Mark 1:21-28
Please listen with me to a reading from the 1st chapter of the Gospel according to St. Mark, beginning at the 21st verse:
Then [Jesus and his disciples] went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are – the Holy One of God!” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him. Then they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” And immediately His fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee.
So far our text.
The scribes were the standard religious scholars among the Jews in the first century. They were in charge of copying and preserving manuscripts of the Sacred Scriptures, as well as manuscripts of the writings of the great rabbis of Israel’s history.
These rabbis had commented on the Scriptures, and had offered their opinions on the meaning and application of various passages. Over the generations, these interpretations had been layered on top of each other in such a way that the original meaning and spirit of a Biblical text was often completely obscured.
When Jesus criticized the “tradition of the elders,” or “the tradition of men,” this is what he was talking about. The scribes kept track of all these rabbinic writings, with their competing and sometimes contradictory views.
If someone would ask a scribe a question about some religious subject, he would answer the question by quoting the various rabbinic statements that had been made on that subject. And there was usually not just one commonly-accepted answer to a religious question.
So, a scribe might say, “Well, this rabbi answered your question in this way, but that rabbi answered your question in that way.”
The scribes, as a class, did not understand it to be their role to decide which rabbis of history were correct, and which were not. It was expected that everyone would basically pick and choose between these varying rabbinic opinions, without the idea that these issues really needed to be settled to the satisfaction of everyone.
And in general, that’s the way most people liked it. The Jewish people of the first century enjoyed religious debates. But they usually wanted to keep their options open, and not to feel forced to take a side, especially if the debate was over something controversial.
The way the scribes taught served this purpose very well. But the teaching of Jesus was different. Jesus didn’t present an array of possible answers to a religious question that someone might pose to him.
He answered such questions clearly, decisively, and with “authority.” He preached and expounded on the Scriptures with a new kind of freshness and power.
When Scripture gave one answer to a question, he told people what it was. And he rejected false interpretations – with the “authority” of one who seemed really to know what God’s intent was, in inspiring the passage in question.
We are told in our text that the people of Capernaum were “astonished” by this. We are also told that Jesus’ “fame” spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
But the Greek word “akoe” – translated as “fame” – does not necessarily have a positive connotation, as the English word has. It just means that he became known in the region, and that people were hearing about him.
We might assume that the people were pleased finally to find a religious teacher who spoke with authority – unlike the scribes, with their vacillation and lack of commitment. But we should not necessarily assume this.
People in general don’t usually like to be told what they must believe, or how they must live. They don’t enjoy being told that a theological or moral belief to which they hold is wrong, and that they need to change that belief.
That’s the way it was back then, and that’s the way it is now, too. Most people today – even outwardly religious people – would prefer the approach of the scribes, over the approach of Jesus.
In regard to the various debated questions of doctrine and ethics in our time, the general tendency is for people to consider a wide range of interpretations and opinions, and then to choose the one that subjectively “feels right” to them.
And usually, the belief that is finally chosen, is the belief that allows them to conform themselves as much as possible to the current attitudes of the larger culture – or to the impulses of their own sinful flesh.
In this respect, we’ve probably heard of “cafeteria Catholics.” But picking up on the Swedish component of our Lutheran church’s heritage, we can say that there are also “Smorgasbord Lutherans.” Are you, perhaps, a Smorgasbord Lutheran?
Do you appreciate the inflexible authority with which Jesus speaks, so that you can be delivered from religious ignorance and spiritual deception by God’s objective truth in its totality? Do you want to be a Christian whose beliefs are firmly rooted in the Holy Scriptures, according to what the Scriptures actually say?
Or, might you prefer choosing your beliefs in bits and pieces, from here and there: constructing your own religion from the scribes of our age?
Do you – over time – move and shift from one idea to another: never allowing yourself to be brought to a deep and unchanging conviction regarding something that is bigger and more important than your own feelings and opinions – and to which you are willing to submit your feelings and opinions?
One thing you do need to know, is that if you identify yourself as a follower of Jesus, you are claiming to be a follower of one who teaches with authority, and not like the scribes. But are you really and fully a follower of Jesus?
Do you hear his authoritative voice in the Scriptures? Do you accept as true everything that he says – even when it might challenge you, or require a change in you?
A Christian recognizes the authority and truth of Jesus’ teaching. But this is not just an intellectual exercise.
For one man in particular in Capernaum, in today’s text, recognizing the authority of Christ, and experiencing the impact of that authority in his life, was certainly not just an intellectual exercise. I’m talking about the man who was possessed by a demon. Jesus – with his divine authority – cast out that demon, simply with a command.
Exorcisms were not unheard of among the Jews of the first century. But traditional Jewish exorcisms were not performed in the way that Jesus performed this one. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus describes how they were usually done at the time of Christ.
