This sermon was delivered to Holy Trinity in Ayr,
Ayrshire, Scotland on the 28th January 2018
(a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Mark 1:21-28 Psalm 111
Psalm 19:14: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen.
1. Introduction
This morning as we move through Mark’s Gospel in our season of epiphany, we need to remember that Marks Gospel run at very fast pace, moving rapidly from one event to the next … in fact it skips over many of the accounts and details that are recorded in the other Gospels, so what Mark records are the events of extreme importance, events that that made a mark on him if you will excuse the pun.
Our text this morning picks up after the call of Andrew, James, and John and where Jesus is found within the synagogue at Capernaum, teaching the Word as you would expect. And there is one thing I have learned over my years of preaching, more than anything else … that Jesus was very much a man, a human being, very much like you and I.
However, Jesus unlike us, spoke with authority, and he exercised a power that captured the attention of all those present … verse 22, “And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority and not as the scribes”.
2. His Authority in the Scriptures
This verse reveals his authority and how he had a real passion for the word, a passion I can easily relate to that, but Jesus was himself the Word incarnate, the Living Word according to the Gospel of John.
And I hope you can relate to that too, having that passion, a hunger or thirst to study and believe the word of God. … For me it wasn’t a burden, but a privilege when I first understood the difference between the Old and New Testament … and I couldn’t get enough of it, as it drastically changed my life. … And I want share those treasures with you, if you will allow me … because it was his wisdom brought freedom from oppression, oppression that many many people deny they have. … Our relationship with Christ therefore, compels us to seek His Word, and fellowship with His people.
3. Jesus was one of the people himself.
And yes, the people back in the day did that in his presence … they were astonished at his doctrine, at his teaching, as one who knew what he was talking about … and not the supercilious teachings of Scribes and Pharisees which went well above the people heads. Jesus spoke as someone with an intimate knowledge of both and the people and of God, otherwise they wouldn’t have flocked to listen to him … as he spoke of his father … he spoke of their fears … their wants, and their desires. He spoke of love, and his kingdom, and life after death.
That is what made the difference in his teaching … he was engaging with the people, as one of the people, born in a stable, and not some distant Ivory Tower. … The people were literally struck with wonder and with awe … and it was not what they expected, and so he had a huge impact on them.
Mark himself declared that Jesus taught differently than other men … words and teaching not centred on the established Jewish law and tradition. Jesus came to set them free from all that … and I am sure everyone went home overwhelmed, but I am also sure they wanted more.
4. His Authority over the unclean Spirits
And today’s passage was certainly radical, it wa different, it was something new to many of them, verse 23 says, “And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit”. … Now … A man in a church … with an unclean spirit … here we introduce the subject of deliverance, and don’t worry I am not going to dwell deep in on it, although … deliverance is well understood … (unlike prosperity and healing), but here we have a man, in a church, with an unclean spirit, and somehow … I believe this suited Jesus just fine … because Jesus knew how to deal with this, unlike the Scribes and Pharisees and anyone else at the time. … Jesus here had a chance to prove his authority over these spirits, and he did this in a very logical manner.
5. The truth forcing the spirit to ask for mercy
First of all, the teachings of Jesus came with power, a power which forced the unclean spirit within the man to cry out for help during his teaching. Verse 24, “and he cried out saying, leave us alone; what have we to done to you Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are … the Holy One of God”.
So you have got to ask … where did this reaction come from, what made this unclean spirit uncomfortable in the presence of Jesus, uncomfortable enough to cry out for mercy?
Well I believe, given the limited information, I believe the spirit did not like the truth being revealed. We all know the saying, “tell the truth and shame the devil”, well I think Jesus just did that. … Jesus was radical enough to do that … to tell the truths that the devil wants to keep hidden … truths that astounded the crowd … truths that are still kept hidden today … truths to shame the devil and help the word of God to be received.
6. The Spirit recognising who Jesus was.
Now did you notice that by saying, “leave us alone”; the spirit recognised straight away who Jesus was. … This in itself was strange, because many people in the crowd did not know who Jesus was, but the unclean spirit new exactly that Jesus was the Christ, the Holy One of God … and so it naturally feared him, as it somehow knew Jesus was about to destroy or remove it. …
And even to this day, the devil knows exactly who Jesus is … and the devil works vehemently against him at every opportunity with lies and half-truths to keep his word hidden. And because of this, many people will not come to know Jesus as their Lord as we all know. … The deviousness of the devil and his tactics do work, and they work well, and it needed someone like Jesus to expose the truth that are kept hidden.
