The seventy-two come back the way anyone would hope, 17"with joy," and their report is full of wonder: 17"Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!" It is a proper reason to celebrate. These were ordinary people sent out with almost nothing, and they watched forces they could never have controlled bow to the name of Jesus.
Jesus confirms how large it is. 18"I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." Then he gives them more: 19"I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy." The picture recalls the first promise after the fall, that the woman's offspring would strike the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15), and Paul later says the God of peace will crush Satan under the feet of his people (Romans 16:20). Their success was a gift.
Then Jesus turns the celebration. 20"Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Power over demons is a gift, worth reporting with joy, and it is still smaller than the gift beneath it. Their names are recorded in heaven. That belonging stays secure whether or not another mission ever goes as well as this one. A follower whose joy rests on results has joy only as long as the results last. A follower whose joy rests on a name written in heaven has joy on the dry days too.
Jesus shows what that joy looks like in the very next verse. 21"In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit" and thanked the Father that these things were hidden from the wise and revealed 21"to little children." The seventy-two were not scholars or religious elites. They were the kind of people the world would not have picked, and Jesus says the choice was intended: 21"such was your gracious will." God has a pattern of entrusting his work to the overlooked.
Then he makes one of the largest claims in this Gospel. 22"All things have been handed over to me by my Father." Jesus says that only the Father knows the Son, and only the Son knows the Father, and that the Son opens that knowledge to anyone he chooses. That is a claim to a knowledge no rabbi could make. The disciples who just returned excited about demons are among those he has chosen.
He turns to them privately. 23"Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!" Many prophets and kings 24"desired to see what you see, and did not see it." Every prophet who longed for the Messiah and every king who hoped to see Israel redeemed wanted what these seventy-two were living inside. Jesus wants them to leave the conversation rejoicing in something larger than obedient demons: that they are alive to see and hear what the whole history of God's people could only hope for.
Prayer
Father, thank you for gifts of power that are worth celebrating, and for the larger gift beneath them, that our names are written in your heaven whatever our results. Thank you for revealing yourself to little children and for letting us see and hear what prophets and kings only longed for. Keep our joy fastened to you. In Jesus' name, amen.