If you think that the evil one has conquered the world and humanity for himself, think again! Our Gospel reading shows us that yes, it’s true, that the evil one continues his battle to crush goodness and holiness in the world. But then, a greater force will always dominate the ongoing battle between good and evil. In the end, God will be victorious. This is what the encounter of Jesus with the man possessed with an unclean spirit in our Gospel reading today wants us to understand.

Because in the end, Jesus is victorious when he cast out the evil spirit from the man by saying with power and authority, "Quiet! Come out of him!" This is another healing miracle Jesus performed in the sight of many people. And they were so amazed and astonished with what they just witnessed: "What is this? He commanded even the unclean spirits and obeyed him."

But looking at the man in a different light, he must have been a suffering person drawn to the synagogue very much curious about Jesus, the man with magnetic presence preaching to many people. And, understanding his physical suffering and inner turmoil, his question, "What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth?" must have been coming from someone who is in great pain. A question coming from his pained heart, not from the unclean spirit who shares a space in his body and person. His question sounded like a plea, a hopeful wish that something must be done with his suffering and heal his inner division.

In the same way, his question might also be the same question we have for Jesus because of our inner state in the life of woundedness, fragmented lives, competing voices drowning us, different personas that we put on a defense mechanism. Because of all these, we ask Jesus, "What have you to do with us? Can you please heal us?"

And his response is, "Silence! Come out of him!" Jesus silenced all the competing false voices dominating ourselves and casting them out of our lives. He makes us pure and whole again by removing all our doubts. He can do great things to us because he came to make us whole and not divided or fragmented.

Jesus has come to destroy the "us" of our lives, the false voices which rob us of our original identity and self-worth. He does this in a twofold way: He casts out, then He calls forth. He casts out all our life's lies, our false identities that we allowed to invade us and accept as ours. And then, He calls forth our true self, the one made in the image and likeness of God.

One conversation with a teenager went this way. I asked him, "in your seventeen years of existence, who are the people, and what are the things that contribute to the kind of person that you are today?" He enumerated many names and things like Superman and a few superheroes; movie actors and sports luminaries; CNN reporters; famous singers; YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, vloggers; and many more in the virtual internet world. He admitted that he is a hodgepodge of what the world offers as true, good, and beautiful. From that moment, I heard Jesus speaking, "Quiet, come out of him," that he may reveal his true self.

My dear brothers and sisters, let us allow God to cast out our false selves and call forth our true identity as His sons and daughters.

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“The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”

With this statement, we get an insight of Jesus’ ministry and its impact. Great crowds followed Him for various reasons. And in almost all occasions, with full of love and compassion, Jesus did not turn His back seeing the needs of the people unanswered. The curing of man possessed by the evil spirit is a proof.

With the “good things people hear about Jesus” even if the social media presence is absent during His time, His name, His fame spreads everywhere by mouth. Jesus became attractive to many not simply because by His good looks, nor by His countless miracles, nor by His words of wisdom. Jesus was attractive because of His person and character. He is a person of integrity. His integrity magnetizes and draws people to loyalty. He is a person whose private life match His public life, whose actions and words are consistent. He is someone who walks His talks, practices what He preaches. For these reasons, people highly looked up to Him with authority because of His integrity.

This is the reason why the Pharisees and the Scribes really hate Jesus so much. If Jesus is a person of integrity, the Pharisees and the Scribes are persons whose integrity are questionable. They preach but they do not practice. The beauty and the content of their preaching are too way far from their witnessing of life.

Like Jesus, we too must aspire to become persons of integrity.