And I will give you an example on that one … for many years when I was young; I did my very best, and succeeded, in not going to church. Church for me was a complete and utter waste of time, that is until my father said one day in a throw away manner, “you know … there are many things in the bible that many ministers today will not talk about”. …
And that was enough for me to get suddenly interested … “what are they not telling us”? … This for me was very intriguing so I set on a quest to find out, and it has been a long quest as you can imagine, but through the years I have been excited at what I found … and horrified too, at what has been kept hidden, and I still am.
I am talking about truth that will set people free. Truths maybe not that well understood, but truths I know Jesus did his best to uncover, and today’s topic of deliverance is one such truth. … Are we ready for it … well I don’t think so … not in today’s climate as it can be very controversial ….particularly when taken out of context.
Regardless, I can’t emphasis enough, that there is so much in the bible that is uncovered, or simply not spoke off, or simply not that well understood or taught properly … and so we must dig them out ourselves, to set ourselves free. … let alone convince millions and millions of people who refuse to admit their need for Jesus as the son of God … who say, like I did, that he is totally irrelevant in today’s society … being so uncool, lacking any kind of power and authority.
7. The casting out of the demon
Anyway to move on … we have this man in the synagogue with an unclean spirit, how does Jesus deal with this? … Well quite simply, and this may surprise you, Jesus simply rebuke him, and commanded him to go; that is all he did, verse 25, “And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him”. Jesus simply ordered the spirit to remain quiet and leave the man, “shut up and get out as we school teachers say”.
But there is more to this than you may think. … Notice that Jesus did not converse with it, he did not try to understand it, he did not discuss the situation or bargain or negotiate or mediate with it … he did not even try to reason with it nor argue with it, he simply ordered this spirit to leave this poor man’s body. … Jesus used his authority to expel this spirit or demon … and do you know, he gives us that same authority. … I will leave that one with you.
Jesus as we know has absolute authority over the demonic realm, over all unclean spirits; and so he had the power to rebuke the spirit and order him to leave this poor man and go elsewhere. Notice too, that Jesus had compassion for this man, he relieved this man, and at the same time, he did not allow this unclean spirit to disrupting any more of his teachings, this spirit was coldly and calmly expelled. …
8. The Response of the spirit
And I find the next bit very interesting … the response of this unclean spirit. … Verse 26 says, “And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him”. … On hearing the command of Jesus, the spirit was forced to obey, and leave … but it didn’t go quietly … it wasn’t a pleasant experience for both the man and the spirit. …
The spirit cried out with a loud shriek of pain as it left … but it caused as much damage to the man as it could. … It also caused the man to convulse in agony. …. Question, does this sound familiar? … Have you ever heard of anything like this in real life? I will leave that one with you as well.
… Anyway, this would have been an unsettling experience for the man, and we know from other such liberations he recovered quickly, free from that annoying spirit. … And this offers us believers hope … as we all serve the one who has the power, all the power and authority over creation, and that includes all the forces of evil.
And while our situation doesn’t appear as graphic, we are all under the influence of sin and evil all the time … both externally and internally … from ourselves and from others … and also from the realm of darkness … however Jesus by his death has redeemed us from this world of sin, condemnation and death, if only we knew.
9. The response of the People
And what about the people, well after witnessing this unclean spirit being cast out, the people knew that Jesus was no ordinary man, and Mark too was so impressed that he needed to recorded this event in his Gospel … it obviously had a very dramatic effect on him.
Verse 27, “And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying; what thing is this? … They were all astonished; they were all amazed … even though they were unable to explain what had just happened … but they accepted him, and stood in his presence of power … power to send the demons back to hell itself.
I supposed if this was the first time we had encountered Jesus and his authority, we too would be amazed at his power and at His teaching … and we know that there are none who can compare, not even slightly. Jesus alone has the power to heal and redeem. He alone has the power to deliver us from sin, taking a heart of stone and transforming it into a heart of flesh. He alone can breathe eternal life into one who is dead in trespasses and sin … and I too stand amazed in his presence.
10. His Acclaim
And so we finish with verse 28, “The news about Jesus spread quickly throughout the entire region of Galilee”. … The people were simply unable to contain themselves about what they had just witnessed that day, and they had to share it with everyone they met. … What a challenge for the modern church, wouldn’t it be great to witness something like that, however, we must remember that Jesus still speaks to us through the authority and power of his word, and we must search his word for the truths that he died to reveal. I must stop there, time has beat me again. Amen but first let us pray.
Father we thank you for Jesus, we thank you that he died all those years ago to set us free from the law of sin and death, and all the forces of the demonic realm.
Father today, encourage us to seek your truths … to become determined to seek and to find, to understand and exercise these truths that Jesus died to reveal … so that we make him known to a world that desperately needs his healing touch!
Father we ask you in Jesus name, Amen.