He notes, first, that the rituals, incantations, and other practices that were employed by Jewish exorcists were believed to have been passed down over the centuries from King Solomon, who supposedly had devised these practices. Josephus then describes an exorcism, performed in the traditional Jewish way, that he himself had witnessed:
“I have seen a certain man of my own country…curing people possessed by demons… The manner of the cure was as follows.”
“He put a ring that had under its seal one of those sorts of roots mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac; and then drew the demon out, through his nostrils, as he smelt it. And when the man fell down immediately, [the exorcist] adjured the demon to return into him no more, still making mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantation which [Solomon] had composed.”
That’s the kind of exorcism that the people of Capernaum might have expected. But when Jesus interacted with the evil intelligence that was possessing the man in today’s account, that’s not what they saw or heard.
There was no root or herb, by which the demon was lured to come out of the person through his nose. There were no ritualized incantations. And there was certainly no invocation of the authority of King Solomon.
Instead of all that, Jesus, the Holy One of God, by his own authority commanded the demon to be quiet; and he commanded the demon to depart. And that was it. The exorcism was over. The demon was gone.
For the man who had been possessed, this was more than just an unusual event to be gawked at, and wondered about, by a curious crowd at a synagogue. He had been wonderfully liberated by Jesus from forces of darkness and death that had taken control of him.
The possessed man had been powerless to free himself from this horrible affliction. But Jesus had the power to cast out the unclean spirit. And the word that he spoke to accomplish this, was spoken with an authority that immediately made it happen!
The authority of the teaching and words of Jesus is not just an authority of persuasion, by which he convinces people that he is right, and that those who disagree with him are wrong. Jesus is not really interested in winning arguments.
He is interested in winning souls – souls that he redeemed by the shedding of his blood on the cross; and that he, as the resurrected living Lord of his church, now claims and draws to himself.
Most people in this world are not possessed directly by a demon. But the natural condition in which we all enter this world, is a condition of spiritual captivity to the power of sin.
We may not be inhabited by an unclean spirit. But we are by nature sinful and unclean before God, and are in need of the kind of deliverance that only Jesus, by the power and authority of his Word, is able to accomplish.
Today, through the proclamation of the law, Jesus does not just preach authoritative sermons that define what a sin is. He authoritatively identifies the sin that is in your life, and that puts distance between you and God. And thereby he convicts you, and calls you to repentance.
There’s a part of you – the “old nature” part of you – that would be inclined to rationalize away your transgressions – relativizing them and perhaps even justifying them. That’s the part of you that welcomes input from the “scribes,” who do not speak or teach with authority.
But there’s also a part of you – the new nature that God’s Word and Spirit create – that knows that what Jesus says is true. His words do not trigger within you a mere intellectual consideration of the hypothetical difference between right and wrong.
Rather, the words of Jesus instill within you a sense of shame and regret for your own sins; and a godly aversion to, and forsaking of, those sins.
And through the proclamation of the gospel, Jesus does not just preach authoritative sermons that describe conceptually how the forgiveness of God is delivered to penitent people. He authoritatively gives you God’s forgiveness, by giving you himself – as he speaks words of healing and pardon that reach down into your soul and spirit, and that implant his own divine Spirit within you.
If you might be pondering certain religious questions as matters of intellectual curiosity, the teaching of the scribes would be enough. But when you are gripped by the need to know what your standing with God is – in time and in eternity – then only a certain word from God will do.
The teaching of Jesus is a certain word from God, because Jesus is the Son of God – whom the Father sent into the world to save the world. When he tells you, in your baptism, that you now belong to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he is not thereby inviting a debate. He is bestowing a new birth, and is making all things new for you.
By the authority of his Word alone, Jesus was able to remove the demon from the body of the possessed man in Capernaum. Likewise by the authority of his Word alone, Jesus is able to remove the guilt and power of sin from your conscience.
This is exactly what he is doing for you, when he absolves you of your sins, through the lips of the called servant whom he has sent to you, to speak his absolution to you.
And when Jesus tells you, in his sacred Supper, that the bread and wine that he is offering to you is the very body and blood that he gave and shed for the forgiveness of your sins, he is not trying to stir up a theological argument about the Real Presence.
His authoritative and powerful Word is miraculously making his Real Presence happen! And through that Word, Jesus is renewing to you the Sabbath rest that is enjoyed by those who know that the Lamb of God has taken away their sin; and who know that the Son of Man will always be their companion and protector in all their human struggles.
The teacher into whom we are baptized, by whom we are absolved, and to whom we are united through the faithful reception of his body and blood, is not a scribe. And he does not teach like a scribe. His teaching is God’s teaching, which comes to us always with a divine purpose, and with a divine power to accomplish that purpose.
And we are astonished at His teaching, for He teaches us as one having authority, and not as the scribes. For with authority He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him. Amen.