A Sermon on Mark 1.21-28 by Fr. Scott Homer
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Just a word from Jesus is all it takes to set us free. He has not come with flowery language and persuasive arguments. He has come with divine power and authority and there is no power in the universe that can stand against him. When Jesus commands healing in our life we experience healing.
You really can't look at a passage like this without being confronted with some pretty uncomfortable stuff. Over the course of these three paragraphs we are told that there are evil spirits that possess people and they apparently are intelligent and have personalities. And they are able to speak out and to make decisions. We are also told that Jesus speaks with authority. Now what exactly that means we are not told but authority is something that makes most of us uneasy. Jesus we are told has authority unlike the teachers of the law AND he has the authority to command the demons to leave and they leave.
Evil is an unfortunate reality in this world. It is a very real and ugly part of reality. This is the first lesson we can derive from our reading this morning. Even in the midst of the congregation evil spirits work to destroy lives, wreck homes, distort the truth and lead people away from the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. We see the power of evil operating in our lives wherever we see dishonesty, anger and manipulation. It is made manifest in addictive behaviors, in broken relationships and in disease. We see it working in unaddressed poverty, in acts of war and in the abuse and neglect of our young and our elderly. And make no mistake about it. Evil is essentially a moral problem. Moral failures are the primary expression of the power of evil in our lives. You may hear people saying that God does not care what you do with your body. Don't believe them. It is a lie. God is supremely moral and righteousness is what he seeks from us.
The second lesson this morning is that evil is right here in our midst. Jesus goes to the synagogue to teach, and that makes sense doesn't it? The Son of God, God's promise fulfilled, wants to share the good news with God's people. Well, religious people meet in religious places and so Jesus goes to the synagogues but please note, that it is not just God's voice that is present and heard in the religious places. The voice of God's enemies are also found there. In fact, God's enemies are always most active in communities that are devoted to God because people devoted to God are the greatest threat to the enemy and so that is where he spends his time—working to defeat the people of God.
We, as a faith community, must be alert to the enemy in our midst…and I do not mean that we need to be searching it out in the lives of our neighbor. I mean we need to be searching it out in our own lives. To the extent that we leave it unattended it will be a destructive force for the church. It will be a means of limiting God's work among us. It will be demonstrated in division and discord—gossip designed to damage reputations, factions that include some people while excluding others. We must be alert to the enemy in our midst, in our very own lives, and be conscientious about bringing Jesus into our midst and asking him to cast the evil out.
We all have areas in our lives where evil reigns. I don't care if you are the Archbishop of
If you can not identify with what I am talking about perhaps you can try an experiment. Jesus told us to love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your spirit and love our neighbor as ourselves. Do that for one full twenty-four hour period. Be absolutely like Jesus for 24 hours and observe how you are doing. Look for the little self-centered thoughts that cause you to ignore God's work. Pay attention to the ways that you prefer what you want over what other people want. What you will be observing is evil exerting its power in your life and you will be unable to overcome it.
If there is a force in our life that is more powerful than we are, what can we do? How can we possibly hope to overcome it? The truth is that we can not. In fact, no human power can. We are powerless to stop it, period. This gentleman in the synagogue is not in charge. He is a victim. In those areas of our lives where evil has a foothold we are not in charge. We too are victims and it is not until we acknowledge that fact that any healing can occur because it is only in acknowledging our complete and utter inability to correct our failure that we may become willing to allow Jesus charge over our lives. You see, as long as you hold on to a shred of hope that you can find some way of solving the riddle yourself you will not surrender to Jesus' power.
I think it is interesting to note that when the Gospels speak of evil spirits, the evil spirits are always fully aware of who Jesus is even if the people are not. It is only the human beings who seem confused by the identity of Jesus. The demons and unclean spirits are always clear, "Jesus is the Holy One of God." They recognize him as the enemy and they fear Him because they know that He holds all authority. They are always wanting Jesus to go away and leave them alone because as long as Jesus is held at a distance and as long as he does not speak the evil spirits are able to do their damage in the world. They are free to continue wrecking people's lives but once they have been confronted by Jesus they are forced to flee. And all Jesus ever does is speak a word of rebuke to them. They must respond to His rebuke, like it or not, because Jesus is the Son of God and He holds all authority.
The hope for us does not lie in our abilities. The evil spirits are not impressed by our talent, our genius or our determination. They may play with us, allow us to believe that we are in charge but it is just an illusion, just another means of manipulating us and using us. Our hope does not lie in our own abilities. Our hope lies in the power and authority of Jesus Christ and it is by being in His presence that we are healed. It is in allowing Him to speak int o our lives and our situations that we know freedom. Jesus is both willing and able to overcome the power of darkness in our lives. That is why he came. That is what He came to do—to heal us and restore us to righteousness before His Father.
The great failing of religious people in Jesus' day was that they did not welcome Him into their midst. They refused to embrace his words. They would not allow him to rule over their land. They would not love Him in their own hearts. The people who did welcome Jesus experienced healing and came to know God's salvation but most refused and it was not until after Jesus' crucifixion, death and resurrection that they realized who it was who had been in their midst. We are always in danger of making the same mistake.
Welcome Jesus. Listen to what he is saying to you. Acknowledge and accept his authority over your life. It is rightfully his. His Father has already granted it to him…but Jesus, in his incredible humility, still awaits permission to take the throne in your life. It is the one thing that you can do to gain victory in life. You can begin to accept Jesus' authority to tell you what to do. You can welcome his authority to govern your daily activities. You can step down from the throne, take off your crown and hand them over to their rightful owner.
Just a word from Jesus is all it takes to set us free. He has not come with flowery language and persuasive arguments. He has come with divine power and authority and there is no power in the universe that can stand against him. When Jesus commands healing in our life we experience healing. Amen.
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