Meditations from Zion

Luke 22:3-4
Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus.

How does it happen this “entering” of Satan? I don’t believe a person is just fine one day and like a virus or bacteria, he or she picks up Satan off of a doorknob. And yet, in the same way that Jesus spoke of the fertile soil that is needed to nurture the seed of the gospel, there is also fertile ground for Satan.

Satan is not a person but an entity who is a ruler of that other plane (For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12) And so, we are dealing with the matters of the heart, soul, and mind.

Galatians 5:19-21 gives us a pretty good list of Satan’s fertile soil: …sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. So often, as we read through this list, we feel smugly safe, thinking how we haven’t participated in any orgies or witchcraft lately. But, we gloss over the other plants that may have found root in our inner garden: discord, jealousy, envy, idolatry… we have ALL experienced these to one degree or another.

Who knows what drove Judas? Some have said greed, but I don’t think so. I believe he had his own idea of how things should go. He disagreed with Jesus’ plan. And so he put his own plan into motion and Satan nurtured and watered that notion. And then the idea became an action and eventually had a life of its own that ultimately played itself out on the cross.

Each day, we must choose to pull weeds from our inner garden or they will grow and grow and soon, very soon, they take over.. It is much easier to pull them out when they are small… of course, if we take this gardening metaphor even further … it takes some knowledge to know which plants are which, what is a weed and what is not because, when they are very small, we don’t always recognize them.

So, we must be diligent, we must be knowledgeable and ask for help from the Master Gardener.