May 11 - Does He Have a Demon?

May 11 – Does He Have a Demon?

Again the Jews were divided because of these words. Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is out of his mind. Why listen to him?” Others were saying, “These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” (John 10:19-21)

Throughout the centuries the world has been divided because of Jesus.  People believe He is a prophet, others believe that it is just a great story, there are those who just plain don’t want to think about it. 

He asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”  in Mark 8:29. 

The Jews had no idea what to do with Jesus.  Healing this blind man threw them.  It just didn’t make sense.

Jesus doesn’t actually give us a lot of choices.  C.S. Lewis in his book, ‘Mere Christianity’ sets out to show us that we have to make a choice.  We can’t just state that Jesus was a good man, a prophet, a nice bedtime story.  Jesus wants us to believe in Him … or not.

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

The Jews didn’t know whether Jesus was a demon or not.  It didn’t make a lot of sense to them that a demon would do something like heal a blind man.

So, I toss it out to you … Who do you say that He is?