Sunday Sermon 31st Jan 2021

Mark 1: 21-28 

From our first reading this morning, we learn that the people of Israel are familiar with the role of prophets. Moses promises the people that God will raise up prophets for them in the future, and they will know if the prophet is really from God when they see what the prophet does.

If someone prophesies contrary to God’s word or if the prophecy doesn’t happen, then they will know that this is a false prophet. They will recognise God’s prophets by their actions, and by the fruit they produce.

The prophets led Israel for over two hundred years, until Saul was proclaimed king by Samuel at the insistence of the people. You see, the nation of Israel demanded a king so that they could be like other nations, forgetting that they were God’s people and God had set them apart.

And even during the reign of their kings, there were still God’s prophets who shared God’s message with them.

None of the many prophets of Israel could perform the ministry which Jesus performed. None of them could heal the way that Jesus healed, or teach the way that he taught and none of them were named by God as God’s beloved Son.

The Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark, who reproduces the memories and preaching of Peter. He accompanied Paul and Barnabus on their first missionary journey and he was a cousin of Barnabas. He wrote the Gospel in about 65AD, so much of these stories are still fresh in everyone’s minds.

Mark has Jesus as action man – we learn more about Jesus actions and encounters than about his great sermons. One of Mark’s main purposes was to demonstrate the deity of Jesus.

Mark spends two thirds of the Gospel identifying Jesus and one third on his death and resurrection. He loves the stories of Jesus’s ministry especially his miracles.

Mark tells us that Jesus is both the messiah and the servant of the people. In Mark Jesus is sometimes referred to as the suffering servant.

Mark’s Gospel has a definite technique in the writing. It is what we call a “Markan sandwich”. What we mean is that Mark begins to write about something, he deviates to something else, and then returns to the original topic. Hence the term Markan sandwich. And today’s Gospel is another sandwich.

The outer layer of the sandwich is that Jesus has now relocated to Capernaeum and like all good Jews it was his practice to attend worship on the Sabbath and to teach in the synagogue.

The Temple in Jerusalem was too far for many people to travel to on a regular basis, so many other smaller towns established synagogues as places of community worship and as schools.

In practice, any group of 10 Jewish families could start a synagogue. On the Sabbath, the men would gather to worship God and to listen as a rabbi taught from the scriptures.

And because there was no permanent rabbi in these small places, it was customary for the leader to invite any visiting rabbis to speak: hence we find Jesus speaking in the synagogues of many small towns.

In Capernaeum, the people were amazed at Jesus teaching. The Jewish teachers often quoted from well-known rabbis to give their words more authority, but Jesus didn’t have to do that because he had natural authority and he knew exactly what the scriptures meant.

The Greek word for authority used here is exousia, derived from the verb exesti, meaning “it is free”. In other words, Jesus authority, his exousia is the “freedom” of one who acts without hindrance. Jesus doesn’t need to refer to books as your priests do.

Now we come to the meat in the Markan sandwich: into this synagogue comes a man possessed by an evil spirit. We might regard the man as having a mental illness, and I don’t propose to speak this morning on what demon possession might mean; suffice to say, this man was very ill.

The Message translation of the Bible states that the man was deeply disturbed and yelling out.

And of course there was no one anywhere who could help him or cure him, except Jesus. However we understand demon possession, this man recognises something about Jesus: he knows who Jesus is and what he can do. Jesus cut his interruptions short, the man fell into convulsions and was healed.

In Mark’s gospel this is the first time Jesus new disciples have seen Jesus minister. I wonder what they were thinking as they witnessed this miracle?

Back to the outer layer of the sandwich: Jesus could have chosen any kind of miracle to authenticate his authority, but chooses an exorcism for its symbolic value. And it was in the synagogue on the Sabbath.

So we can see that Jesus is going to a different kind of rabbi. As soon as word spreads about what Jesus has done, the opposition will begin. Jesus has already begun to challenge the normal way of doing things.

But Jesus is doing exactly what the Messiah should do: he is healing, he is teaching and he is setting people free. This is what the "good news" of God's reign is all about. John the Baptist predicted that Jesus would baptise with the Holy Spirit and he is doing so.

The kingdom of God in Mark is good news because it brings liberation at many levels. Mark teaches us that God wants us to be whole and free, not perfect, but whole and free. He teaches us what the kingdom means, what happens when the Spirit ‘baptises’ people.

As Jesus disciples, we should be Christ-centered in every area of our lives, which we know isn’t at all easy. But Jesus Christ is the foundation who enables and directs us.

So, what can we learn from today’s Gospel? It is that Jesus had power over people, over nature, and over whatever holds people to ransom.

That is the good news of Jesus Christ, and it is what gives us life and hope and the freedom to be all that God made us to be.

AMEN