by Rev. Canon David B. Tabo-oy
v21Jesus and his disciples came to the town of Capernaum, and on the next Sabbath Jesus went to the synagogue and began to teach. v22The people who heard him were amazed at the way he taught, for he wasn’t like the teachers of the Law; instead, he taught with authority.v23Just then a man with an evil spirit came into the synagogue and screamed, v24″What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Are you here to destroy us? I know who you are—you are God’s holy messenger!”v25Jesus ordered the spirit, “Be quiet, and come out of the man!”v26The evil spirit shook the man hard, gave a loud scream, and came out of him. v27The people were all so amazed that they started saying to one another, “What is this? Is it some kind of new teaching? This man has authority to give orders to the evil spirits, and they obey him!”v28And so the news about Jesus spread quickly everywhere in the province of Galilee.– Mark 1:21-28
A central theme in the appointed gospel for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany is the nature and issue of Jesus’ authority. Jesus and his newly called disciples enter Capernaum. On the Sabbath Jesus enters the synagogue and begins teaching. The people who heard him teach were astonished, “for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”I am writing these thoughtsin the midst of an ongoing controversial signature campaign (Peoples’ Initiative), a political maneuver to amend the Constitution. It is being conducted by a group which obviously, in my mind, is being orchestrated by a congressman and his cohorts. Whatever reasons or motivations of the move boil down to political power and control. The nature and issue of Jesus’ (divine) authority provides an opportunity to reflect on the nature of political power and authority.
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In a worldly sense, Jesus did not have any power at all. He was not a worldly king with political or military power. He was not of the priests, who had the power in Roman Judea. He was not even a scribe with the authority of Jewish tradition. The only authority he had was the supreme confidence that what he did and said was God’s will and God’s truth. His authority lay in the sheer power of his words and in the example of his deeds. His authority lay in his living as God’s servant. Jesus used his authority not to obtain power for himself but to serve humanity, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the heathen have power over them, and the leaders have complete authority. v43This, however, is not the way it is among you. If one of you wants to be great, you must be the servant of the rest; v44and if one of you wants to be first, you must be the slave of all. v45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served; he came to serve and to give his life to redeem many people.”(Mark 10:42-45).
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Jesus’ acting in authority brought blessings to people–health and healing (1:23-28). His authority possessed an irresistible power that drew people not through manipulation, but simply by the person that he was and the truth of his own existence and the gifts that he gave. This was not a claim to authority that was necessarily open to empirical verification in his own time. To many people of his time, it was anything but obvious that Jesus acted on God’s authority. To his opponents, Jesus was a blasphemer. Jesus had to trust that God would vindicate his authority–and, as Christians, we believe that God did vindicate his authority by raising him from the dead. “The example of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday is observed on January 21 this year, comes to mind as something of a modern parallel: a man whose authority lay in his words and deeds, whose call for change was disputed in his own time, but the moral rectitude of whose call for change has been vindicated in subsequent history.
How different from the conception of power and authority in our politics! Our politicians try to manipulate us. They say one thing and do another. They use their authority for self-aggrandizement. They look for short-term gain, even if that means doing the wrong thing, rather than doing the right thing and trusting that in the long-term, history (not to mention God!) will vindicate them. Will the future be any different?” (workingpreacher.org). Jesus’ authority and kingdom ministry invite us to imagine a different world — and to live towards it.
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Jesus’ authority in our story is juxtaposed with the exorcism of a man possessed with an evil spirit in a synagogue. In Jesus’ day, evil spirits or demons were considered a very real and very strong force.
According to Jewish belief, demons could eat, drink, and have children. Demons were considered everywhere. It was said that ‘every person had ten thousand demons on their right and ten thousand on their left. They lived in spots where it was dark and where there was no cleansing water. They lived in the desert and were believed to be especially active during the midday heat. Demons, it was believed,worked through certain animals – snakes, bulls, donkeys and mosquitoes.’ (The Ministers’ Annual Manual 1999-2000). Whether or not you believe in demons, the people of Jesus’ day did. They also believed that when the Messiah came, demons wouldn’t be no more. The fact that Jesus cast the demon out of the man with the unclean spirit signaled to everyone that Jesus could indeed be the Messiah. In this event in Mark’s account, Jesus again showed that he was the Son of God by displaying the authority that exercised over demons. While the people of Jesus’ day ascribed much power to demons, Jesus demonstrated that he was the one who was ultimately powerful.
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According to one preacher and psychiatrist, a demon – whether it has horns and pitchfork or a long neck with a twist top – is something that steals joy, takes away hope, and drains our strength. Demons are those things that turn our lives into a burden and make life miserable. If those are the characteristics of demons, then we can agree that our world is constantly challenged by demons. Demons are the things that control us rather than us controlling them. Today there are all sorts of demons: alcohol, drugs, anxiety, worry, doubt, fear. Demons get the upper hand when we feel powerless to control them whether the demon be a bottle or a credit card bills. The strong message here is that Jesus Christ has the power to drive away our demons. Everyone’s demon is different. Whatever your demon is Jesus Christ has the power to drive away the demons and make your life better. Only trust and believe in him and he will make a way for you to overcome your demons.
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Overcoming our demons demands focus and sincere effort and does not come easily. In the story of the evil spirit possessed man, the man convulsed, and his body shuddered. The people watching this scene had to step back because of the intensity of it all. In the end, Jesus was victorious, the demon vanquished! There was a cartoon strip I saw somewhere sometime ago. It is a woman sitting in a doctor’s clinic. She looked frail, sickly, and obviously seriously ill. The caption at the bottom read, “What can I do to feel better without giving up that things that make me feel bad?” Alan Jackson’s song “Everything I Love” quite express this irony, “Everything I love is killin’ me, Cigarettes, Jack Daniels and caffeine, And that’s the way you’re turnin’ out to be, Everything I love gonna have to give up, ‘Cause everything I love is killin’ me’. Indeed, it is not easy to change. It takes great faith and courage, persistence, and commitment. Ultimately, it requires our acknowledgment that we cannot do it on our own, only God can. It takes faith to believe that Jesus Christ can indeed drive away the demons.
We must put our full trust and conviction that Jesus Christ is the divine authority that can exorcise all our demons.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, you alone have the power to change our lives. Change our hearts, dear Lord. You have the power to overcome that which we are powerless to change. May your power be at work in our lives. Make us well, make us whole, let our lives be a reflection of your love. Amen.***
