In the last issue of the Eastern Herald, I began sharing St. John’s 21st Step, which is FEAR. It is quite serendipitous that today’s Gospel reading talks about casting out demons. St. John tells us that demons can only tempt and frighten, and have no power other than what God permits. This is made abundantly clear, he maintains, in the many accounts of exorcism in the Gospels. The demons fear Christ. They also fear the saints. They should also fear us, rather than us fearing them. There is truly no dualism in Christianity; God and the devil are not two equal powers playing with humanity like pawns in a chess game. Fear God, and the devil will fear you! This is aptly expressed by St. Nicodemos:

Why do you fear the devil, O Christians? He cannot force you to do anything. The devil should, rather, fear you, not you the devil, for you are clad in the armor and panoply of God; you have as a sling the sign of the Precious Cross, with which, and from a distance, you can smite all of the demons; you wield, as a two-edged sword, the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which the demons fear and which they tremble. As for you, if you are willing to keep the commandments of the Lord, and to be the true friends and soldiers of the Heavenly King, you will have no need of magic or any other device of the devil, and you will trample on him with your feet as though he were a beast, a little sparrow, a scorpion, or an ant. “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19)

When we cease to mourn for our sins, we forget our salvation. We compensate for this loss of purpose by attaching undue significance to temporal things – things that are fragile and easily taken from us – and so we end up living with a deep-rooted insecurity. Truly, the greater our repentance the less attached to things we become; and the less attached we become, the more fearless we shall be.

This is the 21st Step of John’s Ladder!