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Mark 1: 21–28
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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
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This morning we are hearing Mark launch his Gospel account of
Jesus’ entire ministry. And since “first things”
tend to set the tone for much of what follows, it will help if we can
pick up some of those themes and highlight them this morning. But
Mark’s way of telling a story is so spare, so condensed – so
oblique, really – that we are always having to read between the
lines to understand what he is saying. We heard that last week in
Mark’s account of Jesus’ first sermon. Do you
remember? The sum total of Jesus’ first sermon – as
Mark tells it, anyway – was that God’s time was
fulfilled; the Kingdom of God had come near; and people were to
repent and believe the Good News. That was it. That was all
Mark told us of that sermon. And this morning Mark’s account
of Jesus’ first teaching doesn’t offer us much more detail.
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Jesus has now picked up half a dozen disciples, and on this Sabbath
morning he brings them to the synagogue in Capernaum, where he proceeds
to offer the teaching. Mark doesn’t say a word about
what it was that Jesus taught. He only says that the people
in the synagogue were astounded by his teaching since he taught them as
one who had authority.
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That word authority, in the Greek, is exousia/
(exousia), and it means ‘from the depths of one’s
being, from one’s inner essence.’ In other words,
Jesus looked those people in the eye and taught from the depth of his
being – from something he knew from within. This wasn’t
the kind of teaching the people had grown used to from the scribes.
The scribes were learned and wise – but the best they had to give
were quotes from a dozen other rabbis, each one quoting someone
else. So the question is, what was it at the depth of Jesus’
being that inspired his teaching?
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Mark doesn’t tell us that – not in so many words. What
he does instead is to place another event right beside the first one,
an event that illustrates what he wants us to understand.
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All of a sudden, he says, a demon–possessed man arises from the
center of the congregation and begins to howl at Jesus, “I know
who you are,” he cries. “You are the Holy One of
God. Have you come to destroy us?”
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“Be still,” Jesus says, addressing the demon. “Come
out of him!” And with that the man falls to the floor of
the synagogue, his arms flailing, his legs thrashing, with strange
cries coming from his mouth. Instinctively, the crowd in the
synagogue moves back to give him room. But then something even
stranger happens. Suddenly the man grows eerily calm and lies
quietly for a moment. Then, slowly he gets to his feet, his face
serene, his eyes clear, his voice measured and composed.
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Simply amazed at what they have just witnessed, the crowd in the
synagogue eyes one another uneasily. Someone says, “What is
this? A new teaching!” Which hardly makes
any sense unless they are connecting the excellent teaching they just
heard Jesus deliver with the quietly powerful action they have now seen
him perform. So what is it that they had seen?
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They saw demonic powers subdued. Or, if you are uneasy with the
idea of demonic powers, they saw something that had tried to spoil and
destroy human life . . . and saw Jesus
send it packing. He wasn’t just a gifted young rabbi, smart
as a whip. He was a compassionate rabbi who noticed the needs of
people around him, and touched them, healed them, delivered
them. Clearly, there was a deep well of mercy and compassion in
him that inspired his words and his actions, a well that lay at the
heart of who he was. This was the source of his authority, a
God–given source at the center of his very being. Where you
or I might have watched that man writhing on the floor in stunned
silence – or else headed for the nearest exit — Jesus
reached deep within himself and acted out of mercy, out of love, out of
compassion. And in the process a human life was restored.
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If this first action sets the tone for everything else that is to follow
in Mark’s gospel, we are in for a spectacular year of
readings — readings that offer us a template for how we ourselves
are to behave in this world. For, make no mistake, this event in
the synagogue would transform the lives of all who saw it. What
they had witnessed wasn’t mere spectacle, but a lasting command,
for this event contained a truth which made a claim on their
lives. Event and wisdom bonded together that day.¹ And
they would never forget it.
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Nor should we. As we read through the Gospel of Mark this year we
will see Jesus performing a great many miracles – not to set
himself apart from us, but to give us an example, to show us how it is
done. For we too find our source in God. We too have
experienced something of his love and mercy. And in Mark’s
gospel, when Jesus leaves his disciples to ascend to the Father, he
tells them he has gone ahead of them and they are to follow.
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Now, just like us, those earliest disciples didn’t get it at
first. They thought Jesus was the miracle–worker, and they
were the spectators, the ones who could quietly appreciate what their
Lord had done. And they fully expected Jesus to come back – in
their own lifetimes – to do even more miracles, to inaugurate the
Kingdom of God here on this earth.
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But as they waited . . . and
waited . . . and still Jesus had not
come back in power and great glory, they began to realize that he had
left his ministry in their hands. That, in fact, is why the
Gospel writers began to write down their Gospel accounts – so they
could equip the disciples for the long haul.² And that is why
you and I still read these gospel accounts – to allow the compassion
and mercy we read about in them influence our own lives, our own
day–to–day actions.
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For all around us, we see the need. We see people beaten down by
forces that have overwhelmed them, crippled them, alienated
them. We don’t usually call them demonic forces – but
I think they are the very forces Jesus came to combat and
destroy. And we never know if God won’t use the reserves of
compassion and mercy he has built up in each one of us – to effect
a miracle for someone else.
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For sometimes, that’s all it takes – one kind word, one merciful
gesture. One single life changed for the better. And the
Kingdom of God comes in.
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Amen.
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¹ “An Understated Masterpiece” sermon by Thomas G. Long
in Shepherds and Bathrobes: Sermons for Advent, Christmas and
Epiphany (C.S.S. Publishing Co., Lima, Ohio; 1987) p.89.
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² In the Meantime David Lose posted
25 January, 2021.
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