I remember as a child that we ate lots of Spam and Deviled Ham. I cannot understand why, but obviously many still like the taste. Though I did not understand why that ham had that name, I ate it. I like deviled eggs and devil’s food cake, so I learned to eat Deviled Ham.
Read the rest of this article to see why it can be said that it was Jesus who made the first “deviled ham.” When the Messiah came, He had to manifest His omnipotence, His power over everything. He showed His power over nature by turning water into wine, stilling the tempest and multiplying loaves and fishes. He showed His power over disease and immediately cured every diseased person ever brought to Him.
However, there had to be a manifestation of His power over Satan who used death as a way of creating great fear of death and the unknown. Jesus showed His power over death and through His death destroyed Satan who seemed to have the power of death. He delivered mankind from the bondage of Satan’s power (Heb. 2:14-15).
In the first century, there were many who were demon-possessed. While these evil spirits were mentioned rarely in the Old Testament, they were rampant when Jesus came. Think of how often, as you read the New Testament, you see Him casting out demons. It was not just the sick that were cured by Him, but numberless demon-possessed people were brought to Him and He cured them all. Every instance of Him doing this was a visual manifestation of His power over Satan and his power.
There was one occasion when Jesus confronted a man who had a legion of demons inside of him. (This incident is recorded in Matthew 8, Mark 5 and Luke 8). The name of the man was Legion, a military term indicating at least 6,000 soldiers. The demons knew their destiny was to be sent into the abyss (the Greek word here is sometimes translated “deep,” and this abyss is the same word translated “bottomless pit” in Revelation). They begged Jesus to postpone that time (Matt. 8:29) and instead cast them into a herd of swine.
This request was granted by Jesus and the legion of demons in this one man left the man and entered the herd of about 2,000 swine. You know what swine are. They are hogs which give us ham. The demons entered the swine, the hogs, the ham, and so it was Jesus who made deviled ham!
Demon possession is mentioned in Zechariah 13 which foretold that when the Messiah came as a fountain to remove sin, two other things would end. There would no longer be prophets to reveal the Testaments and there would no longer be demon possession. His work ended both of these!