03.07 | Filling the Vacuum
Luke 11:14-36
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
Luke 11:24-26
Nature, they say, abhors a vacuum.
It’s a principle used in science and philosophy to describe how, whenever space is left, matter will rush to fill it. It’s what we experience when we breathe in, or turn on the vacuum cleaner. It’s what we observe when a predator is removed from the food chain, and another moves in its place. It’s what we see when a major company goes bust and other companies to rush in and grab the customer base.
Jesus, today, is talking about spiritual warfare—prompted by His correcting of the premise of His critics. Their idea is that Jesus was using demonic power to drive out demonic power. Hell, they said, was driving out hell.
Jesus flips this back at them, highlighting the basic lack of logic in their argument. How can hell drive out hell? Why would Satan drive out Satan? How can darkness dismiss darkness?
Instead, He makes plain: there are two kingdoms. And it is the nature of the one to attempt to supplant the other. And it is impossible for the two to coexist.
But then He takes them a level deeper, into a teaching that, for many, feels beyond the comfort zone.
It has to do with an evil spirit, when it is cast out from a person. Jesus describes it as wandering in ‘waterless places’—a description of an immaterial place. But then, He says, it decides to go back. And this time, it’s taking its friends with it.
What’s Jesus trying to say?
He’s trying to tell them that it is inadequate to leave the house empty.
Because the spiritual world, too, abhors a vacuum.
Emptiness is not the goal. Swept clean and put in order is not the vision.
Rather, it is in the nature of God to desire something vastly more. Because He doesn’t desire the house of your life or my life of indeed the entire cosmos to be swept and left empty.
He desires these places to be filled with something new.
He desires them to be filled with Himself.
All of us live with a vastly reduced idea of what the Father has in mind for us. So often, we see a presenting problem, and imagine what life might look like if that problem went away. The people looked at this man, thinking that his problem was his muteness and the demon within. But Jesus looked and saw with vision vastly beyond ours. He saw past the demon, to what this man’s life could look like were it to be saturated with the life and holiness and presence and glory of God. He was not satisfied merely with emptying this man of his darkness. He wanted Him to be flooded, from his core to his fingertips, with the explosive life of God.
The principle holds in spiritual warfare. We pray against the darkness, and we invite the filling of the Spirit.
And the principle holds in our entire renewal.
Not just that we be emptied of our fear; but that we be filled with courage.
Not just that we be emptied of our jealousy; but that we be filled with generosity.
Not just that we be emptied of our efforts to control everything; but that we be filled with the freedom of trust.
Not just that we be emptied of death; but that we be filled with life.
Because the Kingdom invades. Because there is no neutral ground in the Kingdom. Because nature abhors a vacuum.
And because the vision of God for our lives is the fullness of glory.
Reflect:
What darkness in me am I asking the Father to take away?
What fullness might He be replacing it with?
Pray:
Father in heaven,
Invade me.
Drive out my darkness;
Heal my pain;
Evict my sin;
Dispel my fear;
Expel every scheme of the enemy—
And instead,
Fill me.
Fill me with your love, your truth, your wholeness,
Your life and light and goodness and peace.
Fill me, Father, with your glory,
That this life may be a holy temple, abounding in grace,
And joining you in the work
Of invasion
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Isaiah 38-39 | Psalm 80:8-19