Little Demons

I’m nerdy enough to be excited by the almost-certain discovery of the Higgs boson this week.  You may have read about this.  Particle physicists believe they’ve found the “missing piece” that explains what’s called the Standard Model of physical reality.  It’s a particle without mass that seems to attract and interact with other mass-less particles, and together they create mass.  It’s a transformational particle.  The Higgs boson is why, in short, there’s something instead of nothing. So it’s sometimes called the “God Particle.” 

That’s also part of The BIG  Picture, what we’re exploring in sermons this summer.  When “Christ fills all in all,” at some level we’re talking physics and cosmology.

The Bible passage coming up this Sunday is a look at cosmology, but from a very un-scientific viewpoint.

In Ephesians 2:1-10, Paul mentions “the ruler of the powers of the air, the spirit now at work among those who are disobedient.” Paul is referencing the ancient belief that the universe is as alive as the earth.  His contemporaries considered the skies to be as teeming with life as is planet.  Heavenly beings were both angels and their opposites – unholy beings which are called “powers” or “principalities” or “rulers of the air,” all dwelling miles over our heads.

Very few of us could believe that to be literally true.  But we so often find ourselves being ruled by powers that seem to be “in the air we breathe.”  There’s something about the Washington area, for example, that forces us to serve the gods of Work and Efficiency more here than most other places.  Why is that?  Just seems to be part of the atmosphere.

Another unholy ruler of the air might be Speed.  Our guiding verse is often The Faster the Better. The computer industry has done a wonderful job in convincing us that increasing our processor’s speed by milli-seconds is worth replacing a fairly new, fully operable device – and at some expense  Cell telephone companies compare their service with racing motorcycles. When our mission teams arrive in another country, our first drive is to get the project completed quickly.  We serve this invisible authority called Speed, which is (by the way) never – never – named as a holy value.

We can name others: 
·         Choice (fewer options is always bad);
·         Position (we’re either #1 or failures)
·         Newness (new is always better).

The gospel sets us free from the tyranny of these principalities and powers. We are freed by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  He alone has cut the bonds that bind us to these false gods, gods such as Work and Speed and Newness, little pretend-gods which exhaust us and demean us.  You are healed and held together by the love of God in Jesus Christ, never by trying to satisfy one of these little demanding rulers.

Knowing that cosmologists and particle physicists have debunked that old worldview doesn’t in itself set us free.  Only Jesus Christ does that.  Only in Him are we a freed and forgiven people.

Remember The BIG Picture. 

Pastor Larry