Wednesday, 7th Week of Easter

Luke 10:17-24

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18)

Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell the story of Jesus’s temptation by Satan in the desert. But only Luke writes that after Jesus had withstood those temptations, Satan “departed from him until an opportune time” (4:13). The reality of Satan is expressed clearly in Luke’s Gospel. But who is Satan exactly? He is not whom you might think.

The Hebrew word, “Satan” means, “Accuser.” And in the Old Testament, that is Satan’s role in the courts of God. He is, in a sense, God’s overly zealous prosecutor of the human race. At some point, Satan devolves from prosecutor to persecutor, until finally Satan is the spiritual leader of rebellion against God’s loving purpose. In other words, Satan is the angel who insists to God that creation is a mistake, and that human beings are the crown of God’s error. They are not worthy of your love, Satan says, and so he strives to prove that point.

On the Cross, God could have easily taken the execution of his Son as the final argument of our conviction. But as God, Jesus demonstrates that God’s mercy knows no limit. As human, Jesus submits to that divine justice that could not leave sin unanswered. And as a human being, Jesus refutes once and for all Satan’s accusation that human beings are not worth being loved.

And now we, like the 72 whom Jesus sent out earlier in chapter 10, are to be sent out with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, that mission will require us to confront sin and call it what it is. But our mission is not one of accusation and condemnation. We do seek to help people become “convicted” in their hearts. Through our love, people will be convicted of the ways in which they have crucified Jesus. But at the same time, they will also be convicted of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

It is pointless to accuse someone if you cannot show them the way out of the hole they have dug themselves in. The Bible is not the record of God’s indictment against us. It is the story of how God continually opens new doors of redemption no matter how far from him we wander. Our mission is not accusation, but redemption.