Jesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority
over all demons and to cure diseases,
and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God
and to heal the sick.
Jesus did not give them just any power, but the power that is associated with the authority of the kingdom of God, authority which comes from the King himself. This is what the centurion recognized about Jesus, sensing a parallel to his own earthly authority.
For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” (see Matthew 8:9).
The power that Jesus gave the Twelve was a share in his own reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. Their own words, which by themselves would have been powerless, by the additional weight of the King's own authority, had power.
We too are given a share in the reign of Jesus Christ. By virtue of our baptism we are all made priests, prophets, and kings. While the performance of full blown exorcisms are restricted to ordained clergy it is nevertheless true that when we don't avail ourselves of the authority we have been given we make ourselves pushovers for the dark powers unnecessarily. We become easy targets when we could instead use a word of faith to drive the demons away before the ever begin to get a foothold in our souls. We can, by faith, command spirits of depression, anger, sin, and anything contrary to the kingdom to flee from us and be bound by the cross of Jesus himself, defeated.
Why do we not avail ourselves of the gifts we have been given? It is often because we trust in our own power too much. We are too busy about what we might do and how we might solve our own problems to bother with the power that also brings with it the authority of God himself. This is a recipe for frustration. Or perhaps we feel a lack of faith that we could make use of the authority of Jesus even if we remembered to do so. If the reason we don't avail ourselves of the gifts of Jesus is a lack of faith, this is often because we don't take those small steps of trusting him and walking with him on the way. There are steps we should take before we need to rely on that same faith in bigger and less familiar ways. We are meant to learn he is faithful in little things and so come to trust him more and more. Jesus teaches us that our journey as disciples means learning to trust him rather than ourselves so that we will be free to use his authority when the time comes.
He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey,
neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money,
and let no one take a second tunic.
Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there.
And as for those who do not welcome you,
when you leave that town,
shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.”
It is by the authority of Jesus that we are able to be confident even when we have not stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, nor a second tunic. It is his authority that gives us confidence to go for the sake of mission to houses that may or may not welcome us. It is his authority that keeps our hearts from being damaged or broken by rejection, which we will definitely experience from time to time as his disciples.
When we insist on trusting in ourselves too much for too long the Lord will often do us the favor of disabusing us of our illusions of control, just as he did for Israel.
From the time of our fathers even to this day
great has been our guilt,
and for our wicked deeds we have been delivered up,
we and our kings and our priests,
to the will of the kings of foreign lands,
to the sword, to captivity, to pillage, and to disgrace,
as is the case today.
Fortunately for us, even this exile from our normal loci of control is only so that we can be brought back joyfully to the place were true authority and power are found. With the nighttime there are tears, but with the dawn, rejoicing (see Psalm 30:5). Notice in the reading from Ezra how even the authority of earthly kingdoms is guided by providence, subject to God's higher authority, and used to bring his sons and daughters to glory.
For slaves we are, but in our servitude our God has not abandoned us;
rather, he has turned the good will
of the kings of Persia toward us.
Thus he has given us new life
to raise again the house of our God and restore its ruins,
and has granted us a fence in Judah and Jerusalem.”
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