tomorrow.
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